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Comment Threads

• Charlie Stross commented on The rising ebook wave [guest post]
  Every ebook reader I've tried that supported a DRM-locked company store was also quite happy to chow down on DRM-free files sideloaded from an SD card or over USB. This includes the Kindle 3, which is a really nice Mobipocket format reader (in addition to handling DRM'd Kindle files -- a variant on Mobipocket format). As paws4thot notes, you can also get a whole bunch of ebook readers as apps for Android or iOS, and a somewhat less broad choice of reader apps for other platforms (Symbian, old-school PalmOS, Maemo, whatever). In fact, that's the key: free readers (ignoring for...
• Moderator Alan commented on The rising ebook wave [guest post]
  I have seen colour eInk, and the result was not good. On the other hand, the early b&w eInk was pretty bad too....
• Moderator Alan commented on The rising ebook wave [guest post]
  So even if you hate eBooks, if you read a lot they are more attractive to you (as in you hate them less). Because the money investment is smaller or the money savings are greater. You keep making the same assumption, and I don't think it's getting any more valid. For you, perhaps for the majority, it may be applicable. But for you to demand that Marilee be in that group is a little arrogant. Posit the situation where the more I drive a car, the more a bicycle is supposed to be attractive to me because it's cheaper to...
• Moderator Alan commented on The rising ebook wave [guest post]
  We can agree however that the more you read the more attractive ebooks get. Ah, so no. You use a comparative with no referent. That's your failure: everyone else was assuming you meant 'than physical books'. Could we now please drop this ridiculous sub-discussion? Certainly....
• Moderator Alan commented on The rising ebook wave [guest post]
  Music is very different. With (recorded) music, there is no self-playing music: your CD or vinyl or whatever requires a mechanism to play the content. You can't use a CD in isolation: you've always required something with which to play it. The book, on the other hand, does not require a player. The e-book reader is a mechanism that provides the same interface (black squiggles on a pale background) as the physical book and, on the whole, it still does it less well....