Actualy Amazon has left it for to long so that there Masterplan to destroy Mobipocket (there own daughter) became apparent.
Think about if: Amazon bought mobipocket a few years ago. So basicly one corporation and still Kindle won't read encrypted Mobipocket files and Mobipocket won't read encrypted Kindle files.
You want to entrust your encrytped eBooks to a company which displays that kind of behavior?
And best thing: Mobipocket and Kindle files difference ony in one byte. A kind of kindle flag. And yes you can change it:
Takes about ten seconds with a command line program to make them compatible though.
If you live in a country where this is allowed.
But you are pointing out some interestingt detail here: The same "command line" is used to hack Kindle and Mobipocket files. And once they are hacked they are identical.
There is no technical reason why Amazon created a new format for Kindle. There are almost the same. The Kindle format only exist to create a seperate closed market for Kindle.
And while this works in the States - International Users are rather pissed of by now. So are current Mobipocket user [1] - most of which see true Amazons masterplan.
I guess you want to be funny but you lost me. After all the Mighty-Mouse is out for quite a while and it is quite aesthetically pleasing - If you don't know that it is a 4 button mouse you would hardly notice.
Ahh that's it: You don't try to be funny, you just don't know that the Mighty-Mouse has 4 buttons.
But then everybody must know that by now. Well, you just lost me here.
All true. Put my point still holds as Amazon Kindle uses a slightly changed Mobipocket format which is even more restricted. Of course if you break DRM they are both the same again.
Instead of all readers apart from Sony it's only Kindle and nothing else. That is certainly not an improvement.
Besides: why am I not surprised that the Sony reader won't read Mobipocket? Well obviously, because it's Sony, the company which brought us the memory stick and atrac3.
I don't mind eBook readers. What I do mind is reduction of choice or unnecessary and incompatible changes to an established file format.
Mobipocket can be read on various eBook devices, Windows PCs, PDAs and Smartphones. Mobipocket. You can buy Mobipocket eBooks from about a dozen shops - most of which even features in the Mobipocket software them self.
Mobipocket was inviting other companies to join in.
And what did Amazon do after they purchased Mobipocket? A minor but incompatible change to the file format and reduction to just one device.
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
I don't know of any application which can do that. With current operating systems almost impossible. But browser based applications are a different matter. Here it could work.
As much as I hate to say: JavaScript is a programming language and there are quite a few very nifty JavaScript applications out there. If you cache the JavaScript applications then you might violate the patent.
I know. I have not seen a valid software patent. This one is almost impossible to implement. Apart from Web-2 applications. And this is probably why it popped up.
If everybody is stockpiling software patents then you have to as well. Or you are at the mercy of those have. A bit like the nuclear arms race - evil but once you started there is no stopping.
Slashdot Mirror
Actualy Amazon has left it for to long so that there Masterplan to destroy Mobipocket (there own daughter) became apparent.
Think about if: Amazon bought mobipocket a few years ago. So basicly one corporation and still Kindle won't read encrypted Mobipocket files and Mobipocket won't read encrypted Kindle files.
You want to entrust your encrytped eBooks to a company which displays that kind of behavior?
And best thing: Mobipocket and Kindle files difference ony in one byte. A kind of kindle flag. And yes you can change it:
http://igorsk.blogspot.com/2007/12/mobipocket-books-on-kindle.html
But that does not make Amazon a more tustworthy company.
Actualy Tramiel was owner number three. All went down when Nolan sold Atari to Warner Brother.
Martin
Takes about ten seconds with a command line program to make them compatible though.
If you live in a country where this is allowed.
But you are pointing out some interestingt detail here: The same "command line" is used to hack Kindle and Mobipocket files. And once they are hacked they are identical.
There is no technical reason why Amazon created a new format for Kindle. There are almost the same. The Kindle format only exist to create a seperate closed market for Kindle.
And while this works in the States - International Users are rather pissed of by now. So are current Mobipocket user [1] - most of which see true Amazons masterplan.
But actualy this would be worth an own /. article.
Martin
[1] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1221441&cid=27826617
Amazons Reader won't even read all of Amazons own formats. Remember Amazon bought Mobipocket yet Kindle won't read Mobipocket DRM protected files.
And then you expect them to read other companies formats? You must be kidding.
Martin
Well, our main problem was that all buttons where set to the same function. Took us some time to figure that out.
Apart from that my wive is quite happy with her mighty mouse. On the other hand: I use a Microsoft Natural Desktop set.
Note that I never said that the mighty mouse is perfect - I only comented on available its features - not how good they are.
Martin
I guess you want to be funny but you lost me. After all the Mighty-Mouse is out for quite a while and it is quite aesthetically pleasing - If you don't know that it is a 4 button mouse you would hardly notice.
Ahh that's it: You don't try to be funny, you just don't know that the Mighty-Mouse has 4 buttons.
But then everybody must know that by now. Well, you just lost me here.
Well hat depends on the kind of driver you need. As an OS X user I can tell you that USB driver work fine in VMWare.
And what other driver do you need? Sound is virtualized, Graphic is virtualized. Harddrive is vitualized.
Nope - never missed driver support in a virtual mashine.
All true. Put my point still holds as Amazon Kindle uses a slightly changed Mobipocket format which is even more restricted. Of course if you break DRM they are both the same again.
Instead of all readers apart from Sony it's only Kindle and nothing else. That is certainly not an improvement.
Besides: why am I not surprised that the Sony reader won't read Mobipocket? Well obviously, because it's Sony, the company which brought us the memory stick and atrac3.
I don't mind eBook readers. What I do mind is reduction of choice or unnecessary and incompatible changes to an established file format.
Mobipocket can be read on various eBook devices, Windows PCs, PDAs and Smartphones.
Mobipocket. You can buy Mobipocket eBooks from about a dozen shops - most of which even features in the Mobipocket software them self.
Mobipocket was inviting other companies to join in.
And what did Amazon do after they purchased Mobipocket? A minor but incompatible change to the file format and reduction to just one device.
A good mobile phone can be used to read eBooks. And that is not at all expensive and clumsy.
I know it is off topic but I hate amazon for breaking the mobipocket idea of "read on the device you already own" to push there Kindle thingy.
So stupid - got the whole infrastructure for platform in-depended eBooks when they purchased mobipocket and they broke it.
Where I live - or more importantly - where my credit card lives there is no "Movies" in the iTunes store. Nor is there "TV-Shows".
But I somehow blame the movie industry for that. I am sure Steve would love to sell movies and TV shows in Switzerland.
If and only if they're able to pull it off. It's also a nice way to end your carreer if you fail.
Just change company before failure becomes apparent. Then you prepared it all so well and successor just it all up.
Yes indeed - Chome could easily update large parts of itself without interruptions. Of course that does not mean they do.
Apart from the sexual reference I agree with you.
Really, how would we know for sure?
http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
Yes I know, no one will ever check all the traffic.
Starting and Stopping Word as fast as a memory swap?
Ok for very small applications it works. And this is the problem: W3C want's to use it for Widget.
Right - but the user must not notice. So it will only work for very small applications which load very fast.
I think so too. This is what it is all about.
This is the third time I quote this:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
I don't know of any application which can do that. With current operating systems almost impossible. But browser based applications are a different matter. Here it could work.
As much as I hate to say: JavaScript is a programming language and there are quite a few very nifty JavaScript applications out there. If you cache the JavaScript applications then you might violate the patent.
I know. I have not seen a valid software patent. This one is almost impossible to implement. Apart from Web-2 applications. And this is probably why it popped up.
I know. The content of the patent is almost impossible to implement with current operating systems.
If everybody is stockpiling software patents then you have to as well. Or you are at the mercy of those have. A bit like the nuclear arms race - evil but once you started there is no stopping.
Let me quote the important and not at all minor difference:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
Updating a running program without interruption is everything but trivial.
I don't know of any update system which fulfils:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
Do you?