Pariah

Does anyone have a kindle? I'm thinking about asking my family for one for my bday.

Brian in Mesa

Not me. I like reading books the old fashioned way.

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Mulli

I think my dad has one (he needs large print). I will see what he thinks.

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dreamcastrocks

If they start carrying college textbooks, (which I heard is going to be happening soon) I will probably get one.

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Shane

Have seen them, held them, and read some from one. Don't care fir them personally. The only feature I like is the wifi and being able to download books instantly. Like real books much much better.

krepitch

I'm thinking about getting an e-reader, but not a Kindle, unless they improve it. AT&T is apparently working on one, and there are always Apple rumors.

I like the idea, but the Kindle is just not attractive and I don't like the big keyboard. I did download the Kindle iPhone app and that actually works pretty well if you only plan to read for a few minutes at a time while traveling or something.

Pariah

Were you aware they came out with a Kindle2? I only ask because i want to be clear if you have a problem with the new one...

Pariah

BTW, thanks to all for the feedback so far.

krepitch

Yeah. I actually have a Google alert for e-reader. I am really interested in getting one, but don't think the available ones are quite there yet.

I think the Kindle2 is only a little better than the original and think some competition will force some better products. Sony's are decent, but I'm also a little stuck on what size to get. The Kindle DX would be good for pdf files, but might be a little too unwieldy for regular books. It would be nice to have a big one and a little one, but they're too expensive for that right now.

Let me know if you decide to get one. I don't actually know anyone who has one yet and would love to get first hand reviews.

DemsMyBoys

I seriously considered it. But I like books. I like how they feel. I like being able to write on their pages and underline parts I want to think about. I like different types of type-sets. I like different kinds of paper and different kinds of bindings. I like looking around my house and seeing all these wonderful books.

But I'm running out of space so lately I've been haunting the library. And resisting the urge to scribble all over the silly things.

Mulli

My pops needs the kindle for large-print. Any thoughts?

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dreamcastrocks

Sounds like a good reason to get one to me. That is, unless he doesn't like using better bifocals/magnifying glass.

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'Just to reiterate, Derek Anderson isn't hurt.... he has just been benched.'
-Sam Rosen

Mulli

Been there done that, I am afraid.

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krepitch

I'm pretty sure you can adjust the font size. Also look at the bigger DX version, which would give him more screen size.

krepitch

July 18, 2009
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle
By BRAD STONE

In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said.

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.

Customers whose books were deleted indicated that MobileReference, a digital publisher, had sold them. An e-mail message to SoundTells, the company that owns MobileReference, was not immediately returned.

Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic books between devices — and apparently to make them vanish.

An authorized digital edition of “1984” from its American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was still available on the Kindle store Friday night, but there was no such version of “Animal Farm.”

People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia, who bought the digital edition of “1984” for 99 cents last month. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.”

Antoine Bruguier, an engineer in Silicon Valley, said he had noticed that his digital copy of “1984” appeared to be a scan of a paper edition of the book. “If this Kindle breaks, I won’t buy a new one, that’s for sure,” he said.

Amazon appears to have deleted other purchased e-books from Kindles recently. Customers commenting on Web forums reported the disappearance of digital editions of the Harry Potter books and the novels of Ayn Rand over similar issues.

Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”

Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.

“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers.