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+--- Thread: Kindle 2 (/showthread.php?tid=6077)
- Vanraw - 02-10-2009
Do a google on epaper if you want to see where this is all leading. Several large companies are on the verge of flexible lcd like paper. Kindle is sort of a scratch on the surface.
![[Image: color-epaper.jpg]](http://www.epapercentral.com/images/color-epaper.jpg)
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- grizzle - 02-23-2009
Woot. Kindle2 has shipped! I'm not excited.
- Vanraw - 02-23-2009
grizzle Wrote:Woot. Kindle2 has shipped! I'm not excited.
You bought it?
If so I have some questions for you. Specifically it supposedly also plays audibles audio books. Hows the speaker?
- grizzle - 02-23-2009
Ya, I should be receiving it on the 27th. I'm curious also about the speakers, and about the voice reader it has installed for non-audible books.
I'll let you know how it fares when I get it. Maybe I'll do a little video demo for ya.
- Grieve - 03-04-2009
iPhone "Kindle" app now available. The Kindle is a little too pricey, but this might tempt me into trying e-books...
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/200230/Kindle-iPhone-App-Launches-E-Book-Sales-to-Jump?tickers=amzn,%5Eixic,aapl
- Bulgy - 03-04-2009
Digital rights management will eventually rear it's head so I will pass on this.
One day the Kindle licensing will say you can read your book X times and then the book will become inaccessible.
Don't think so? Look at the license agreement for Red Alert3 from EA. Install it 5 times and it turns itself off and can no longer be installed.
Screw the trees, give me paper.
Bulgy
- Slamz - 03-04-2009
I'll probably buy a Kindle 2 this year. I was tempted by the Kindle 1 but decided to wait until the second iteration.
I figure it will either be a cool toy for about 2-3 years and will then be completely irrelevant or e-books and DRM will get sorted out and everyone will have these things.
It certainly wouldn't be the first cool thing I've bought that turned out to be useless 2 years later. My HD-DVD player comes to mind. The fact that newer, cooler versions are coming out doesn't dissuade me that much (I just didn't want to beta test the first line of a new product). If I was always holding off because the next new thing was right around the corner, I'd never be able to buy a computer.
Eventually I think DRM will lose and books will become what music already is: an honor system. Musicians make money off of live performances and whatever percentage of people "donate" to them by voluntarily buying their music rather than spending 5 seconds on Google/PirateBay to find it for free.
Maybe my parents don't know how to find free copies of the music they want, but I bet the vast majority of everyone under the age of 30 knows, so it stands to reason that in the end, DRM will be irrelevant and either you choose to donate money for things you enjoy, or you don't.
- grizzle - 03-04-2009
So far I'm really liking the Kindle2. And there are quite a few places to pick up free and bargain priced collections of works. Like most, if not all, Shakespeare for $5.
If/when you guys get into the Kindle let me know and I'll be happy to write up a list of this stuff.
- Vanraw - 03-04-2009
Griz hows the speaker work? For audible books and such.
- grizzle - 03-04-2009
Surprisingly well! I thought it would sound like the computer voice from 15-20 years ago, but it is much better. Every now and then there is a hint of computer sounding voice, but for the most part, it is very natural. Certain letters are slurred together to make it sound like normal speech patterns. I'm impressed with it.
The speakers, on the other hand, are pretty tinny.
- Vanraw - 03-04-2009
The speakers is what I was wondering about. if someone had it sitting on a bench out side, could they hear it clearly?
Looking to buy one for my wife. She is a master gardener and wants to use it out side while working.
- Slamz - 04-13-2009
Incidentally, I took the plunge and bought a Kindle 2. I like it a great deal.
I'll have to try the speakers when I get home. I tried the text-to-speech over headphones (there's a headphone jack on the top) and it's not bad but I wasn't overly impressed with it. They need some options for changing the voice, pace, etc -- apparently it's still an "experimental" feature, though, so I expect it'll improve over time.
As far as reading goes, though, it's great. Very easy on the eyes. No different than a book, really. The technology behind the screen is pretty interesting -- not sure what they're calling it, but it's not an LCD screen. It's more like an "Etch-a-sketch". Once the page is drawn, it takes no power to hold the image. It's like a high resolution, very low framerate gray scale display.
The only physical feature I would change is to slightly increase the size of the keyboard. They could have rearranged things a bit and added another solid inch to the keyboard width. Not that you need to use it much.
I also just found out I could highlight and save "clippings" from things I'm reading, like quotes, which goes into a menu item on the home page. I'm always finding funny Pratchett quotes I'd like to store, so that's nice. It probably said how to do this in the manual, but who reads manuals?
Anyway, if the speakers end up not being good, you could always hook up some battery powered speakers through the earphone jack or something.
- Jakensama - 04-14-2009
Bulgy Wrote:Don't think so? Look at the license agreement for Red Alert3 from EA. Install it 5 times and it turns itself off and can no longer be installed.
Meh, this shit causes such a backlash with the community that it never catches on, there was that other game that had SecureROM protection and people bitched about it but I can't recall which it was.. Bioshock maybe?
Anyways as I recall for C&C3 they eventually caved to pressure and had an option so you could register it on 5 machines and unregister when you uninstall so it became even less of an issue.
And maybe you remember DIVX (not the codec, the temporarily authorized dvd rental thingy) which caused quite a fuss and died quickly because of it. DRM is by far a foregone conclusion for the way of the future.
- Jakensama - 04-14-2009
Slamz Wrote:It certainly wouldn't be the first cool thing I've bought that turned out to be useless 2 years later. My HD-DVD player comes to mind.
Ha yeah I had a minidisc changer in my car for some stupid reason.
- Slamz - 04-15-2009
Oh, I tried the speakers. They're a little too quiet, I think, at least for the car. They'd be fine if you were using them in a quiet room but otherwise you'll want headphones or amplified speakers.
- Vanraw - 04-15-2009
Slamz Wrote:Oh, I tried the speakers. They're a little too quiet, I think, at least for the car. They'd be fine if you were using them in a quiet room but otherwise you'll want headphones or amplified speakers.
baa, That sucks. How come I can have a cell phone with a great speaker, but no mp3 players have speakers worth a shit?
I bought my wife a Chocolate 3, and Im amazed at the volume and quality. But it wont play many DRM files such as audibles for audio books.
- Vllad - 04-15-2009
Dustie Wrote:1. Movies: You buy a Beta Movie, then comes VHS, then comes DVD, then comes HD DVD, then comes Blue Ray. So if you bought Star Wars in 1978ish and thought you'd have this classic to watch "forever", boy were you wrong.
Bruce Springsteen (who I'm a fan of) takes this further and realeases the Seager sessions CD but then re-releases it later with one additional song (the best one) so we have to re-buy the whole thing).
How ironic that the more technology we have the lesser the ability to retain long term information. When computers first came around in the 70's they talked about how we would be able to retain information for centuries electronically.
Actually the opposite is true. The older the technology the longer it last. The only way to keep information longer then 50 years is with paper. The only way to keep it longer then 100 years is with stone tablets.
Speaking of Springsteen, What alien took over his body after "Born to Run"?
How can a guy write such genius lyrics as he supposedly did on Born to Run and then end up writing such shit like Born in the USA? Either he never wrote any of the stuff for Born to Run or some alien pressence possed him.
I can't think of any other example that extreme. Its like Bill Shakespear writing Romeo and Juliet and following it up with Georgie Porgie.
Vllad
- Vanraw - 04-15-2009
Actually Springsteen seems to like to move around genre's. He event did some country shit for a while.
I definitely like his older stuff, but Born in the USA seems to be the pop style that made him a rich star!
- Dustie - 04-20-2009
Vllad Wrote:Dustie Wrote:1. Movies: You buy a Beta Movie, then comes VHS, then comes DVD, then comes HD DVD, then comes Blue Ray. So if you bought Star Wars in 1978ish and thought you'd have this classic to watch "forever", boy were you wrong.
Bruce Springsteen (who I'm a fan of) takes this further and realeases the Seager sessions CD but then re-releases it later with one additional song (the best one) so we have to re-buy the whole thing).
How ironic that the more technology we have the lesser the ability to retain long term information. When computers first came around in the 70's they talked about how we would be able to retain information for centuries electronically.
Actually the opposite is true. The older the technology the longer it last. The only way to keep information longer then 50 years is with paper. The only way to keep it longer then 100 years is with stone tablets.
Speaking of Springsteen, What alien took over his body after "Born to Run"?
How can a guy write such genius lyrics as he supposedly did on Born to Run and then end up writing such shit like Born in the USA? Either he never wrote any of the stuff for Born to Run or some alien pressence possed him.
I can't think of any other example that extreme. Its like Bill Shakespear writing Romeo and Juliet and following it up with Georgie Porgie.
Vllad
I don't try to track his movements anymore. At one point, I tried to understand him, for example, when he started playing "This land is your land this land is my land" and taking up the earlier fight against "God Bless America." If you really listen to him though, you have to beleive that he tells it the way he sees it. He really beleives in what he's doing. I tend to admire the people that do that, i.e. sing a song like "41 shots" while in NY knowing that half the crowd is going to be ticked off. Even though I'm his polar opposite in terms of almost all of his views, I still place Bruce in my "top 5 admired people" category. He's right up there with Warren Buffet and GW for me.
I guess this is getting too close to politics so I'll leave the rest for our politics section.
PS Have you ever heard Bruce sing American Land?
- Dustie - 04-20-2009
Vanraw Wrote:Actually Springsteen seems to like to move around genre's. He event did some country shit for a while.
I definitely like his older stuff, but Born in the USA seems to be the pop style that made him a rich star!
Yep, and the Seger Sessions CD is another example. It's mostly folk music:
http://www.amazon.com/We-Shall-Overcome-Seeger-Sessions/dp/B000EU1PNC
- Dustie - 04-20-2009
Interesting article on the Kindle. This guy thinks its an "aha" moment for the technology:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html
- Dustie - 04-20-2009
Kindle owners (slamz),
I read you can email word docs to your kindle. Have you tried this? What does it look like? Is the formatting still in place? I assume it's "view only" correct?
- Slamz - 05-20-2009
Dustie Wrote:Kindle owners (slamz),I can?
I read you can email word docs to your kindle. Have you tried this? What does it look like? Is the formatting still in place? I assume it's "view only" correct?
I dunno. I'll have to look into it. I have it right in front of me and I'm not sure how I would do that.
Actually wanted to revisit this thread and say how happy I am with the Kindle. There's nothing quite like finishing a book and having the next book in the series in literally 30 seconds. Or I hear about a book that sounds good and 30 seconds later I'm reading it.
Battery life is very long if you remember to turn the wireless off. I'm sure you could read several books back to back on one charge with wireless off. Wireless on you'll need to charge it every 3 days or so, I'd say, with moderate usage per day.
Also, I was stuck in traffic yesterday for about an hour and a half and decided to have the Kindle read to me. It's not bad. It makes you focus on it moreso than a proper audio book, because the robot voice isn't perfect and sometimes pauses where it shouldn't and fails to pause where it should or slightly mispronounces something (like "read" being pronounced "reed" when it should have been pronounced "red"). You can still get the story going on in your mind but it's a little like listening to your Chinese coworker who doesn't have a complete grasp of English -- gotta focus on it a little more than usual.
Quite doable, though.
- Dustie - 05-20-2009
Slamz Wrote:Dustie Wrote:Kindle owners (slamz),I can?
I read you can email word docs to your kindle. Have you tried this? What does it look like? Is the formatting still in place? I assume it's "view only" correct?
I dunno. I'll have to look into it. I have it right in front of me and I'm not sure how I would do that.
Actually wanted to revisit this thread and say how happy I am with the Kindle. There's nothing quite like finishing a book and having the next book in the series in literally 30 seconds. Or I hear about a book that sounds good and 30 seconds later I'm reading it.
Battery life is very long if you remember to turn the wireless off. I'm sure you could read several books back to back on one charge with wireless off. Wireless on you'll need to charge it every 3 days or so, I'd say, with moderate usage per day.
Also, I was stuck in traffic yesterday for about an hour and a half and decided to have the Kindle read to me. It's not bad. It makes you focus on it moreso than a proper audio book, because the robot voice isn't perfect and sometimes pauses where it shouldn't and fails to pause where it should or slightly mispronounces something (like "read" being pronounced "reed" when it should have been pronounced "red"). You can still get the story going on in your mind but it's a little like listening to your Chinese coworker who doesn't have a complete grasp of English -- gotta focus on it a little more than usual.
Quite doable, though.
I had since found out that is was just cheesy support:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Generation/dp/B00154JDAI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1242845231&sr=1-1
Quote:Personal Documents
Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document delivery fee--see details. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.
In addition to the existing experimental support of PDF, you can also send DOCX files for conversion. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle.
- Vanraw - 05-20-2009
I think if my local paper supported Kindel I would have already bought one. Sent a letter the managing editor, who responded with a "we don't and we have no plans too, but that may change in the future".
Its really odd since 100% of their content is online. I dont understand how difficult it would be?
I would certainly pay for the subscription. Hell I would pay the same as the printed cost and cancel the printed version.
How hard would it be for a newspaper publisher that has its content on a web page, to move it to Kindle?
Its the price of living in a small city I guess.