Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

LOL

mr que otm - the idea that books will die just seems impossible - that's like saying 'now we have photos/computer screens/etc. painting will die'. the way i see it, who cares if kindle-type things overtake mass-market paperbacks? why are mass-market paperbacks so precious or somehow culturally superior? and i say this as someone who loves the physical-ness and materiality of books, and someone who has spent obscene amounts of money on books.

there's no way i'm forking out several hundred for one of these things anytime soon - but if some better comes along in the next few years, and the price drops below $150, i will def be getting one. the idea of being able to carry around several books on a little gadget makes me very happy.

I think Ned was mentioned in one of the football-by-which-I-mean-soccer topics but failed to creepily emerge*. Disappointing.

*I tried to find a gif of Homer gliding through Ned's hedge, but no luck.

Ned's December 2005 HI DERE just gave genuine workplace lols - great stuff.

On a thread related note, the University I work at is also seriously looking at this kind of device as well for all the reasons upthread; the potential satchel-lightening (esp for science courses) would be amazing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203577304574277041750084938.html#printMode

At colleges, trials of e-textbooks and readers have been mixed. When Northwest Missouri State ran its trial with the Sony Reader last fall, dozens of the 200 participants bailed out after about two weeks. “The students more often than not either suffered through it or went and got physical books,” says Paul Klute, the assistant to the university’s president, who oversees the e-book program. Students didn’t like that they couldn’t flip through random pages, take notes in the margins or highlight text, he says.

Penn State ran a pilot program last fall with 100 of the Sony Reader devices in honors English classes, and found similar results as Northwest Missouri State. The devices are good if you’re using them “on a beach or on an airplane,” said Mike Furlough, assistant dean for scholarly communications at Penn State University Libraries. “But not fully functional for a learning environment.”

guessi should add this part to be fair, last few paragraphs

ony’s newest model, the Reader 700, now features note taking and highlighting, says Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading business. The Reader, he says, “is not a multipurpose device, it is designed for focused reading.”—something that many educators are looking for in a world where students’ lives are filled with digital distractions.

Northwest Missouri State has since decided to pursue e-books that can be read on small laptops known as netbooks, rather than just a single-purpose e-reader. “A tablet netbook that is sturdy and is as fully functional as a PC has the ability to do word processing and run other programs,” Mr. Klute says.

Some Northwest Missouri State students say they remain fans of digital reading. Eric Pabst, 21, used his laptop to read e-textbooks in his finance class last year. “It’s cool because we don’t have to lug around a huge book anymore,” he says.

hm, if i were studying, writing papers, doing research, i would totally want a stand-alone reader, rather than have it integrated into my laptop

this is all going to be so much better/functional/pleasant when screens and cpus are paper-thin

I think Ned was mentioned in one of the football-by-which-I-mean-soccer topics but failed to creepily emerge*. Disappointing.

Sorry about that, I might have been asleep.

(haha i have no idea why i used the term 'cpu'. do people still use that word even? i mean processor, motherboard, keyboard, battery, all that circuitry stuff)
xpost

(Best part of that Dec. '05 exchange is that it was NEW YEARS EVE.)

my kindle's cpu is a neural net processor a learning computer

>(Best part of that Dec. '05 exchange is that it was NEW YEARS EVE.)

Can there be any other way to see in the new year? champagne, fireworks and a chorus of "Auld Lang HI DERE"...

Sorry about that, I might have been asleep.

My main thing is Kindle books are too $$$...$10 avg IIRC. 85+% of books I want I can find at the used book store (for $1-6, most of which I can get on credit), and then just recycle those back (if I wan't too crazy abt them) next time I go to the used book store. Or the books I want are OOP and I just have to cross my fingers someone sells them to the used book store.

Most books I buy new are graphic novels & I can't see those working on a Kindle.

The thing that wld be NICE abt a Kindle is I always end up lugging 8 books around on vacation & those take up so much weight/space in a suitcase.

But what about your bot?

It was being a lazyass punk.

The thing that wld be NICE abt a Kindle is I always end up lugging 8 books around on vacation & those take up so much weight/space in a suitcase.

My local library will MAIL you books that you check out via the internet!

My main thing is Kindle books are too $$$...$10 avg IIRC. 85+% of books I want I can find at the used book store (for $1-6, most of which I can get on credit), and then just recycle those back (if I wan't too crazy abt them) next time I go to the used book store. Or the books I want are OOP and I just have to cross my fingers someone sells them to the used book store.

Most books I buy new are graphic novels & I can't see those working on a Kindle.

― bad-boy (sic) cartographer (actually a girl) (called) (not named) (Abbott), Tuesday, July 28, 2009 2:16 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think the price point thing is huge here--i got one as a present and didnt mind it so much but if im going to spend $10 i want something i can hold in my hand and actually own instead of a little file thats proprietarily encoded. i sold mine on ebay.

Also this:

http://www.ndsbooks.co.uk/100_classic_dsbook-large.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2009/1/5/1231161972587/100-Classic-Book-Collecti-001.jpg

There is one of these in my house, but I have not yet had any reason to actually sit down and read something on it. I think as far as I've gotten has been paging through a newspaper and thinking it looked nice (although unlike a paper, or even the web, you couldn't just eyeball it and figure out hierarchical stuff about what you wanted to read).

Max, maybe you can answer something for me -- I didn't ask too much, but it seems frustratingly difficult to put your own material on one? I.e., if you have a manuscript or PDF (or whatever format) of a text you need to read through -- if this were simple I assume you'd have working people in any number of fields (say, publishing) who'd happily adopt.

nabisco, all you have to do is email to your Kindle.

er, email it to your Kindle

They each have a unique email address

what sorts of documents are displayable?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200321920

Sending Personal Documents

You need to establish your Kindle's e-mail address and list approved "From" e-mail addresses to send files for conversion. When you e-mail personal documents to your Kindle's e-mail address, they are automatically converted to a Kindle-friendly format. Then you can download them via USB using your computer or you can have them wirelessly delivered to your device for a small fee.

Your Kindle will only receive converted files from e-mail addresses you have authorized on the Manage Your Kindle page to help prevent spam.

* Microsoft Word (.DOC)
* Structured HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
* RTF (.RTF)
* JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
* GIF (.GIF)
* PNG (.PNG)
* BMP (.BMP)
* PDF (.PDF) is supported natively by Kindle DX and by Kindle in our experimental category
* Microsoft Word (.DOCX) is supported in our experimental category.

oh looks like a free option here?

to avoid a fee, or if you're not in wireless range, you can send an e-mail to "name&qu✧✧✧@f✧✧✧.kin✧✧✧.c✧✧ and download the files via USB in a Kindle compatible format to the device(s).

that's fucked up but it looks like you can do it for free

the fee is currently 10 cents.

I've sent txt, pdf, rtf, and doc files to mine. chm is probably supported too.

You can also format them yourself (basic html - Mr. Jaq is working on King Lear) and just drop them on via your computer.

xpost, obv.

ha, wow, never mind -- I guess we were just being incompetent one afternoon

I ran across a similar device for sheet music and composing the other day: http://www.music123.com/Freehand-MusicPad-Pro-Plus-Version-4-0-Electronic-Sheet-Music-Display-241190-i1126007.Music123

Looks like a giant pda, has a touchscreen, backlit, etc. Has anyone seen one IRL?

that ds book collection sucks by the way. Shitty interface, screen way too small.
The killer app that might push me to a kindle is the electronically delivered magazine and newspaper subscriptions. They're much cheaper,easier to carry around, easier to search and i get tired of bundling out paper to recycling.

Ha it does suck.

"You know how I'd like to read Jane Eyre? Three hyphenated sentences at a time on a screen half the size of a postcard while a fifteen second lite jazz riff recycles endlessly in the background."

http://www.avclub.com/articles/apple-reportedly-at-work-on-kindlekiller-and-lpsav,30976/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=avclub_rss_daily

For some time now, rumors have been percolating that Apple is working on a new device--best-described as a laptop-sized iPod Touch--to compete in both in the netbook and tablet PC markets. Over the past 48 hours, those rumors have reached critical mass, as leaks out of Cupertino seem to indicate that the device will be ready to go this fall, in time for Christmas. And Apple has also reportedly been hard at work on some new applications to make the as-yet-unnamed computer more desirable. Among them: an e-reader that could pose a serious threat to the Kindle (since the new app will offer color, have the backing of iTunes, and might be able to access a cellular network for instant downloads just as the Kindle does), and new "digital album" bundles that will allow people who download them to access lyrics, liner notes, video and other bonus material while they listen. Whether Apple's new tablet will really be a "Kindle-killer" remains to be seen; Kindles will likely still have a much longer battery life and the non-eye-straining "e-ink" as key selling points for people who just want to grab books on the go and read. But the digital album concept is intriguing, especially since it's designed to stimulate music sales by moving consumers away from the one-track-a-time a la carte model that record labels have begun to decry. Is it too late to change the habit of a population that's grown used to shuffling? And does anyone have any money left to buy Apple's latest toy?

does it have an e-meter?

the DS book collection doesn't have to be so terrible, why's the top screen sitting there completely wasted? They could have like SEVEN words to a line rather than four if they didn't insist on it opening like a book!

I just ordered an Amazon Kindle 2 e-book reader for myself. I've wanted one forever (at least since Kindle 1 came out) but teased myself with anticipation of the second generation of this device. I love to read and I carry books with me everywhere, and soon I can carry just this little device and have access to all the books I could possibly want.

And yes, this is related to sex. I don't know about you, but sometimes I want to to carry a book of erotica or the latest sex book I'm reviewing for this blog into the coffee shop, the gym, or the airport, but I leave it behind because the blatent cover or title would bring me unwanted public attention.

As soon as my Kindle arrives, I can carry all sorts of books, including those that people assume a 65-year-old woman doesn't read! Of course I'll still have to be wary of people reading over my shoulder or saying, "Oh, is that a Kindle? May I look at it?"

Do you have a Kindle or other e-book reader? What sex-related books do you read on it? An Amazon search on " sex" within Kindle books lists 2,947 books, and " erotica" yields 4,882 titles. That'll keep me busy.
from Joan Price's Better Than I Ever Expected blog (http://betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com/), by Joan Price, author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty. http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com

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― Dr. Phil, Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:03 PM

I've heard about the apple thing, that's a definite wait and see.
There are other homebrew e-readers for the DS that appear to work quite well.

This is cool twist:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/25/sonys-daily-edition-reader-launch-event/

hm. Getting warmer.

i know nothing about ebook readers but im looking to buy one to use at the gym on the cross trainer. waterproof, a4 or a5 size, able to display .doc and .pdf files. which is the best one out there and how much would something like this be? it *feels* like they should be about £50, which i'd be fine with, but i'm guessing they cost waaaay more than that, is the price likely to drop in the next year or two?

qu2, could a nintendo DSi be used as an ebook reader of sorts?

Available in England today, sort of.

Fwok. Would it be possible for me to purchase? I live in Belgium. Probably pointless. But DAMN I NEED/WANT.

Just check. WOOHOO! It ISSSSSS. :-)