New Kindle with WiFi announced

[mikij]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Sony because the retail brick and mortar stores that stock their readers tend to not know much about them and tend to not have them turned on. Best Buy in my area for example has Nooks on display and running, but their Sony Readers are not displayed like that.

Right. In my Future Shop (Best Buy branch), Sony is on display, but is off. However, at Sony store I found a red PRS-600 and fell in love with it. It worked, and my experience with it was great. I also saw Kobo at Indigo and like how its display was nice. They just didn't have black in store (only a demo) and waiting for black ones to come, Sony had a price drop of 100$ so I bought it.

Amazon won a battle, but the war is still not over.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The method she specified was shifting the Mobipocket DRM. But, that's no longer possible to do on firmware 2.5 or above as Amazon has changed how the PID is calculated. To my knowledge, nobody has yet figured out how to get the PID from a book downloaded to firmware 2.5.x. So there is no legal or even semi-legal way to get a library eBook on a Kindle 3.

DG's method should still work with firmware 2.5. It involves calculating the Kindle's PID (which still works), supplying that PID to the library, and then using a Kindlefix script to set a falg in the library book so that the Kindle accepts it.

Firmware 2.5 didn't change the devices PID, it just added another way for books to have a per-book PID. Books encoded with the Kindle's device PID can still be read on Kindles.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I am curious for those in the UK with K2's... I know that you can now use the Web Browser for free.. have the $2 surcharge on each book been removed... or are you still paying that?

There's no $2 surcharge in the UK section of the Amazon.com Kindle store anymore. There is 17.5% VAT, of course.

I'll be interested to see how they handle setting up a Kindle Store at Amazon.co.uk. I think they must give prices in £ sterling, but whether they'll auto-convert US $ prices, or go back to the publishers to get £ sterling prices, I don't know.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by =X=

Isn't this kindof like saying she's as honest as a Pygmy is tall?

if you are not a native US English speaker maybe it doesn't make sense. it is an old expression assuring of someone's honesty. and it appears that it was used correctly as the system she wrote about does NOT strip the DRM so it is NOT stealing any books.

so phhhbbbttttt~~~~~~~~~ to the naysayers

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by astra

Hmm.
PRS-500 could last maximum 3 weeks when brand new. Reading no more than 60-70 pages per day.
PRS-505 could last maximum 2 weeks under the same usage conditions.

What readers last longer than 2 weeks?

I have always found my prs-505 easily lasted far longer than the figures you have suggested.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Graham

Well to be fair, most eInk readers can get a month with wifi off, not having wifi in the first place. I was impressed though by their assertion that you could get ten days or so with wifi on.

WiFi being on doesn't automatically clobber the battery, it can be on, but not being used and thus taking advantage of all the power saving options of the technology.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by kjk

Interesting. So that wouldn't include the wi-fi hotspots that Android/Palm Pre phones/MiFi's create? (which are ad hoc)

Those are not actually ad hoc networks, they do have an access point, it just happens to be the phone or MiFi that is filling that role.

[Mrgauth]

Can't find if it supports epub or not, but if not they will never see my money no matter how cheap. ALL of my books are in epub and no way would I try and convert them now. Epub or move over.

If it does, I think I will preorder.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Mrgauth

Can't find if it supports epub or not

It does not. From Jeff Bezos talking to USA Today:

Q: Why doesn’t Amazon support the popular "e-pub" standard used by your competitors and many libraries?

A: We are innovating so rapidly that having our own standard allows us to incorporate new things at a very rapid rate.

Total nonsense, obviously, but it is clear that Amazon is happy to be an ePub free zone.

Calibre does a great job converting DRM-free ePubs to MOBI for the Kindles.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by krischik

Actually there are more Native German speakers in Europe then English speakers. English only shares the 2nd place with Italian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU#Languages

And that is before Switzerland with it's three languages on the scale. Germany is also the largest Economy. I just don't know where you people from the States get your ideas from.

The reason Amazon goes to the UK is that they have some English books to sell. Mostly independents and public domain that is as the big publishing houses still insist on DRM and regional restrictions.

Using just your own link you can see one obvious reason why they go with the uk first, it is that 51% that speak english that is drastically higher than anything else, but another reason might simply be that this is one type of hardware that has proven itself to be more popular in the uk than the rest of europe.

Also, as far as regional restrictions, most of the time the uk editions of ebooks are not restricted in europe because the local publishers in other countries will have the rights to the localised versions rather than the english one.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by mikij

Amazon won a battle, but the war is still not over.

I dunno, I suspect Sony is in serious trouble.

AFAIK they don't have apps for iPhones, iPads or Android. Their software has always been problematic, and their competitors have largely bypassed the clunky intermediary software.

I expect they will continue to make ebook readers for some time, and it's extremely difficult to evaluate since there aren't a lot of hard numbers, but I don't think they are a major player anymore.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by Mrgauth

Can't find if it supports epub or not, but if not they will never see my money no matter how cheap. ALL of my books are in epub and no way would I try and convert them now. Epub or move over.

If it does, I think I will preorder.

Well, that's unfortunate. File conversion should not prevent one from buying the desired device. One word: Calibre. It's so easy a cave man can do it.....

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There's no $2 surcharge in the UK section of the Amazon.com Kindle store anymore. There is 17.5% VAT, of course.

I'll be interested to see how they handle setting up a Kindle Store at Amazon.co.uk. I think they must give prices in £ sterling, but whether they'll auto-convert US $ prices, or go back to the publishers to get £ sterling prices, I don't know.

The Kindle store on the .co.uk site will have to be a properly localised one with them having sorted the deals with the eu publishers or they would simply continue to go with the .com setup they currently have in place.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I dunno, I suspect Sony is in serious trouble.

AFAIK they don't have apps for iPhones, iPads or Android. Their software has always been problematic, and their competitors have largely bypassed the clunky intermediary software.

I expect they will continue to make ebook readers for some time, and it's extremely difficult to evaluate since there aren't a lot of hard numbers, but I don't think they are a major player anymore.

Of course they don't have apps for anything else, they make what money they are getting from the ebook market from selling their hardware and that is why they are not jumping into this prce cutting nor bringing out an app for another platform. Don't forget, that outside of north america they have only launched hardware and left it to local companies to deal with the content.

If anyone was going to bring ADE support to other platforms then it would be Adobe rather than a hardware maker like sony.

Sony is going to stay in this market as long as they can make money from the hardware, in the future that could mean they become less of a standalone option and become more of a premium option for b&n or even license the right to make kindle hardware if amazon eventually goes down that route to expand the range of e-ink products that they can sell their books on in a manner that would match their tactics on phones and tablets so far.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

if you are not a native US English speaker maybe it doesn't make sense. it is an old expression assuring of someone's honesty. and it appears that it was used correctly as the system she wrote about does NOT strip the DRM so it is NOT stealing any books.

so phhhbbbttttt~~~~~~~~~ to the naysayers

I'm just pulling your chain, I've heard of the saying often enough.

So you understand where I'm coming from the phrase I use more often than naught is "There is not enough hours in a day" and the days are never long enough to meet the schedule .

=X=