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Old 05-08-2009, 06:55 PM   #1
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Google Books
Has anyone tried to download the Google scan books yet? I can't try this out because I have not registered my 505 with the Sony Store yet. I would like to know if the Google books are worth giving up my anonymity.
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Old 05-09-2009, 02:34 AM   #2
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Well, I believe the epub books at the Sony ebook store are the same as the pdf versions on google. So you can browse through the main Google Book site to get an idea of what is available at the sony site.
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Old 05-09-2009, 09:28 AM   #3
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You don't have to register your PRS. You don't even have to own one. All you have to do is create an account and indicate you live in the US. Then you can download to your heart's content.

I've downloaded dozens. There are errors, of course, since they're unedited OCRs, but I do find that the ability to read books otherwise unavailable more than makes up for it.
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Old 05-09-2009, 10:52 AM   #4
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I've downloaded dozens. There are errors, of course, since they're unedited OCRs, but I do find that the ability to read books otherwise unavailable more than makes up for it.
OCR?

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Old 05-09-2009, 10:56 AM   #5
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OCR?

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"Optical Character Recognition". it's a computer program which interprets a scanned image of text by "recognizing" the characters. it's notorious for coming up with errors, particularly in the case of bad scans, italic text, fancy fonts with ligatures... common errors are seeing "d" instead of "cl" for example.
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Old 05-09-2009, 10:57 AM   #6
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OCR?

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OCR = Optical Character recognition. The books are scanned as PDFs. Then OCR software attempts to translate that back into words. It always makes some mistakes.
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Old 05-11-2009, 04:52 PM   #7
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When I got my email announcement of the free Google books, they said the 500 model was not included --- at this time. Well, darn. I ordered the Sony Reader as soon as there was hope of getting one, so I have a 500. Anyone know what the problem is, or whether they'll have a solution for this?
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Old 05-11-2009, 04:55 PM   #8
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I believe it is because the the Google books are epub and epubs cannot be read on the 500.
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Old 05-11-2009, 06:55 PM   #9
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I believe it is because the the Google books are epub and epubs cannot be read on the 500.

But they are nonDRMed epubs, so conversion through Calibre is easy as pie!

So yes, they are formatted for the 505, but they're actually usable and available to just about anyone (as long as you are or pretend to be in the US).

There are some quite nice things there, too. I just found a fully illustrated copy of George MacDonald's 'At the Back of the North Wind.' Haven't had a chance to see how the illustrations show up on my 505 yet, but they look nice and pretty on my computer.
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