Wish I could see the future (aka Newbie making a choice)

[texasnightowl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Then there is the Astak ones coming out with eReader or Mobipocket using 6" and 9.7" screens.

Do we have dates on the Astak's yet? Seems like dates kept slipping. Is this hopefully by October now?

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

Sony. Best price. Nice looking. Easily available. Don't have to ship to France for warranty issues. Not 1st gen. hardware.



Kindle or Cybook.

As for features...I don't need a dictionary or wifi or the ability to annotate. I just want to read. Must be nice to know the definition of every word in the English language. I thought I was pretty literate until I started reading Aldous Huxley. Was using the dictionary every third page. I'm sure there are other books out there I will need the dictionary for also. And they make it so easy to use.....As for WiFi....makes downloading books directly to the Kindle so easy...whether from Amazon or other sites....and for free...






I really wish readers were under $200...that is a price point at which I would just take a jump without overthinking it. Wait for it......it'll happen! Really!!

As for the Kindle, I probably would go for it despite the "proprietary mobi format" if it a) wasn't $359 and b) was less ugly. I have seen one in person...granted for only a couple minutes...but a friend bought one and brought it into work and I couldn't believe how cheap and ugly it seemed. Maybe it grows on you?

Cheap and Ugly? 'sigh. I give up. Really, you don't want a Kindle. Why would anyone want something they would be ashamed to carry around? Go with something else....

[manchuia]

I actually really laughed at the "30 - 40 years" comment. Not in a mean spirited way, but .. just sit and do the math.

30 years ago was 1979.

If you spent 2000- 3000 on a computer back then (which early adopters / companies did) and then tried to use it for ANYTHING a computer (even an iphone) is used for today. You would be dissapointed.

30 - 40 years from now I don't hope to be using the same reader I am now. I really don't expect to be using the same reader 3- 4 years from now.

The DRM issue should not be a primary one as there will always be somebody out there who (if even for a price) will figure out a way to break it open for you and allow you to move your purchases to a different machine.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

Elsi - Thanks for the offer! But actually, I don't live in Texas currently. I am in North Carolina right now and though I plan to get back to Texas eventually, it hasn't happened yet except for vacations to see my folks. But thanks!

Errr... I'm in Raleigh through Thursday. Want to meet me some night to see my Kindle and talk about my coming Sony?

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by manchuia

30 - 40 years from now I don't hope to be using the same reader I am now. I really don't expect to be using the same reader 3- 4 years from now.

The DRM issue should not be a primary one as there will always be somebody out there who (if even for a price) will figure out a way to break it open for you and allow you to move your purchases to a different machine.

Well, that's the key. I'm not using the computer I was in the early 80's, but I do have text files that I created back then.

I don't expect to be using the same devices years from now, but I do expect to be able to read any eBooks I have "purchased." Which is why I won't buy any books with DRM that I can't remove.

[manchuia]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

Well, that's the key. I'm not using the computer I was in the early 80's, but I do have text files that I created back then.

I don't expect to be using the same devices years from now, but I do expect to be able to read any eBooks I have "purchased." Which is why I won't buy any books with DRM that I can't remove.

Still doesn't seem like a really legitimate concern. You still use a text viewer / editor to read .txt files (no matter the OS) all you are concerned about is having an appropriate program to read the files you have.

Unless you do something horrible to your reader, you will always have a device that will read your DRM materials. Just load them onto your 30 year old reader and have at it.

Now being upset that a company doesn't have it in their best interests to have you be able to read a file bought from it on some machine 30 years from now just seems a little.. silly .. to me.

You have the means today, and in 30 years from now (if the product is still running) you have the means then. Text files may have survived the 30 year transition, but there are a myriad of other files that did not.

Would you be this upset if you bought a PC and software and then upgraded to a Mac to find you can't transfer the programs that you paid for?

[DDHarriman]

Me too!!! (Wish I could see the future…)
Sorry I could not resist to that.

Formats, well, you have at least one: PDF/A (Standard ISO-19005-1).

It’s designed exactly to guarantee that any file compliant with it is self sufficient and can be read in any hardware and software platform existing 30, 100, you name it years from now.

More info in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A
or
http://www.pdf-tools.com/public/down...paper-pdfa.pdf

Problem: none of today’s readers let us read these files totally without a problem.

Once this is resolved… this can be a sustained solution, as PDF/A is a “Electronic document file format for long term preservation”.

[iterati]

PDF is rather anachronistic format, it turns us back to paper and page logic (well OK e-ink readers use pages too but in that case the page is dynamic, it builds it at run time according to user preferences). As I mentoned only plain text is secure for the future, no DRM and other idiocies.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by manchuia

Would you be this upset if you bought a PC and software and then upgraded to a Mac to find you can't transfer the programs that you paid for?

First, I'm not upset at all.

Second, I make a distinction between software and data, so the Mac/PC difference wouldn't bother me -- though with virtualization of operating systems these days, it's not as big an issue at any rate.

I consider ebooks as data -- and like the other important data I plan to keep around, I use the most open formats possible -- and my truly key data has indeed followed me through many generations of hardware and different operating systems.

[DDHarriman]

I agree with bwaldron here: For me the eBook is the content, not where and how I access to it.
What I want - and have the right to, as I have bought it - is to preserve the content.

The technology on where I access that content comes and goes… well in the case of pBooks, it as maintained itself almost the same for the last 500 years… and now is time to go on, because we need new ways to access to that type of content that serve us better.

About the anachronism of PDF, hey I teach digital libraries and up to the moment PDF begun having reflow text (tagging in adobe lingo), I would not considered it an eBook format at all.

Still, it offers it now, it’s an ISO norm for long term preservation, and that is much more then any of the other formats can put on the table today.
I do not say it’s the solution - what comes from the market will be the solution - but it’s a strong option for the resolution of this particular problem.

Best regards,

[manchuia]

I have to disagree. The ebooks are the software. You buy Photoshop, World Of Warcraft, Final Cut, but you don't expect any of those to work on the system they were not designed for. The data is the output of your interaction with the software. In photoshop it's a .psd file, with reading it's your memory of the book.

If you owned a paper copy of a book in English, and all of a sudden the world only spoke and wrote in japanese, would you feel like English was a DRM system that was not future proof?

There are two reasons I am really not up in arms about DRM

1.) I am young. I have grown up with computers and fast changing technology and (like I said earlier) don't expect anything but my memories of my interactions with previous technology to be relevant 3 - 4 years from now. I still have software I wrote on 5 1/4 " disks that I can't use on anything but the original machines it was designed for, and I really don't care as I still own the disk (as worthless as it may be) and I still have the memories of the fun I had designing the software. That is my data.

2.) Even if there is a major shift in DRM or encoding practices, the original machines will still be around. If you look for it you can find a BetaMax player, hook it up to an old television and still watch the DRM Beta tapes you bought into. If Amazon folds, you can find a kindle, some extra batteries, and pull the books off your SD card. The fact that it works now means that ownership is guaranteed for as long as you have the ability to recreate the environment.

Being put off that it wont work in a spectacularly new environment, again, just seems silly.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by manchuia

I have to disagree. The ebooks are the software. You buy Photoshop, World Of Warcraft, Final Cut, but you don't expect any of those to work on the system they were not designed for. The data is the output of your interaction with the software. In photoshop it's a .psd file, with reading it's your memory of the book.

Not really debating the issue here ... but I've got real problems with your analogy. If Photoshop is the software and the *.psd file is the data, then what is your memory of the image??

For me the analogy would be Mobicreator is the software, the *.prc file is the data, and your memory of the book is something else entirely.

But, even given that a ebook is data, you can never be absolutely guaranteed to have data with formatting or images and metadata to be readable across all software platforms. Companies are always going to be producing proprietary formats as long as there is a profit to be made from doing so.

You will always be taking a gamble of some sort in purchasing operating systems, software, or even data such as ebooks. There is always the possibility of obsolesence. It just goes with the territory.

For now ... I'm fine with the DRM protected books that I have purchased from Amazon, and I love my Kindle. If for some reason support for the Kindle goes bye-bye and I am forced to use some other reader that doesn't see the DRM protected files ... then I'll worry about stripping the DRM off at that point. Right now, it's simply not a big issue for me.

[manchuia]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Not really debating the issue here ... but I've got real problems with your analogy. If Photoshop is the software and the *.psd file is the data, then what is your memory of the image??

For me the analogy would be Mobicreator is the software, the *.prc file is the data, and your memory of the book is something else entirely.

But, even given that a ebook is data, you can never be absolutely guaranteed to have data with formatting or images and metadata to be readable across all software platforms. Companies are always going to be producing proprietary formats as long as there is a profit to be made from doing so.

You will always be taking a gamble of some sort in purchasing operating systems, software, or even data such as ebooks. There is always the possibility of obsolesence. It just goes with the territory.

For now ... I'm fine with the DRM protected books that I have purchased from Amazon, and I love my Kindle. If for some reason support for the Kindle goes bye-bye and I am forced to use some other reader that doesn't see the DRM protected files ... then I'll worry about stripping the DRM off at that point. Right now, it's simply not a big issue for me.

Data would be the result of interaction with the software. As the the interaction with a book is reading it, the memory is the data (or result of interaction). Your Mobi.. analogy is also true. Your interaction with the conversion tool creates a data, a .prc file. But then the file becomes software as you interact with it and get new data (memory).

If you are defining data solely as the last bit created by a computer, then you have even less ground as every bit requires specific software to interpret it for us. As such anything with a file extension has a possible limitation (one day there will not be software to interpret the bits) and you are not necessarily griping about the file format but the ability for there to be a usable software interpreter (which again, the Kindle basically is and is the situation Amazon created for you to interpret its file format). You use notepad for .txt .. think of this as a $360 note pad

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by manchuia

Data would be the result of interaction with the software. As the the interaction with a book is reading it, the memory is the data (or result of interaction). Your Mobi.. analogy is also true. Your interaction with the conversion tool creates a data, a .prc file. But then the file becomes software as you interact with it and get new data (memory).

If you are defining data solely as the last bit created by a computer, then you have even less ground as every bit requires specific software to interpret it for us. As such anything with a file extension has a possible limitation (one day there will not be software to interpret the bits) and you are not necessarily griping about the file format but the ability for there to be a usable software interpreter (which again, the Kindle basically is and is the situation Amazon created for you to interpret its file format). You use notepad for .txt .. think of this as a $360 note pad

And the interaction with a picture is seeing it. So ... for me, the analogy still doesn't work.

If I write a book in Wordperfect, since Wordperfect is the program and the result of my interaction with it is a book. Does that book now become data?? No matter what format I put it into?

Then, I still hold that an ebook is data.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Cheap and Ugly? 'sigh. I give up. Really, you don't want a Kindle. Why would anyone want something they would be ashamed to carry around? Go with something else....

Wow. Short and no blood. You're slipping, DG!