A negative look at the Kindle: Amazon's E-Book Strategy Re-Kindles Debate on Open Standards
The issue isn't about DRM protections on the books, but on Amazon's decision to create — and now perpetuate — a non-portable format that a) denies readers the ability to read e-books they buy from the company on another device and b) books they might buy from an e-books competitor on the Kindle.
It's a high-stakes strategy that has the potential of creating a standard by the scale of adoption — or join the lengthy list failed attempts to impose a format on market willing to put up with it only until a better alternative comes along. And, it almost always does.
For most, especially those who love their Kindles, this is a below-the-radar issue. But proponents of portability yearn for a world where lovers of content can easily abandon a device they had once been seduced by, so they don't have to go through the digital equivalent of the evolution of music: replace your 45s with LPs, with tape (reel-to-reel/8-Track/cassette), with CDs — just to keep your own collection.
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Kindle e-books can be purchased online or using the built in Whispernet service in a matter of seconds with many readers not needing to know — or likely caring — about the proprietary format (.azw). But in addition to being Kindle-only, any books protected by digital rights management (DRM) are restricted to a specific user and transferable on up to only six Kindles, similar to the way iTunes worked before recently going DRM-free.
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"There is no future in which we have a happy peaceful literary marketplace dominated by single proprietary format owned by a single company," said Doctorow. "That should be self-evident to anyone who's been paying attention to the internet."
I want one of these (I'm not sure why): Marvell Plans $100 Computer Inside a Wall Plug
The incredible shrinking computer is about to reach a lower limit in size, with a new computer that's contained entirely within a wall-wart. Any smaller than this, and the computer would disappear inside the electrical outlet.
Called plug computers, Marvell's new gadgets will resemble cellphone chargers but pack a hefty punch.
Plug computers would draw just about 5W of power, come with a 1.2-GHz CPU, a USB port and internet connectivity. They won't have a display, but the devices can be used as a home server or a network attached storage for vacation photos and music downloads.
The wall-wart form factor allows companies and consumers to get a low-cost computing system, says Marvell. As a plus, the unassuming-looking plugs would likely remain plugged in long after thieves cleared out other, more valuable-looking electronics.
The plug computer will be based on Marvell's SheevaPlug platform, which has an embedded 1.2-GHz CPU. It would also come with 512 MB of flash memory and and 512 MB of DRAM. The device would connect to the home network by ethernet and have a USB 2.0 port.
I was thinking of getting one of those to plug a USB IR transmitter into, and using my iPhone as a universal remote.
Huh. Yeah, that's a good idea.
OMFG that thing is amazing.
Yep, the Kindle is all DRMified. It sucks, and is one of my major complaints. Doctorow is probably right. iTunes went DRM free, but only after years of having DRM. Eventually, I expect the Kindle will do the same and release books in unprotected MOBI format (the azw files are basically just mobi files wrapped in DRM). It's not there yet.
It's one of the few arguments against the Kindle that doesn't make me all stupidly defensive of my favorite electronic gadget ever, because it's a huge flaw.
You CAN read unprotected Mobi files on the Kindle, just like you can play MP3s on the iPod. You can also get a large selection of books out of copyright, for free, from Feedbooks or other sources. The main difference between the Kindle store and the iTunes store (which I mostly boycotted until recently) is that there's no real viable source for getting unprotected current material on the Kindle, since, unlike music, we can't rip books using our own BOOK-ROM drive on our computer. So we're more stuck in the DRMed store, unless we only want to read newspapers, blogs, fanfic we convert ourselves (for free, the 10¢ charge is only if you use the Kindle's wireless to do it), and books made 90+ years ago or written by Doctorow.
And at least with iTunes, I had a way to get those DRMed files into a way I could take them away, if I wanted. Sure, only a certain number of times, but I COULD burn them to a CD and walk away with them, just like my other CDs that I'd bought in a store. Kindle, you can't really do that with like books you bought at a bookstore, can you?
Kindle, you can't really do that with like books you bought at a bookstore, can you?
Not unless you feel like investing in a hardcore paper scanner and some really good OCR software, and don't mind ripping your books apart.
Or, if you meant in the other way, like my re-read is implying - no, there's no way I've found yet to change a Kindle-purchased book into paper. It's a very closed system. Like I said, I doubt that will last forever, but it is the way for now.
I'm trying to work out how to force a browser to refresh its css. I've sent header information no-cache, must-revalidate and an expiration date in the past. But no dice. I have to manually refresh the page for the updated css to be included.
