Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

I saw somebody recently using one of those professionally recently, in an airport or a big store, I think.

nice to see the whole internet thinks this kindle thing sucks :D

Yeah - everyone who hasn't actually used one.

^^^ he made it, kids

(which I mentioned at the top of the thread)

what, you want a medal?

Sheesh. Jerk.

sorry :( i guess you don't need any more hassle :(

wow what a dick!

that's what all my ladies say

I'd love to talk about cool lesser-known features and correct some assumptions and misconceptions about the device, but we've been specifically instructed not to do so. So for now, I'll just let it go... Sorry about the jerk comment...

The quotes in The Guardian article are kind of funny...

Amazon's chief executive Jeff Bezos... "Books have stubbornly resisted digitisation. I think there's a very good reason for that, and that is the book is so highly evolved and so suited to its task that it's very hard to displace."

Philip Makinson, of Greenwich Consulting... "Do not get me wrong, it's a very nice bit of kit but what need is it fulfilling? Books are quite portable, cheap and universally available already."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/20/amazon.news?gusrc=rss&feed=10

Why the fuck would anyone pay £195 for this? Reading it is never going to be as comfortable an experience as reading a book, so much isn't going to be easily or legally available and, y'know, it costs more than an iPod and not much less than an iPhone on contract. Not saying they do the same thing, but yeah, perspective.

i feel sorry for that schwantz guy now :(

only possible appeal of this (or any equivalent) is not having to lift boxes and boxes of books when moving.

but when i fall asleep reading and the book inevitably falls off/behind the bed, i would be pretty mad if that book cost $200

I'd love to get one but the $400 is pretty steep.

I thought last night about all the Library of America editions I could line a shelf with using the same $400.

I'd rather add another $100 and get every Dalkey Archive book ever.

only possible appeal of this (or any equivalent) is not having to lift boxes and boxes of books when moving
I'm paying my movers way less than this costs.

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading

Oh, I guess you only get 100 books from them for that price nowadays.

i would miss different-sized books and cover art and the like

It's interesting - my co-worker and I both worked at ReplayTV together back at the beginning of the PVR, and he pointed out how similar the two products are in some ways:

Both products are/were not available in retail stores, so nobody could really try them out before buying.

Both products were greeted with similar "why would I need this?" reactions from many people. For ReplayTV, he remembered how people said stuff like "I already HAVE a VCR that I never use - why would I want this thing?"

And on the good side, most people who used ReplayTV (or TiVo, or other PVR) for a while couldn't imagine life without one after using it.

Time will tell if the Kindle has a similar effect on customers (and, to be fair, ReplayTV did not end up being very successful, although the PVR has become almost ubiquitous), but it faces some of the same challenges.

schwantz, did you work at lab126 in the a9 office on hamilton? i was there for a while. congrats on the launch.

so every book ever is available for this thing ?

I'm still a bit underawed by the grey lcd looking screen, is it even back lit?

this is a pda with less functionality

it looks nasty, and it sounds like a disaster from the planning 'how do we DRM it' PoV

I don't think the reaction has been so much "why would I need this" but "I'd like this, but not a DRM-crippled $10-a-pop no-hyphenating 1980s-looking one". Sorry to rag on yr work though, congrats on shipping.

Kindle Availability
Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. Because we ship Kindles on a first-come, first-served basis, please ORDER NOW to reserve your place in line. See availability messaging above for estimated in-stock date.

ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW ORDER NOW

(much as i like Caecila)

Caecilia

I'm still a bit underawed by the grey lcd looking screen, is it even back lit?

It's electronic paper! No backlight necessary.

(regardless of the look and functionality of the rest of the device I think that's a huge UI win)

Anyone who compares to the iPod is a retard.

When iPods came out, you could immediately fill them with content you'd already purchased or stolen. With Kindle, I have to...re-buy all my books if I want to read them on the kindle? That's a massive barrier to entry given the cost of a Kindle.

The Kindle is beyond ugly. I want something more cuddly to take to bed or the shitter when I read. And I want color. If having paper-like display screens is so great, then why don't we have them on our computers?

I'm waiting for tablet Mac.

If having paper-like display screens is so great, then why don't we have them on our computers?

New technology, black and white only... so far. But it'll happen.

i'd quite like to see this screen to see how it's different.. is it just thinner?

I've seen a Motorola F3, and it did make me go "woah!". I thought it was a fake at first, the screen looked just like some paper or card that someone had drawn on. That only has a 7-segment type display, don't know what the resolution on the Kindle is like.

the e-paper on the kindle will be fine. i've seen other hardware with the same and it's nice. will be good for novels and a lot of straight text books. the stuff around it (hardware feel, 'product model') on the kindle seems like a giant fail though.

ledge, that was my phone up until about a week ago. It was pretty groovy, although text messaging got to be a pain.

One last shill post: Computerworld article

Can I just say that the frickin' name is possibly the goofiest thing about this?

otm. I keep thiking there is something related to this guy
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fugitivethe/fugitiveIMAGE/fugitivethe.jpg

Or these two, although it's even more of a stretch:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/4/48/250px-KendallsGtHits.jpg

Would you use twigs or newspaper as kindle to light a bunch of these on fire?

"Kindle! We'll Turn Paper Books Into Kindling"

I think the wii has shown a goofy name is fine

So why no landscape mode for the screen? FAIL

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9329

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/archives/2007/11/the_kindle_a_reviewers_first_impressions_1.html

Congrats to Schwantz on a big launch and a great concept, but based on photos & early reviews I'm leaning towards "Omar Little OTM." As much as I'd love an iPod for Books, not sure this is my thing.

But I'll definitely check back around 5th/6th Gen. Look where it got Apple.

(turns out that if you search for devmodeon in a kobo you get a new 'developer options' menu item and in there you can invert the screen)

i managed to download and decode a book from kobo.com entirely from the linux command line over the weekend, which means i have exactly 0 reason to boot into windows anymore (which is good because windows 11)

it did need me to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and add a softlink from libzip.so.4 to libzip.so.5 but it worked fine after that.

was it free? or do you send your cc details? was it like curl requests or...?

i had to buy it, obv, but then you download the acsm file (your receipt basically) and run a command on it and that downloads the actual epub (usually I'd drag the acsm file into adobe digital edition and that would do it, then I'd fish the file out of My Digital Editions and into calibre. then reboot into Linux, import that to Linux calibre and sync my mojo against that)

(actually bought it on kobo website a couple of weeks ago)

OK your next job is a bash script to make the purchase.

no point, really, because that's just two clicks whilst I'm browsing.

the advantage of the new method is saving me having to boot into windows to download, especially has it'll try to get me to upgrade to win11 when i do, or tell me my hardware isn't compatible and fail.

kindle daily deals is showing me exactly one thing today, instead of the more usual half a dozen.

(A Mischief of Rats)

the deals page has been broken in canada for months.

9 today

but the same 3 titles in the second carousal as have been there since 2024 (Brothers Karamazov...)

tiny

https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/12/09/xteink-x4-is-a-wallet-sized-ereader-that-snaps-onto-your-phone/

perhaps too tiny. and i don't see why they are pushing this as an addition to your phone. but lack of backlight kills it for me (who does most of my reading in the dark)

in other news, i have been reading trollope using a kobo-enhanced kepub from the standard ebooks site and having page numbers correspond to actual page turns is so much nicer than the swimming through treacle feeling i normally get. the number at the bottom went from 800something to 1300something but it goes up much more rapidly. the only other change i notice is that the choice of font sizes starts much smaller than with non-kepub.

i still have a Kobo Mini around, love that size.. but yeah this is pushing it!

Physical books should come with digital downloads imo.

This is true but it's so unbelievably easy to pirate a book that it's inconsequential. I read most of my books 50/50 digi/phys

It's just so much easier to kindle in bed

I bought one of these and it’s made it much easier to read a paper book in bed or in other low-lit places - they’re terrific. Kindle use has gone down considerably. Almost every book light I’ve ever bought has been a piece of crap, but these are really, really good.

https://glocusent.com/products/glocusent-bookmark-style-best-book-reading-light

Great for bedtime reading with kids too