Ignoring the sensationalist headline from TechDirt, the fact that Amazon is collecting user generated data on their devices isn’t all that shocking. There are a few technical reasons why they would do this, the simplest of which is the most innocent: if you lose your device and have to restore all of your books, your notes and highlights get restored at the same time.
Of course, the “popular highlights” feature dashes my hopes for the innocent explanation. Can someone dig through the Terms of Service to reveal what else Amazon does with the data you create on your device?
I don’t necessarily share this opinion, but reading through this article the first thing that came to mind was the tag line for the atrocious Alien Vs. Predator movies:
“Whoever wins, we lose.”
It’s true, to a certain extent: in order for consumers to really win here, there needs to be equal adoption of all the major bookstores opening up on the iPad in order to create credible competition and drive down prices.
Does the Alex have what it takes to best it’s more mature and cheaper cousins, the Kindle 2 and Nook? Are any of the prepared for the onslaught of the iPad in two weeks?
The answer: Sorta. Read Engadget’s review to see why.
A small part of me loves it when a sci fi writer becomes an influential force in real world matters. Cory Doctorow has done just that with his insightful assessment of publishing legalities.
I’m not a die hard Instapaper fan like some people I know, but I do use it to save something for later here and there. Could this application of taking a website and making it more e-ink friendly be a sign of the kinds of things to come to Amazon’s Kindle app store (courtesy of the SDK)?
A major win for the “Down with DRM!” movement!
Personally, I just want to see creative ways devs will get around the limitations of the E-ink screen.
This move is designed to spur the small publishing houses into giving Amazon more content, but hopefully it will also help bring the bigger content houses back to the table. Lots of them recently started imposing delays on their ebook versions of new releases due to fears of shrinking hardcover revenues.
One of the things that always bothered me about digital books is how their cost isn’t significantly lower than their paper counterparts. That one of the requirements of this program is that ebooks must be price at least 20% lower than paper books makes me pretty happy.
The final weekend of CES has come and gone, but the ereader news keeps coming. Here’s a look around the web at the final coverage of ebooks and ereaders.
iriver shows off their Kindle Story (Engadget)
Wired enjoys Spring Design’s Alex, but realizes it faces some challenges ahead (Wired)
Jinke goes with SiPix panels over E-ink for their ereaders (Engadget)
Qualcomm’s Mirasol screen impresses with full motion video (Engadget)
Wired also goes hands on with the Plastic Logic QUE proReader (Wired)
The RCA Lexi fails to impress, work (Engadget)
Engadget does a great overview of ereaders and ebooks at CES
The explosion of ereaders at this year’s CES has been pretty remarkable. Not just the amount of devices being announced, but also the sheer quantity of viable technologies for future devices. This is a market and industry still wide open; there is no one format that rules over the rest (but plenty of contenders, see Blio).
The other issue is that in a world where smartphones are getting easier and easier to use and more people have them, people expect their devices to do more. Is there a place for a device that just reads books? Or are these devices expected to make your books do more? This will be an interesting year indeed!
And we know for a fact the interest is there: the Kindle is selling fairly well and a little bird told four7s that at least one of the device manufacturers discussed above signed an international distribution deal during a meeting at CES. We’ll be keeping track as more of these devices make it out of the gate.
This piece describes just how technology influences content, not the other way around. This is especially true for books in the coming months.
E-ink technology was all about displaying books as we’re used to them in a digital format. I say “as we’re used to them” because of the whole non-backlit, works fine in sunlight aspect of the technology, which are important considerations to make if you’re trying to replace books.
But with the torrent of e-ink devices literally days away, will they change the content? Probably not. Will they even change the way the content is delivered to you? Also probably not: the 3G, always-on delivery model that Amazon introduced with the Kindle is almost expected at this point. So the way the content is displayed is the same and the way the content is delivered is the same.
Where ebooks and ereader devices can truly make themselves stand out is how they enhance the book, how they take it further. More and more devices can do annotations and highlighting. These aren’t a feature.
Yet.
If we can take these features and make them more powerful, more accessible, then we’re beginning to change the way people use content. Only then can content be expected to change.
That’s all I’m allowed to say about that. Very, very exciting stuff.
