A cold electronic device cannot replace a good book. This is a terrible idea. Our reliance on technology is scary.

gator70

Even if this catches on I don’t see books going up in something akin to Farenheit 451 – did the car lead to a massacre of horses? No, the horse became less used but different and special in its own right instead of just being a transportation. A good paper book will never go out of style and will just become something special. Besides I’ve got a couple of hundred books in my home, I’m not giving those things up for anything.

Presumably it has something to do with the labor involved in translating the format into Kindle’s proprietary code, but that shouldn’t be that difficult thanks to RSS.

They’re the ones who decided on a proprietary storage format instead of supporting HTML/CSS and PDF. If I can’t just shove files in those formats over (via USB or my home WiFi) for free, I won’t be buying one.

Sorry, no PDF, no deal…. Personally, I LOATHE the PDF format, but all-things peer reviewed and most tech. lit. is unfortunately in PDF containers…(sigh)

Even more unfortunately, most of that is not tagged, meaning that it will never be able to be reliably reformatted for any page size other than that it was originally designed for. That means that you’re not going to be able to read most documents on any Kindle-sized devices without either scrolling or squinting.

heldmyw on November 25, 2007 at 9:04 PM

A) Clearly, you’re not typical of consumers.

B) The original cell phone was a unitask device. So was the iPod, unless you count the few games that came with it as other “tasks.”

C) The whole point of this device is to be book-like. A laptop turned on its side is a lot of things, but book-like it isn’t. The Kindle has your laptop solution beat on eye strain, weight, and battery life, not to mention aesthetics.

D) Again, I think this is designed so your average Kossack can read his blog if he wants to. Some people are willing to pay a couple of bucks a month for ease and convenience. Call waiting and cable TV aren’t necessary, either, but most people wind up getting them. Likely not you or I, but we’re not “typical consumers.”

I’m guessing they must [charge]; otherwise it’s clearly copyright infringement

Is it? Your cell phone charges for data, be it per kilobyte, per minute, or per month. Why should per-month, per-blog be any different? It seems different because the correspondence between monetizing and content is one-to-one, but why should that make a legal difference?

A kickback, though, might help bloggers push this device, so, copyright or none, Amazon would do well to reward its top content providers.

What about Wikipedia, then? I suspect that you won’t get the newest version of Wikipedia, but rather a version resident on the device, which might update from time to time. Unlike blogs, most Wikipedia pages are just as relevant in last month’s version than today’s. So Amazon can let those connect charges slide. At the very least it’s cache-able, unlike blogs.

Ten years ago, when electronic paper was being researched, concurrent research was going into how to electronically annotate documents. Too bad such “dog earring” abilities aren’t here.

As for brain cancer, some might argue that the reduced telecommunications of the device compares favorably to cell phones (iPhones?) in its brain cancer risk. I don’t know about that. I guess we’ll see down the road.

B) A “uni-task” device like this is silly. Will it play video? Audio? Pictures? Receive and transmit by bluetooth, infrared as well as USB and DSL? Can I use my cellphone as a modem? Is the memory expandable? Removable? Swappable?

C)It’s been done. Your average laptop (even an old laggard) can hold a ton of text in many formats, and, with a bit of manipulation, said text can be turned so you could hold the laptop like a book and change pages with the arrow keys with your thumb.

D)Pay for the translation of blogs into Kindle? Two words, and the first one is “bite”. Capturing HTML pages is a breeze, and paying for a service like this just so you can use the reader that you paid for is doubly stupid.

Kindle? Kindling.

I also recommend http://www.ereader.com/product/browse/software
The titles are a little more than Kindle, but the software beats $400 by parsecs.

Step aside Steve Jobs, there is a new “King of closed”, and his name is Bezos!

greggish on November 25, 2007 at 2:48 PM

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Yup, and while EVERYONE is trying to build continuous revenue streams on something that is now free, all these “e-book” manufacturers haven’t even gotten to PDF compatibility.
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Personally, I LOATHE the PDF format, but all-things peer reviewed and most tech. lit. is unfortunately in PDF containers…(sigh)
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I’m NOT going to do the conversion for them…..that’s what we pay CONVENIENCE device manufacturers for. CONVENIENCE.
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And the revenue stream thing is really annoying….almost as annoying as getting gay-agenda crossmarketing force fed on my cell.
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hmmm….but not quite.
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Hey, speaking of annoying, why can’t we see Michele on O’Reilly anymore? I swear….I’m changing over to Glenn Beck and staying there, until Michele is back, Whore-aldo is gone, and Dick Morris endorses Huckabee.
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When you want to read a book, wifi is fine, and when you need some info on the road, a cell phone is fine. Charging to read blogs is a big flop.

Amazon has done some great stuff, but this isn’t one of them.

Personally, I use one of these to take books with me:

http://www.rockymountaintrail.com/back-to-school.aspx?gclid=CKKbz8z6-I8CFQ1kWAodZkJtMQ

These enjoy a HUGE advantage in battery life, and have a capacity comparable to the Kindle. In addition, when using this device, you can speed-read books without worrying about the “facing page visibility” problem or slow page turning. You can also renew content without Internet access.

http://www.rockymountaintrail.com/back-to-school.aspx?gclid=CKKbz8z6-I8CFQ1kWAodZkJtMQ

These enjoy a HUGE advantage in battery life, and have a capacity comparable to the Kindle. In addition, when using this device, you can speed-read books without worrying about the “facing page visibility” problem or slow page turning. You can also renew content without Internet access.

advertsing should pay for any costs, or it’s a bad model.

Exit question: Why are they charging for blog subscriptions, anyway?

It get’s even worse that’s not the only thing Bezos want to charge you for or restrict how the device is used. Note carefully what is said at 5:13…

If you have personal documents you want to read on your Kindle like Microsoft word files, you can just email them to your Kindle. For just a small charge Amazon will convert the document and deliver it wirelessly.

Step aside Steve Jobs, there is a new “King of closed”, and his name is Bezos!

Exit question: Why are they charging for blog subscriptions, anyway? Presumably it has something to do with the labor involved in translating the format into Kindle’s proprietary code, but that shouldn’t be that difficult thanks to RSS.

I bet its bandwidth usage. Since blog owners do not get any (direct) money for a subscriber on their site; it’s still a little extra cash, even if the owner percentage is low.

A lot of people seem to think this is some kind of newfangled web browser. It’s not. The display (as many who don’t understand the purpose of Kindle have complained about) is a new monochrome technology called “electronic paper display” which looks amazing for text (just like paper, with no backlight), but isn’t really functional for other stuff. I believe it updates really slowly (ie. draws its pixels slowly), so you’re not going to be playing Quake 3 on this thing. It uses way less power than an LCD display, which is great for a book reader.

After all, it’s their content, and the Kindle is just appropriating it.

Yeah, I’m wondering that too. I’m guessing they must; otherwise it’s clearly copyright infringement. It just seems odd to me that they’re charging for blogs in the first place. It’s not like Mozilla demands you pay a toll when using its browser. The content’s out there and it’s free. Why not tap into it and open up the whole universe of blogs to Kindle readers instead of picking and choosing a few dozen?