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Gemstar Ebook Crashes, Burns
Robotech_Master writes "In a lengthy announcement on its ebook catalog page, Gemstar, owner of TV Guide and the Rocket/Gemstar eBook, has announced it is going out of the ebook business. Gemstar will not be selling any new devices or ebook content after July 16th. Of particular interest to those who purchased the newer Gemstar eBook models that eliminated the ability to install free content directly on the devices: 'We will also continue to provide the newly released Personal Content feature available through the web bookstore at least through July 16, 2006.' It's too bad, really; I've heard that the Gemstar has one of the most legible displays of any of the ebook alternatives available. They could have done quite well as general-purpose reading devices, if Gemstar had not locked them directly to its own overpriced content in a stunning demonstration of self-proctology."
Gemstar provides the TV Guide-like listings for my ATI AIW video card. Will this still be operational?
I would have to say that I have not heard a better term for stupidity in a while. "...a stunning demonstration of self-proctology." is a wonder of the english language. I applaud the author.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
... of ebooks when you've got handhelds?
The publishers themselves seem to kill the goldeneggslayinggoose themselves due to absurd copy restrictions and non-compatible standards. Hell: Do you really want to buy three e-book readers at 500Euros a pop for the really meager catalogue out there.
I don't get their paranoia, though. What stops anybody of scanning a book in plain, good ol' ascii text and releasing it on the internet (else that this is illegal, of course)?
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I've always had trouble finding a nice way of reading books on LCD screen. If outside the sun destoryed the contrast or if inside you had to be just right so there was enough light. Nightmare. This is why I just went back to normal books. If the sun is to bright, put on some sunglasses. If to dark, turn on the light or use a torch.
Now I understand the size concept but somehow it just feels better. Similar story with me and PDA's. Best PDA I found was a diary + pen
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
To me, dedicated e-book readers seem to come from the same place as those portable DVD players that cost as much as a laptop with a DVD drive.
Why buy a one-purpose piece of hardware when there are solutions that perform that purpose well, and do other useful stuff?
To compound the problem, they release the content on a closed, proprietary platform that only runs on their hardware. It's the Vectrex of our time! (Not to slag Vectrex, I loved mine).
IMO a better path would have been to build a multi-purpose handheld optimized for e-book reading- license the Palm OS so that people could do all that other stuff too, but use a big, clear screen with dedicated nav buttons so it was the best darn e-book reading Palm money can buy. Or the best darn e-book reading Linux pad, I'm not picky.
It seems the downfall of this company (and many others) is they assume they are operating in a standalone universe. With that assumption, creating a closed system of readers and content makes sense (how else could someone have possibly thought DivX was a good idea?). Out in the wilds of the real world, they're murdered by their less annoying competition.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
The thing that strikes me most about this article is not the fact that ebooks have gone no-where, but the reason why. As the one linked article states they were trying to lock everyone into their content only. Anyone with a clue could ahve told you this wasnt going to end well, unless you had the sun and the moon and the stars to offer.
.. and so on. It feels like decisions made on the least negative instead of most positive.
However, I'm trying to look at the bigger picture here. In our recent memory there seem to be a bunch of really bad business ideas that some how make it thru the tedious corporate 'bad idea expeller'. Please recall 'divx' (caps not withstanding) the time limited psuedo-rental dvd scheme from Circuit City and a law firm. And now we have its successor, self-destructing media.
I have to ask myself have any of these clowns done any market research? How do they manage to ram thru these dumbass get rick quick schemes with no one noticing? I have to wonder what the pie charts look like at these meetings. 20% wont care what we do, 20% will be alienated, 30% arent customers anyway
I've been using my Franklin EBookMan for 3 years now. I love the backlight, I can read in bed at night and not bother my wife. It's also facing the same problems as the Gemstar.
I was really excited and taken in by all the hype several years ago. I like to read books. I also thought there was unlocked potential in the Rocket(Gemstar) or something similar for technical manuals. I frequently use Many different technologies(HPUX, AIX, WinNT, Oracle, SQL, Shell, ASP, Cold Fusion etc. etc.) in my consulting business. I always thought these devices would be great for carrying multiple reference manuals instead of those 10 pound books.
As long as the current copy protection mechanisms (of which Lawrence Lessig talks about in his excellent free_culture are in place, ebooks will not become common. Or I should say I hope people can see how useless they are and opt to not use them.
When you think of what the technology could do... You could have access to the digital version of any book, there would never be problems with acquiring a copy of a book. You could always get the book you wanted instantly from your local library, even through the net. Right now, the only thing they have is "gee-it's-new-technology"-effect, and they're really just severely restricted versions of real books.
But it's all inevitable. Even if every library in the world will decide to buy these pathetic excuses of a book, the unrestricted versions will come. They just won't be in the library. They'll be in p2p. Because we all know the ebook protection is fundamentally flawed.
It would be nice if they put out the specs on everything so some enterprising and bored guru could find a way to stick a teeny version of linux on it and make it a reader again. Why waste a good display?
If I ever decide to buy an eBook, I will need it to do two things: (1) cache and display any HTML I choose, and (2) cache and display any PDF I choose. Without these two features, no amount of other features is sufficient; with these two features, no other features are necessary.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Actually, I've had the 1100 for a few years now, and I just use the old Rocket Librarian software to convert html and text files to its own .rb format. Works fairly well, the device has quite possibly the best indoor/outdoor lcd I've seen to date, and usually has 35 hour plus battery life. I also have a pda, and one just cannot compare the two, reading for any length of time on any current pda is a pain due to limited amount of screen real estate. The only pda with a screen large enough to be a comfortable ebook reader would have been the Newton or the Vadem Clio.
It seems to me that a PDA would fill the same need. I have a Palm IIIxe and have no problem reading eBooks with it. Not to mention that I can also read PDFs with it...something dedicated readers can't.
The low-end model is/was? ~$79...
Palm sells a refurbished IIIxe for ~$89...
And acording to this link, the Gemstar has 8MB of memory...the same as the IIIxe...less if you count the extra memory available from the Flash ROM through an app like JackFlash...
Keeping in mind that the screen on the IIIxe is very legible and features many functions not available through the Gemstar and that battery life can be increased on the palm by underclocking the CPU with one of the apps available for hackmaster...why would anyone want to buy a single function handheld over a PDA???
Not to mention that the PDA market itself has weakened signifigantly in recent years...
An AC asked:
What's the point... of ebooks when you've got handhelds?
Although I use a Handspring Visor for reading "ebooks", the dedicated readers are far superior from standpoint of their display quality. The Gemstar GEB-2150 has an 8.2" diagonal display. The resolution on the Gemstar models is typically (always?) over 100dpi. That's a lot of pixels and screen real-estate compared to the average handheld.
Pay $300-$700 for a locked and proprietary ebook device or for 30-100 books. Decisions, decisions...
(self-)proctology
n : the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the colon or rectum or anus
And you can do this yourself?
That means turning it over to our tame racing driver, the sig.
It isn't, you know. I'm not going to compare it to other electronic devices, I'm going to compare it to its competitor - a piece of paper.
Paper has resolutions the IIIxe, or my PDF-based Powerbook for that matter, can't dream of. Paper's anti-aliased fonts are superb, unless you include my handwriting of course. Paper doesn't dim the screen to save batteries. Text on paper can be read in bright light. Paper is faster to boot as well, though admittedly the search times are longer.
No - I'm afraid legibility is one area that print is still miles ahead in.
Cheers,
Ian
Concerning a question made above, the format specs and a Linux software both exist here.
Now I'm pretty happy with another device, i.e. the Hiebook (site; groups), that provides the same, important capability: you can upload to it any .txt/.htm content.
Not as as good a display as the rocket, though...
General-purpose PDAs (like Palm PDAs) may not have quite the resolution of the specialized readers, but single-purpose units are a bad idea when you have to carry them around (who's going to carry 50 devices around?). Even sillier is the locked format; do they really expect us to buy 12 ebook readers, and pay again to download freely-available content on it? I routinely download documents and websites, and read them at my leisure.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Now people with a library that can not completely fit on the device will lose content they paid for. And people with expensive rocket eBooks in perfect working condition will not be able to buy new content for their device because it will come with its own, incompatible DRM. Now can you see legitimate uses for Dimitry's "advanced e-book processor"?
The only good news is that this particular group of screwed customers is rich. Just maybe they can really get on the case of fair use and make their voices heard by the government.
Sounds like the *decent* thing to do is for them to release a txt/html/pdf converter to the general public for their soon-to-be-abandoned product.
Odds are they won't though. Bastards.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Regarding proprietary formats, etc -- there's a simple rule to remember here, I think.
The more programmable your portable device is, the less likely you are to be screwed. Programmable as in, the end-user can write and load code into it that will alter it's behavior. If a consumer wants to find a device that's a good investment, this is practically all the information he needs.
That, and perhaps access to a few local geeks who will hack the device, in the event of a corporate meltdown.
Now here's the question: How can we keep each other informed of the real programmability of a shiny new device we may see in Circuit City? Is there a yardstick, or a website, or a consortium, or a forum out there -- that measures the hack-ability of new gear?
(Or should we all just chuck everything out and buy really good laptops instead? I've had one for a year now and it's replaced my desktop PC, my PDA, my television, my DVD player, my stereo, my Playstation, my Nintendo 64, my bookshelf, and my mixer... and obsoleted my CD burner, monitor, keyboard, remote controls, maps, slide projector, darkroom, modem, zipdrive, tape deck, cookbooks, and alarm clock. Mostly due to it's immense programmability.)
Any reccomendations for good freeware text to speech programs? I'm trying out freetts at the moment.
I have a Rocket eBook, the precursor to the Gemstar eBook (before Gemstar bought Nuvomedia) and I've seen this coming for a long time. For me, ever since Gemstar bought out Nuvomedia its been downhill. They immediately closed down the "Rocket Library" which was a place full of public domain books you could get for free. Then they canceled their deal with Barnes and Noble. Powells is great, but come on... Barnes and Noble is Barnes and Noble!! I stopped seeing books being published for my eBook so I haven't used it in a very long time. I guess I shoulda sold it on eBay earlier, now it won't get as much!
...As an angry, disillusioned Rocket eBook owner, I'm very disappointed that they could have gotten so many of the basic technical aspects of the device RIGHT, yet screwed up the marketing so badly as to discredit the entire eBook concept. The Rocket eBook is pleasant to use and I can and do read long novels on it. Alas, Gemstar's business model was irretrievably customer-hostile, and both price and availability of content were poor.
.txt and .html files--like Project Gutenberg texts) from the later devices themselves, they have now put it back IN as a Web-based service. Not a problem for owners of the original Rocket eBook, which can convert and download from a PC or Mac, but later buyers can ONLY download over a phoneline from Gemstar's servers. But now they can UPLOAD personal content to those servers and have it converted.
I want to acknowledge that Gemstar is treating their customer base reasonably well under the circumstances and far better than might have been expected.
What they're NOT doing, of course, is to provide a Gemstar-format-to-something-else conversion tool. Or replacements for the Gemstar-format eBook titles we "own" with some other format.
There won't be any new content available after July 16th, but they say they will keep the servers up for at least three years--so the people whose eBooks can ONLY download directly from the server will be able to use their purchased content for that long. They also have a sort of warranty policy under which, for as long as supplies last, they say that if your eBook fails, even if you didn't buy it from them, they will replace it with another Gemstar eBook device (but possibly not the same model) for $30.
And, having designed OUT personal content (the ability to download arbitrary
I'm not happy, but at least the Gemstar eBook is being gently euthanized, not shot at dawn.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"Guideplus" isn't really a piece of software ... its a system of programming data that is carried in the VBI (vertical blanking interval) of the signal on your cable lines. Most modern TVs and VCRs are now equipped with "guideplus" which allows viewers to have interactive TV guides without digital cable. It just so happens that ATI was smart enough to include guideplus capability with their TV capture card ... a good feature if you ask me. However, each manufacturer is free to implement guideplus functionality in whichever way they see fit ... if ATI's implementation sucks ass, then fine -- but don't confuse that with "guideplus" as a whole.
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