Google eBooks-Integrated E-reader Out On Sunday
minutetraders sends word of an announcement from Google. Quoting: "Starting this coming Sunday, July 17, the iriver Story HD e-reader will be available for sale in Target stores nationwide and on Target.com. The iriver Story HD is the first e-reader integrated with the open Google eBooks platform."
It appears iriver has released source for the GPL components on the device, unlike the last time around.
Since when is WiFi considered "OTA"? Wi-Fi is a fine feature but it is a lame marketing tactic to use it in a context where it suggests that you have cell coverage when you don't.
What's the point? I mean, if I click on a link that shows me some gross picture, I don't get all upset about it; I just close the tab and move on with life. Do you derive enjoyment from wasting a few seconds of my time every now and then? It just doesn't seem very significant.
That person is a child, do not expect sense.
You don't get upset, but many do. I keep a list of their responses. I can wank over it for hours.:
Funny: ... new account to post that ... what a douche!"
"O neat, you quoted me! Now I have to ask, why do you do this? seriously whats the motivation?"
"1999 called they want their overused shock pictures back."
"Parent post is a goatsex picture. Do not follow. You're an asshole of the proportions in that picture."
"Link above is to goatse. Fuck you douchebag."
"Turn on TinyUrl previews. It saves lives."
"Ugh. Goatse. NSFW. Asshole (poster and picture, both)."
"Seriously
"You're a fucking douchbag." - "That is the most accurate comment yet"
"Not gonna click it to find out, but I'd be surprised if parent's link wasn't goatse... It appears you would be correct sir. Why oh why do I always forget..."
"My word, what is wrong with your anus? I'd get that checked out."
"It's because of Assholes like you that I can no longer trust URL shorteners"
"Thanks, I'm reading slashdot in class like a good student and just got tubgirl'd."
"Watching second monitor, there was something wrong with the other screen. Control + w. Phew..."
"Hey family! Come look! They're opening the Google Talk client! Now, click here......" (sees goatse)
"I tried to post warnings about the goaste loving jerk yesterday but was modded into oblivion as a karma whore"
"Posting your picture online again?", "Really? Are you not tired of this yet?"
(Me posts goatse link and tells that it is SFW): "You mean NSFW asshole."
"Can you not afford normal entertainment?" "This is grown up talk, 4chan is that way ->"
"Oops. goatse link" - "The AC speaks truth! (Well I didn't let it finish loading, but the browser was connecting to goatse.ru...)"
"He likes his urinal cakes nice and sudsy, so he tries to piss us off."
"Link is Goatse" - "Thanks. Does nerd soccer attract nerWhy the fuck would you post something like that? Warning to all: scatology in its worst form. Do not look.d hooligans?"
"You must be really bored, eh? Take your shit somewhere else. We don't serve your kind around here."
Hate:
"Motherfucker. Some of us are at work and don't want to have a drilled out anus pop up on their fucking screen. Christ."
"BAN HIM!" "Ur a faggot for posting that."
"Death to all assholes - Let's put you first into the guillotine"
"You fucker" - "I had the same thought as you. What a fucking asshole. The link is nsfw."
"I hate your guts.", "WTF you fucking asshole.", "Fucking troll, do not click there"
"I hope you die in a fire before you are old enough to contaminate the gene pool."
"It would be more interesting if I had a piece of pipe and your face, in close proximity so I could smash your face beyond recognition,"
"Bravo teeny bopper. You're a really mature mother fucker (or do you prefer father fucking? Damn you homo erotic shittter)."
"Wait! I think I hear your mommy calling to give your tongue a good soap washing. And maybe she'll execute you too"
"I did not even bother to look, but this same idiot has been doing this for weeks now. Fuck off asshole."
"Asshole. literally. Goatse is so old. Grow up you fool."
"Asshole... Ginormous asshole, in fact." "Ugh. Goatse. You asshole."
"Better than you, you arse bandit." "You're a lowlife faggot piece of shit."
"Ah, a sheep troll. "Baaa! I post disgusting photos! Baaa!"
"I hate you"
"First time testemonies:
"Wow, all these years I managed to avoid seeing the goatse.cx guy, priding myself on my resilience to clicking on random image links from friends and trolls alike, taking comfort in the fact that I could identify a shock JPG based on a few lines of pixels while the holding the clipped window at the edge of my screen, and yet... now it's all for naught."
"After all these years, I finally fell for it. Just off to bleach my eyes.. thanks for that."
"Damnit, mod this guy up before GP gets any one else. My eyes, dear god my eyes, I'd managed not to see that until to
What's the point? I mean, if I click on a link that shows me some gross picture, I don't get all upset about it; I just close the tab and move on with life. Do you derive enjoyment from wasting a few seconds of my time every now and then? It just doesn't seem very significant.
I was about to ask the same question. I got on the internet in the mid-90's, there ain't much that's gonna "shock" me nowadays. What's the point?
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Google Books are in the Adobe DRM format. I've already had a bellyful of that. You must have it In order to check out ebooks from the local library. Which means that only Windows and Mac OS machines can do do. Some of us do quite well on other platforms, thankyouverymuch.
B&N recently did a stealth upgrade of the Nook OS that wiped out all my settings. After recreating them, the Adobe book manager refused flatly to re-acknowledge my Nook and the book I'd just checked out was useless, as would be all future checkouts. It didn't love my Nook anymore and never would again.
I deleted the Adobe software, powered the Windows box back down and found a Gutenberg ePub on my main computer. Screw it. The whole library ebook concept is fatally flawed. Who in their right mind would believe that you need a waiting queue for an ebook?
I tolerate the Nook's ePub DRM because if (or more likely when) they move on, I can decrypt the books I've bought and continue to enjoy them instead of having my entire library evaporate overnight.
And NO I don't go for eBooks with a shrink-wrapped EULA in them either. Treat me with respect and I'll keep buying books. Don't expect me to pay hardbound prices, and realize that often the difference between "ShareMe" and not shareable will make or break a purchase.
It's going to be hard to beat swiping across a touch-screen to change pages.
I had a chance to check out the iRiver Story HD (at CES 2011 and recently) and it is a good product, on par with other e-readers today (though I think I still prefer the Kindle and the side buttons, even if the screen was a little better). I just wish it and Google eBooks were available in Canada so we would have some good competition in the e-books realm. I'm looking at publishing my first novel (Rawmesh, http://www.rawmesh.net/ [rawmesh.net]) soon and want to have it primarily as an e-book (and print on demand), but I would like a few more options up here sooner rather than later...
I tend to like iRiver’s products, though I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of how this e-reader looks -- and I’m not the only one (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/07/google-and-iriver-make-worlds-ugliest-e-reader/). One issue I have is with Google’s epub eBooks themselves -- sometimes the OCR software is having a bad day, and the books have some odd (or hilarious) mistakes in them. Evil or not, I’m sticking with Amazon (for now).
$140 isn't all that much, plus its open-source. I've been wondering if these e-book readers are any good, and this seems like a pretty good deal, not to mention the Google books integration. If it turns out that its hacker friendly, I'm definitely getting one.
Unfortunately for Google E-books, Kobo has already released the Touch. It took the compnay 3 tries, but they finally got it right. You can tap the side of the page to turn page (Sony requires a swipe if you use the touch screen, which does becomes tiresome by comparison.)
You probably won't see it on display models, (unfortunately), but with the new firmware update, it also allows you to install your own fonts, (as well as a built in selectoin of 5), as well as the ability to adjust page margins and line height to your comfort. And it sells for less.... so yeah, this device is too little too late.
One usually imagines trolls as being gleeful because they ruined people's day without having to put any effort in.
But here you are putting all this effort into trolling... which makes it more sad, than anything. I mean, about 10 seconds after clicking goatse the person will simply move on with their day; to waste so much time on a pointless endeavor, how bored must you be?
After a year of increasing interest, I'll be buying a reader or tablet this week. I almost pulled the trigger 3x this weekend, but each time found a better deal on a better model -- though ultimately, *any* of the the three, in hand by the end of next week, will be adequate
I was excited to read about this release. It felt like a serendipitous alignment until I realized that I wouldn't have actual possession of ANY file, just a 'service' feeding me a page at a time -- and Google is quite clear that it logs each page I read and when (it touts this as a feature, saying they record it so I can pick up on the same page of each of my ebooks on any other device).
Do I want to be cut off from all my eBooks in wifi or wireless outage? No. That's when I'll want a book or manual most --- during an outage, in a plane, in the woods, in a lab or shielded room... Do I want anyone monitoring and recording exactly what pages I read or re-read and how often, tech or fiction? Nope.
I'm amazed /.ers take this so lightly
So much for serendipitous fortune. This reader is off my list, until it's hacked to keep Google OUT unless invited
Features I'm waiting for before I buy an e-book reader:
1. I'm not touching anything with DRM, because any book I buy with DRM is virtually guaranteed to be unreadable in four years.
2. A decent selection of books.
3. Good support for books with equations in them.
Iriver apparently fails #1. The WP article on google ebooks says it's touted as open, but actually uses DRM.
A quick search for books by an author I like shows that only a small fraction of his books are available, so fail on #2 as well.
All epub-based formats basically fail #3. Dunno about the formats supported by google ebooks.
Find free books.
It will be a hit! Just like the Nexus One was...
The first rule of any internet forum is DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Although I can't comment on the iRiver Story, I do have the Cover Story. For anyone interested, these are my thoughts on it:
The technical specs were (for me) pretty much perfect. It was most definitely a purchase made on specs, rather than having the product in my hand prior to buying it. But I have a lot of niggles - which renders the device somewhat less than perfect...
First, the good stuff. DRM is not an issue - for me, at least. That is an Adobe thing, and I don't have any DRM'd PDFs. The device should handle most of the (normal) formats you can throw at it. It is touch screen, with WiFi.
But that's all. Forget the "Open Source" crap. Sure, it's linux. But the download link is an odd .jpg of the GNU preamble, with an iframe for the actual license text. The links to sources are odd javascript, pointing to old versions hosted god-knows where. I can't see the tool-chain and anything else required to actually compile a working binary. Not that that would help, because I haven't worked out how to gain root access - which you need to. The fonts installed are useless for anything other than standard US English (major complaint).
What else? Crap battery life. Turn off the WiFi, and you might get 24 hours of reading time (but I can't). I know some people complain about the touch screen, but I can live with that, just.
All in all, the average user should avoid this device like the plague. Hell, I'd even recommend the kindle above this, at least for usability (despite the kindle/1984 intrusion). *If* someone manages to write a HOWTO about jailbreaking it, and compiling user software (or iRiver have a more helpful attitude), then it *might* be an interesting toy. DRM on this device is so insignificant a problem that you can ignore it - I suspect that Google would not really want to promote this ability, anyway. It's the encrypted kernel firmware that gets my goat.
No audio, so it can't double as an MP3 player like Kindle. You can't use it to read audio books, which is a great thing to do while driving the car. Amazon downloads Audible.com books directly via Wifi into Kindle.
I like the better display, and the Wifi download, and the SD card slot.
I'd like it more if I could be sure it's running Android, like the Nook, so I can maintain the OS after they stop doing so. I see some GPL, but can it be built and installed on the device?
Sorry, but it's missing some of the key things that Kindle has, so it doesn't compete well, at least not for me.
If I'm wrong about any of these facts, blame the website, where they don't seem to like going into much detail. Oh, and buy an 's' once in a while will you? A plural word like "Products" is what we expect when referring to more than one Product, Feature or Specification. Bad English isn't stylish, it's annoying.
Words, words, words
Is it just me or does it look almost exactly like a Kindle? Even the fonts are the same.
Do I want to be cut off from all my eBooks in wifi or wireless outage?
Without even looking at the specs, it's a safe bet to assume that there's gonna be a cache for offline reading on that thing.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I just think this is a step backwards for Google. Shouldn't they be investing in the future of the Cloud by embracing what makes eBooks and everything else about Google great? We need companies like Google to resist the temptation to compete directly with the Kindle and think more seriously about expanding their already widely accessible media content. If I can already read eBooks on my laptop, my iPad and my Android phone, then why do I need a specialized device?
Check out our full response on our blog: http://bit.ly/oNIRQR
The most popular shoes, however, continues to be the Air Jordan , regardless of how many years Michael Jordan has been retired.