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Reading the New York Times On a Kindle 2
reifman links to his thorough and thoughtful review of the experience of reading a newspaper on the Kindle 2. "I've been eager to try The New York Times on the Kindle 2; here's my review with a basic video walk-through and screenshots. I give the Kindle 2 version of The Times a B. Software updates could bring it up to an A-. Kindle designers should have learned more from the iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, my Kindle display scratched less than 24 hours after it arrived. As I detail in the review, Amazon customer service was not very accommodating. Is it my fault — or will Kindle 2 evolve into an Apple 1G Nano-like $22.5M settlement? You can read about Hearst's e-reader for newspapers from earlier today on Slashdot."
Is this a review of the Kindle itself? Or the Kindle experience? Seems to be a bit wishy washy to me.
A friend of mine bought one for reading in the subway. He finds it great, and he points out correctly that for avid readers it's wonderful just from the standpoint of space conservation. For Manhattan-dwellers especially, that's a major selling point.
It's a pretty good product--the only bad thing about it is from the publisher's standpoint, since IIRC it requires you to prepare your books in a new format (which is a not-insignificant undertaking) and Amazon has near-complete control over the pricing structure. (The pricing structure thing hurts authors, too.)
Countering that is that it will make some books more accessible. It doesn't take much work to get books now, but the ability to have them in front of you and easily readable right away combined with sample chapters gives you at least part of the convenience of actually walking into a bookstore, only you get it anyplace you can get the data connection.
I can't speak to the durability, though, because it's still a new toy. Give it a year and see how it holds up in different conditions. But overall, this is definitely a shiny product, in the good sense as opposed to the coefficient-of-specular-reflection-is-too-high sense. It'll probably really help Amazon once the economy picks back up, since more people will have the income to spend on a Kindle and they'll have had a chance to improve it.
--- Thousands are enslaved every day.
kindle 1 screen rocks and has no such problem.. sad if they use a crappier screen coating...
it has a 30 day no questions asked return policy... is the article poster a retarded person? return it...
'' Once your promotion expires, seven day home delivery of the New York Times costs $58.06 per month or $697 annually. A Kindle 2 sells for $359. The New York Times via Kindle costs just $13.99 per month or $168. You can buy a Kindle 2 with a one year subscription to The Times for only $527. Then, you can use the $169 savings to take your friend out to a very nice dinner - the one whose sister has the dogs who get their waste dumped in your blue plastic Times delivery bags (I guess I'll find out soon if she reads my blog when she asks about that dinner).
BusinessInsider mused that it costs The Times twice as much money each year to provide home delivery than it would to buy every subscriber a Kindle: "What we're trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn't just expensive and inefficient; it's laughably so." ''
Wow. That puts the kindle price into perspective!
Also, who spents 700 a year on newspapers any more? News, even good news, is no-cost online, right?
You assert it was easily scratched yet you do not know how it was scratched. If you don't know how it was scratched, then how can you assert it was easily done? You didn't properly protect the device so I don't see how it's Amazon's fault. You should get the extended warranty so that they will fix it or quit whining. Either way, I don't care.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
What did it scratch?
I don't see this as an issue, or I would have returned my cat.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Shall We? OK! Users of BSD/OS. A Preferrably with 4n asshole to others
This link is to a picture that is actually a fairly funny parody of goatse. I laughed when I saw it. (You may never look at pumpkins the same again.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Why does short consumption confirm slashdots demise?
Will you hand me the sports section to read while you browse the NYT magazine?
Hey, where's the crossword?
If not too forward to presume, given the high class of the OP and all, I would say that since the topic was
Posted by kdawson on Monday March 02, @01:37AM
and the OP's "first post" reply was
by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02, @01:46AM
that 9 minutes elapsed without a prior "first post", hence the conclusion of
Slashdot is dying
The rest is anyone's guess.
That video is unwatchable ... why don't you try to focus your camera next time? and why the random use of italics in the text?
amazon did a heckuva job developing a black & white handheld.... and it's only $350 ? Nice.
I am going to sound like a broken record. While I am very interested in Kindle 2, I am still waiting for these books to be DRM free. It's just so much easier and "thought-free" when I don't have to worry about DRM and how I use something. The higher the resolution, the better it is too. We are nowhere near true 300-dpi but that's a technical limitation at this point.
Speaking of DRM-free, Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often good prices. It would be nice if they had the same thing with books.
On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon. Maybe someone will find it useful too. It is at http://www.uberi.com
Anyway, Amazon appears to be quite serious this time. We will probably see faster advancements in this area in the near future as competition heats up.
Here is another idea, why not charge subscriptions like regular paper (in the case of NY Times) but subsize for the Kindle 2 or other ebook readers, similar to the cell phone model...
Just received a Kindle 2 for my wife, and she loves it. I'm waiting for Kindle 3, but I hope it has a few of these innovations: http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2009/01/the-lab-innovating-the-kindle-with-task-unification-january-2009.html
One problem with the Kindle is that it doesn't come with enough free content! There are a ton of authors (even Seth Godin has volunteered) that would give away a book or two because they know people will buy more after they read one, but for some reason Amazon hasn't caught on to the idea yet. I wish they would find a way to let authors give their content away (if they want to) before they worry about getting "getting every book, including out-of-print titles, onto the device."
Also, people should be able to pay by the page for content rather than buy the book. Just like paying for songs instead of albums, this is the future of reading.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free
Some of that might be true, but...
I am a longstanding customer of Amazon, and I have bought dozens of CDs through them. But the other day when I thought to buy a few tracks as MP3s, I was disappointed to get a message that the service is only available to US customers. (I am in Australia.) I can't think of a single good reason why they would need to pursue that strategy other than to enforce DRM in some way. They were happy to sell me a CD of the same thing, but they had made me grumpy, so I took my business elsewhere.
"I've been eager to try The New York Times on the Kindle 2"
Oh right. Like you would have been on the edge of your seat waiting for that.
Either you are a very sad person or you are involved in marketing.
I'd consider buying something like this if it wasn't through Amazon. They've screwed up orders, screwed up shipping, screwed up the Amazon Marketplace transactions, screwed up just about everything imaginable in the past. In one particularly difficult case the only way I managed to get Amazon to even tell me where my package was located was to threaten a lawsuit. I don't care how good this new technology is, I'll happily remain a luddite as long as I don't have to do any business with Amazon again.
mmmm...forbidden donut
How is this even remotely funny and why is it still on the site? I don't mind disagreement with anyone, but this post simply throws up a racist joke for no reason. Somebody delete this crap.
I don't have any inside information, but I can think of a couple very good reasons why they might not be ready to allow DRM-free MP3 downloads outside the US: non-uniform copyright laws and uncooperative copyright holders. For Amazon to actually allow MP3 downloads is not as simple as deciding they want to do it and then doing it. They need to be sure that they are not breaking copyright laws by doing so, which takes lots of lawyers lots of billable hours. They also need agreement from the copyright holders to license them to sell a downloadable copy of the MP3, which takes negotiation. If the copyright holders say no for whatever reason, their hands are tied.
It sucks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Amazon is at fault or involved in anything more nefarious than not wanting to jeopardize their relationships with their content providers.
I looked at the photos, and the resolution is no better than my laptop's! It's like those 'HD' TVs they advertise -- their resolution is no better than my 15 year old CRT TV. Don't fall for this nonsense. What a ripoff.
What if amazon goes under? All those ebooks that I may have bought will be gone. If you look at some of the music DRM services, what happens when Amazon decides not to support the format anymore?
I want an e reader because my books are piling up. But I want the same rights I get for paper books and until I get that I will not buy one. I have some books that are older than me. Now I see people with this e-reader or that e-reader and then a year or two later they have a new one and re-buy all their books.
I want all the benefits of paper books but without wasting all the space on books. Also as a society, what happens if in years people dig up our society and just find these e-readers with a proprietary format? All of our knowledge will be lost whereas with books/tablets at least they can get something to try to translate.
It already runs linux...
Come on batteries to read a book (well maybe at night time, saves on flashlight batteries).
The Kindle, like just about all eBooks, uses an e-paper screen, which doesn't have its own light source. You would still need to provide your own. Not sure if the glare from a flashlight would be a problem though.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
I was looking into buying a Kindle as soon as it becomes available here (Rightpondia), but after reading the license agreement on Amazon, I'm not sure anymore.
Do I understand it correctly, that..
- in case the Kindle should be lost/broken or I buy a newer model, then all books are lost, too?
- in case I switch to a different brand of ebook reader, I'm stuck with a load of unreadable books?
- I cannot loan a book to a friend, except by giving him the whole device?
- I cannot try to remove the DRM, otherwise Amazon will kill my service?
- Amazon is snooping what documents I have on my reader?
If that's correct, then - sorry to say that - it looks like Amazon is telling me: "HA! WE SCREWED YOU!"
Also, who spents 700 a year on newspapers any more?
People who know how to spell "spends"?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It ain't difficult, you're spreading FUD.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
albeit heavier and larger than a kindle, but still doable, the tablet, or something like the nokia N series. Wouldn't those work to read most any format?
Apparently not.
If it were a copyright issue, that would prevent them from selling certain CDs (which indeed it occasionally does), just as certain books are only offered for sale in particular countries.
I just went back and had another look at the message, and it seems to be a blanket operation:
"We could not process your order. The sale of MP3 Downloads is currently available only to US customers located in the 48 contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia." Not very useful.
Waaa, my kindle 2 screen got scratched, and amazon.com needs better customer service! Oh yeah, and reading the times on it is ok, so long as the articles aren't boring.
Buy books from fictionwise.com in DRM-free .mobi format.
Copy books onto Kindle via USB.
Problem solved.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
No copyright infringement. You aren't copying it. :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
When I saw that the link was to a technology blog, my first thought was maybe I should subscribe to it. Then the guy spends 425 words on a particularly lame rant about a supposed product defect (if it's defective, why didn't he return it for a refund instead of demanding that Amazon replace it?) and customer service that refused to see it his way.
Lost interest in the rest of the post, never mind subscribing to the blog. Bloggers really need to get over themselves.
How'd you buy anything from Amazon, genius? Yeah, with your account. Same with every fucking website in the world these days.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I understand eInk. What I don't understand is people like you who think they have cornered the market on understanding.
First of all, about LCDs and Jeff Bezos. You heard all that shit Bezos told you, like looking into a flashlight? Remember one thing Jeff Bezos is selling you something. Of course he has phrases that make the competition sound like getting bamboo shoved under your fingernails. That doesn't make them true. I've worked with computers for quite some time. I've spent far more time in my life starting at computer displays than staring at pages in a book. I can safely tell you that if LCD is worse than reading eInk, it's at least good enough that I can do 10-12 hours of it easy. So that makes LCD a-ok in my book.
And yes, I've used a Kindle. I even used a Kindle 2 last Tuesday, the day it came out (have friends who work on it).
What people like you are refusing to understand is some of us don't like buying a separate device for each task. You're talking about a world where many people don't even wear watches anymore. I could buy a watch, a pager, a cell phone, a PDA and a music player. But I didn't. I don't want to pay for them, don't want to carry them. I've got one device, which although not perhaps perfect at all these jobs, can do them quite well.
And this same thing applies to Kindle, especially when it's more expensive than anything I mentioned in that list above. eInk is pretty, great. But I fail to see why I should spend $360 for what it offers. And others telling me "I just don't get it" doesn't change my mind.
BTW, the cover/case for the new Kindle 2 is really nice. It's ridiculous Amazon thinks they can charge extra for it. They should ship it with a cut-down, non-leatherette cover or something, because that display does not feel like it will last uncovered. It's just too big for starters, it increases the possibility of it coming into contact with the one piece of metal swimming around in your bag that you forgot about.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Fortunately, the slashdot administrators will never delete a comment unless it is messing with the formatting of the page. See: http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm150 .
Good for people like me who value everyone's right to free speech, bad for people like you who get into a hissy fit when they see something they disagree with on the internet.
If patriotism is racist, is racism patriotic?
It's a pretty good product--the only bad thing about it is from the publisher's standpoint, since IIRC it requires you to prepare your books in a new format (which is a not-insignificant undertaking) and Amazon has near-complete control over the pricing structure. (The pricing structure thing hurts authors, too.)
Speaking as an author who's had to deal with format issues, I'm hear to tell you that they have to do it anyway.
Don't want to overstate my experience as a mass-market writer. Most of what I've written is obscure, boring technical documentation only a few specialists ever read. But a couple years ago, I got a writing contract with Sun to help update the Java Tutorial, which had been neglected for a really long time. This document is still authored in a kludgy preprocessed HTML system designed over a decade ago. The preprocessor (which was somebody's very first Perl program!) is this evil thing that was designed to generate both web content and PDFs for the printed version. I'm just good enough with Perl and HTML/CSS to update the web generator so the tutorial pages had a more modern look and feel, but I would have been totally out of my depth making the PDF generator work.
Fortunately, that wasn't my problem. For this revision, Sun had agreed with the publisher that converting the HTML into PDF was the publisher's job. Instead of trying to get our old, kludgy setup working, they hired this consultant to convert our HTML to XML, which could then be fed into an off-the-shelf XSL-FO processor to create the PDF. I was extremely skeptical that he could pull this off, but in fact he did an excellent job.
The really ironic part was that the PDF then got converted back to HTML for the Safari Books Online version. Although I'm reasonable proud of the look and feel I created for the original version, Safari's version is better.
The bottom line here is that publishers already have to think about delivering to multiple formats: PDF, HTML (with automatically generated navigation), WAP, and now eBooks. It's helpful, but not absolutely necessary, that the original content be authored in XML or SGML. The main reason to use these formats actually has more to do with maintaining large document bases and reusing content.
This reviews reads a bit like "Misdeeds of the tobacco", by Anton Tchekov.
We are promised a review of how well the Kindle is suited to read the new york times on a daily basis, but the author spends a few paragraphs right off the bat informing us that he shoved his kindle in a bag with other junk (candy bars?) and scratched the screen, and then is surprised Amazon will not outright send him a new one to compensate. He even repeats it in the "the screen" section.
I don't know, but I spent a while thinking "yeah that's good to know and all, but where's the New York Times in there? Why is he trying so hard to justify how he scratched the screen?
Sure the author meant to say "Unfortunately I scrathed my Kindle display after less than 24 hours." I'm pretty certain that if you left the device sitting on the table scratches would not start appearing like some bad stop frame animation horror scene.
If I have a PDF --> MOBI converter (do they exist? dunno) I could conceivably do it without involving Amazon.
I was actually incorrect in my original post, as you don't have to email Amazon if uploading TXT to your Kindle. (you can, of course, if you'd like to zap it straight into the Kindle instead of connecting it to your computer)
*shrug* They're offering a conversion service, but it requires sending it along to Amazon.
Now, you can dislike the Kindle for the DRM or lock-in; I understand that. The objections raised here, however, aren't really accurate. Plus you're watering down the real issues (DRM, lock-in) with horseshit issues.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
The objections raised here, however, aren't really accurate. Plus you're watering down the real issues (DRM, lock-in) with horseshit issues.
Again with the insults. Why was it "horseshit," by universal agreement, to be forced to use Sony's proprietary transcoding program on .MP3 files, while it's perfectly cromulent to be forced to email .PDFs to Amazon?
My understanding is that no, there's no conversion app that you can run yourself to put .PDFs on your Kindle. If this is incorrect, then my bad. If true, then I stand by my assertion that it's stupid to release an e-reader that won't read a more-or-less open, universally standardized document format. It makes no more sense than releasing a portable music player that can't handle .MP3 files natively.
I enjoy my Kindle... but the one big gripe I have is that they charge for content (newspapers and blogs... INCLUDING Slashdot!) that is available free on the internet. I guess the rational is that they have to process it into searchable Kindle format... but why bother. Read it on your laptop / desktop for free and use the Kindle for electronic books. I might spring for professional magazines / journals if more specialized material was available though.
*LoL*
The equivalent is complaining that iTunes encodes everything in AAC format. Sure it does, but you can change it to MP3 if you wish, and iPods play MP3s without batting an eye. (MOBI is a supported Kindle format)
The PDF issue - I'll concede the point that the Kindle should read PDFs somehow that doesn't involve mailing them to Amazon. The bigger issue is that the Kindle has trouble with PDFs, period. The whole email shenanigans is really a side effect.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
The laws that cover reselling a CD are very very different (or, rather, in some cases are very very different) from those that cover selling a digital copy of a CD, so it's not that simple. Operating any operation internationally is very complicated. You have to ensure compliance with differing laws, shipping systems, customs, etc. The benefit of selling to a market has to outweigh the substantial costs of legally doing business in that market before it makes sense. Furthermore, even within the US, the actual interpretation of the laws that govern digital music sales has not been settled, adding risk-based costs to the assessment.
Add on that selling digital music is still a business in its infancy and I don't see why there has to be talk of anything more complicated than proving a model in one market before taking on the complexity of carrying it into other markets.
Isn't that just Mr. Pot calling Mr. Kettle a nigger.
Actually it wasn't. My vitriol was germane to the discussion, the original comment wasn't.
Much like your attempt to bait me with the N word was germane to my post, so I could see it had some relevance (although it was a faulty analysis).
Moderate it all you want. I'm still right