Kobo Nia Official Announcement

[shalym]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Only in certain countries

...and Kobo only works with Overdrive in certain countries, as well. Yes, I know that Kobos work in more countries than Kindles do, but it's still not world wide.

Shari

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Only in certain countries

Originally Posted by shalym

...and Kobo only works with Overdrive in certain countries, as well. Yes, I know that Kobos work in more countries than Kindles do, but it's still not world wide.

To be precise, Kindles work with Overdrive in the USA. Country count: 1. Kobos work with Overdrive in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Country count: 12.

As to why Canadian libraries don't support Kindle and Overdrive, it comes down to two basic reasons. The first is privacy as Canadian libraries are rather enthused about protecting borrower privacy. You want a list of books borrowed by a library member? Easy peasy. Go to court and get a judge to agree that there is acceptable evidence of a criminal act. There are good reasons that Canadians are not enthused about storing data on American servers or even having their data routed through the States.

And the other reason is cost. As most public libraries anywhere in the world, you get used to squeezing every penny until it squeals.

[Elektron]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it say somewhere that the Nia had a color display?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Elektron

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it say somewhere that the Nia had a color display?

Nope. It’s got comfort light. Some folks thought that meant comfort light pro which adds orange LED to the front light.

There was some speculation that color eink would be a feature which, IMO, was beyond wishful thinking given the state of color eink. Kobo certainly won’t introduce it in an entry level device whenever it comes if it ever does.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I gave my 6" Kobo Aura to my uncle when I got my Clara. The USB charger on the Aura finally gave up the ghost and about two weeks ago he wound up ordering a refurbished Paperwhite 4 off of eBay, for about a hundred bucks

Would a new charger not have been a lot cheaper? That's assuming he didn't already own a bunch of them, like most people.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Would a new charger not have been a lot cheaper? That's assuming he didn't already own a bunch of them, like most people.

I'm guessing he meant the USB "charger" port.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Only in certain countries

Only in one country. That being the US.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

...and Kobo only works with Overdrive in certain countries, as well. Yes, I know that Kobos work in more countries than Kindles do, but it's still not world wide.

Shari

In those countries where Overdrive does not work for Kobo, if Overdrive is available the eBooks can be read on a Kobo where it's not possible for a Kindle.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

To be precise, Kindles work with Overdrive in the USA. Country count: 1. Kobos work with Overdrive in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Country count: 12.

As to why Canadian libraries don't support Kindle and Overdrive, it comes down to two basic reasons. The first is privacy as Canadian libraries are rather enthused about protecting borrower privacy. You want a list of books borrowed by a library member? Easy peasy. Go to court and get a judge to agree that there is acceptable evidence of a criminal act. There are good reasons that Canadians are not enthused about storing data on American servers or even having their data routed through the States.

And the other reason is cost. As most public libraries anywhere in the world, you get used to squeezing every penny until it squeals.

So why is Kobo allowed to serve eBooks for Overdrive in Canada? Isn't it the same privacy issue as it would be if Kindle eBooks were available?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So why is Kobo allowed to serve eBooks for Overdrive in Canada? Isn't it the same privacy issue as it would be if Kindle eBooks were available?

Thank you Jon, I was just going to ask that

Shari

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

Thank you Jon, I was just going to ask that

Shari

The argument could have been made that while Rakuten owned Overdrive and Kobo, they were under the umbrella of the same parent company. But now that Overdrive is no longer owned by Rakuten, I would think the privacy issues would be there.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I'm guessing he meant the USB "charger" port.

Yes, the socket inside the device, of course.

He lives in Washington and I live in Texas, so I haven't seen the device personally since I gave it to him. But that's what I was told.

[ottdmk]

I rather doubt that it's Canada's privacy legislation (and overall attitude towards privacy) that prevents Overdrive from working with Amazon here as they do in the States.

The far simpler explanation is that Amazon simply doesn't care a lot about the Canadian market. This has been shown a number of times, most clearly with the launch of the Kindle Voyage. It's understandable, really... Canada's population is roughly 11% that of the U.S.

Still, the library support is one of the main reasons I've always preferred Kobo. Even with an older model that needs to sideload loans through Adobe Digital Editions library loans have been fantastic for me.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yes, the socket inside the device, of course.

He lives in Washington and I live in Texas, so I haven't seen the device personally since I gave it to him. But that's what I was told.

That makes more sense, yes .

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So why is Kobo allowed to serve eBooks for Overdrive in Canada? Isn't it the same privacy issue as it would be if Kindle eBooks were available?

Syncing to a Kobo ereader, the data goes through Kobo's hands and as far as I am aware, that is going to require a Canadian court to issue the court order for access to information on a Canadian customer. Them durn foreign countries that do not respect the rights of the US courts to demand any information at any time. You do have the choice not to sync directly to your Kobo ereader so user beware.

As for the library if you do a download using ADE, the borrower name is not part of the information given to Overdrive. The library end of the transaction is on a ACM server that, in theory, is private to the library. Asking a Canadian library or ISP to cough up user information is going to require a Canadian court to issue the order. I suppose a court order issued in the States could demand access to the server from the data centre operators if the server was physically located in a data centre in the USA. OTOH, the data centre is unlikely to have the decryption keys so accessing the server is going to require the NSA or equivalent to break the encryption.

Yes, Canadian libraries and ISPs have to bend and spread if required by the Canadian courts. However Canadian courts in past cases have only allowed very specific searches in contrast to American courts which seem fonder of the "hand over all the data and we will decide what is needed" approach. We won't get into the "secret" court orders which seem to be growing in popularity in the USA. I will admit that CSIS has not been a poster child for respecting privacy but then they are in the news for that.

As for my personal feelings about Amazon? Unlike Microsoft in the case of the data stored on a server in Ireland, Amazon in the past has shown a willingness to comply with requests for user information with no public court appearances required despite the data not being located on servers inside the USA.