Aura HD Kobo Aura HD

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Barty

No, but light in the blue spectrum is known to affect your melatonin level and disturbs your sleep, which is why it is recommended that you not use things like tablets before sleep. Reading with the front light before bed is just the kind of thing that people use the front light for, so it matters whether the light tints blue or yellow.

Or it might not, really. The oft-quoted research showing that tablet use at night-time disrupted melatonin production showed that you needed to use an LCD tablet, no night mode, on full brightness (!!!) for two full hours before there was any disruption. Even at that rather massive level of light exposure, one hour didn't disrupt things.

The current LED-lit ereaders put out a whole lot less light (using sensible settings) at a far less blue level than these experimental conditions used. I suspect that our concerns should be more aesthetic than health-based.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Since I haven't upgraded my copy of ADE to 2.x yet I'm hoping someone can confirm something for me. I thought I'd read that the current generation Kobo's will read DRM'd ePub's from B&N if they're sideloaded using ADE. Correct?

I tried and ADE won't add the book to it's library much less allow me to sideload it to the Kobo. I suspect neither understands the variant on Adobe's DRM scheme used by B&N.

Regards,
David

[speakingtohe]

Could one of the picture posters perhaps start an Aura picture page. There are many useful pictures posted but in 3 fairly long threads they are are not so easy to find again. I would, but cannot find camera and would be tacky I think to copy other peoples great pics

Thanks

Helen

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by meeera

Or it might not, really. The oft-quoted research showing that tablet use at night-time disrupted melatonin production showed that you needed to use an LCD tablet, no night mode, on full brightness (!!!) for two full hours before there was any disruption. Even at that rather massive level of light exposure, one hour didn't disrupt things.

The current LED-lit ereaders put out a whole lot less light (using sensible settings) at a far less blue level than these experimental conditions used. I suspect that our concerns should be more aesthetic than health-based.

I would tend to agree with the second paragraph, but I disagree with the first one. Having said that bear in mind that blue lightwave is a particular culprit in melatonin suppression, it's precisely what's used in s.a.d. boxes.

To go back to why I disagree with the first paragraph. I don't recall reading anywhere about full brightness having been used specifically, and I also don't agree with the assessment that two hours, or an hour and a half is a lot of time one uses a tablet. Also bear in mind two things:
a. The suppression of melatonin was very significant, akin to what a lightbox might have produced.
b. The subjects were healthy volunteers. This is very important. I tend to have sleep problems, and I am aware by now I have some sensitivity to how I modulate my circadian rhythms. I am convinced that if people with sleep sensitivities had been tested in the study instead, the results would be considerably more pronounced in terms of time required to achieve the suppressing effects and these effects would be even more pronounced. And sleep disorders affect a very high percentage of the population.

So the take home message, shouldn't really be, oh, that's just another study exaggerating something for effect, it should rather be don't use your tablets near bedtime, unless you are a model for good sleep habits and sleep quality.

We simply have not evolved to have bright light emitted to our faces before bedtime. The most our ancestors could do would be a small fire to cook something up. But here most of us are going to bed with mini suns shinning on our faces. We are tricking our biochemistry into a lot of trouble this way.

(Now may I please finally have a mirasol/liquavista/pixel qi/whatever non light emmiting notebook to post on instead of sitting in front of the computer and messing up my body clock?)

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm one of those people that has a horrible life because I sleep best from 4am to 11am, while the current world doesn't really give me the chance to do so. (No, it's not "getting used to sleeping from 23:00 to 6:00, because that's what I've been doing for many years, during my work week.) I rarely really sleep except in weekends. The best I can do is slumber. (Not really sleeping, but yet not awake anymore. Somewhere in between...)

It's Sunday now, 1:35 AM. I'll go to bed in about 1,5 hours. Then I'll read for another hour, on a Kindle. When I put the Kindle away, I'll sleep until 10-11 AM (It's still Sunday then, of course.) My Sunday will be great, as was my Saturday.

And monday, hell starts again. (edit: Not to mention, that my Sunday will be short because of going to bed at 23:00, where my Friday is always very, very long.) The usage of computers, tablets, or reading of books before going to bed, or refraining from these things, does not make any difference.

Lol, my brother from another mother! Though I 've never managed a 23:00 to 6.00 am workweek. At best I can wake up at 9.30 am having gone to bed between 3.00 to 4.00 am.

And I do find that computers and tablets, unlike books/kindles exacerbate this, to occasionally hitting the 6 am time frame as opposed to the 3.30-4.30 am one.

[jiminrussell]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I tried and ADE won't add the book to it's library much less allow me to sideload it to the Kobo. I suspect neither understands the variant on Adobe's DRM scheme used by B&N.

Regards,
David

Doesn't B&N use a different ID? rather than Adobe ID you have to use the CC Number and Name associated with the purchase you made from B&N at least that is what the ADE getting started book says.

"Bookseller-specific IDs
Some booksellers use a special form of protection where your book is locked to the bookseller’s ID. For example, Barnes & Noble uses this method. When you buy a book, download to your computer, and open in ADE, you’ll be asked to supply the username and unlock code you use on the bookseller’s web site (for example, for Barnes & Noble, the name and number of the credit card associated with your ebook purchase)"

[meeera]

Whether or not you remember it, Fourl29, the study was done using tablets set to the highest brightness, so I'm not sure what there was in my first paragraph to "disagree" with.

http://www.researchgate.net/publicat...in_suppression

These are clearly not real-world conditions.

You can read more about the study here:

http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=3074

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Yes, but you must use settings the readers can actually set on their own. Forcing the settings to values that one of the readers can't set by themselves, invalidates the comparison for people who don't want to mess around with the internals of the book.

To do a fair comparison, all the settings have to be the same otherwise, it's not a fair comparison. Look at the crappy book that GoodEReader shows us on the Aura. Using that, I'd not even be thinking of the Aura.

If I had to do it with just what the Aura could do by default, then I would never be able to consider one as 1.3 is too much space between lines. Heck, I find 1.2 too big as well. I prefer closer lines.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Since I haven't upgraded my copy of ADE to 2.x yet I'm hoping someone can confirm something for me. I thought I'd read that the current generation Kobo's will read DRM'd ePub's from B&N if they're sideloaded using ADE. Correct?

Not correct.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I tried and ADE won't add the book to it's library much less allow me to sideload it to the Kobo. I suspect neither understands the variant on Adobe's DRM scheme used by B&N.

Regards,
David

I can add B&N ePub's to ADE and open them (after entering name & CC# to decode), but it was my understanding that Adobe was going to do something so that if you then transferred the book to a device using an Adobe ID it would work. Don't remember where I read that except it was in a thread here, but regardless it doesn't do that.

[TechniSol]

To read B&N purchased DRM'd titles on a Kobo, use Calibre with an import plug-in from Apprentice Alf to bypass the DRM and add the book to your Calibre library. The particular epub plug-in requires your name & credit card info just like a B&N reader does.

[RZetlin]

Here's a good review with the Glo and Aura side-by-side. (German only)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dme9AjiNtE

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

Haven't finished the thread, so don't know if someone's addressed this, but you wouldn't have to convert epubs bought from kobo to kepubs....just download the kepub version for any epubs you have, if you prefer that style. Obviously not the case with books bought from amazon...those you need to convert to epub (or use the plugin to make them behave like kepub)...so not really more work than what you do to read on a kindle. Using wifi or the kobo app would automatically put the kepub of any previously bought books on your device. Then it would just be the same situation as epub to azw3 for kindle.

And it isn't "aura's features" that you would be missing out on. You simply have two separate formats (that have their own way of doing things...some people like one, some the other....and of course some would rather combine options from both )
It is an issue for all kobo users and isn't restricted to aura. At the same time, there are still many options when simply using epubs that are not available to kindle....so it really depends on what is "necessary" for you personally...but trying to turn everything kepub is definitely not the only way.

Personally I use kepub when I have it from kobo and am happy with epub when I have it from somewhere else (ie: library loan). The only thing I miss on epub is the mins left to read feature of kepubs...and no one at kobo has ever said they won't implement that with epubs in the future...in fact, just the opposite, it was implied that that's where the future is headed.

Anyway, just some food for thought.

Edit: I see a lot of people did reply to your original post. Just one thing to add to something else you wrote....another post of yours that you want your books to be "liberated"...so you can still do that on the epub and use kepub if you prefer. Keep the liberated version epub in calibre and get the kepub directly from kobo (I believe calibre will see them as the same thing). Then you have your backup DRM-free on your PC for use as you please and get the features of kepub on your Kobo, if that's what you prefer.

Thank you for your very detailed response and help.
Is switching WIFI on Kobo ereader only way to get kepubs from Kobo? I have 3 different Kobo accounts in 3 different countries. And I prefer my reader not being on WIFI at all. That's what I do with Kindle...

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jiminrussell

Doesn't B&N use a different ID? rather than Adobe ID you have to use the CC Number and Name associated with the purchase you made from B&N at least that is what the ADE getting started book says.

"Bookseller-specific IDs
Some booksellers use a special form of protection where your book is locked to the bookseller’s ID. For example, Barnes & Noble uses this method. When you buy a book, download to your computer, and open in ADE, you’ll be asked to supply the username and unlock code you use on the bookseller’s web site (for example, for Barnes & Noble, the name and number of the credit card associated with your ebook purchase)"

Quite possible. The owner of the laptop on which I tested this was living in the US and picked up a Nook while there. After moving back to Canada, he was treated like contaminated dirt by B&N's customer service so pretty much dropped them. The credit card associated with his account has long since expired and Google search came up with several items where people complained about credit card expiration and being unable to open already purchased books.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jmilica

Thank you for your very detailed response and help.
Is switching WIFI on Kobo ereader only way to get kepubs from Kobo? I have 3 different Kobo accounts in 3 different countries. And I prefer my reader not being on WIFI at all. That's what I do with Kindle...

You can use the Kobo desktop application to download the books and sync over a USB cable. One advantage there is that if you don't want an update, you can delete the update files before disconnecting your Kobo.

Regards,
David

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by jmilica

Thank you for your very detailed response and help.
Is switching WIFI on Kobo ereader only way to get kepubs from Kobo? I have 3 different Kobo accounts in 3 different countries. And I prefer my reader not being on WIFI at all. That's what I do with Kindle...

Already replied to by DNSB, and as he says, you can use the kobo desktop app to get the kepubs on your device.

But your case is a bit unusual having three kobo accounts with books bought on, that you obviously don't want to merge (which is possible) since I'm assuming 3 countries was to get better prices or to get books otherwise unavailable. I'm pretty sure you can't get three accounts worth of kepubs on your kobo at once...and changing accounts when you want to read a book isn't really viable either. My only advice (if this is possible in your case) is to use the account with the most books bought on it (or conceivably the one you think you will buy most on in the future) and sideload the other 2 accounts, either as epubs or using Joel's kepub converter plugin with calibre.