Comments on: kindle, take 2

By: Will

Will — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:35:14 +0000

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that I read at the Amazon site two methods of getting your own contenet into Kindle:
1. email to Amazon .pdf and .doc files for download to Kindle from your Amazon Library
2. Use the USB connect port on the Kindle to download .txt files to your Kindle. Look up Project Gutenberg. This project is converting all public domain works to .txt. You may not have the latest best seller, but you would have access to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of FREE titles for your Kindle.

I go to numerous conventions all with printed schedules that frequently have last second addendums or alterations. If these conventions were to post their schedules on Amazon for download to Kindle, it would make my life easier. On top of which, the Kindle can display text in font sizes up to 20 point, a BUG plus for my weak eyes.
Will

By: Gael Varoquaux

Gael Varoquaux — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 07:15:34 +0000

Guys,

Do you know the Iliad ( http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad ). Its similar to the Kindle, the sources are GPL( it runs under Linux), to do merge in community code, and it reads pdf. I use it to read scientific articles, phd thesis… ie as a printer replacement. It’s great. However it does not come with the backing of a big distributor like amazon. And its expensive (700$).

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:04:25 +0000

Someone could offer such a thing, I suppose, but that would require a fair amount of innovative thinking on a lot of parts. And it would require some sort of standard for easy ‘installation’ of the digital book- not coming any time soon, because no one has incentives to invest in standards yet.

By: Don Marti

Don Marti — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:00:24 +0000

What about offering a customer an e-book “copy” of a book in exchange for destroying a paper copy, and a free e-book reader to customers who destroy a certain number of books? That would make the brick and mortar bookstore a better outlet for e-book readers than a mail order site.

By: Rob Weir

Rob Weir — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:39:01 +0000

Certainly it could fail, but Amazon has the ability to adjust the offering to adapt to the market. So that makes it interesting.

Cost? I expect the price to drop. Many gadgets are priced at a premium level initially, to soak the alpha geeks, and then drops to get the mainstream adoption.

Ability to convert your own documents and PDFs? That is a simple software upgrade if Amazon wants it. Physically it already has the USB port.

What Amazon doesn’t have absolute control over is the price of the books. That’s the key question — what publishers are signing up and what price point are they eventually going to hit?

In any case, it is good to see some competition for Sony here. I just hope they can both converge on a single, portable book format, so purchased content can be used on either device. That will make it much easier for content publishers and should lead to a much larger market.

By: John Drinkwater

John Drinkwater — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:20:19 +0000

I think the best we can hope for, is for it to get mildly popular to encourage cheaper readers, more book authors approaching digital delivery, far more newspapers publishing their entire sheets inline, and for iRex to lower their current cost of the iLiad.

I am quite certain it will sell, will bomb less than the Zune. Maybe it’s the ugliness, but people are still talking about the Kindle…

By: Planet

Planet — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

kindle, take 2