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Kindle ain’t no e-book reader
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The giveaway is the use of a 3G telephony network, rather than Wi-Fi or similar, providing a network connection which is active whenever the device feels like activating it, without the user being aware. That makes for a very different experience than deliberately connecting when the user wants to, one which Amazon calls Whispernet – as Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, puts it: “This isn’t a device, it’s a service.”
[..]
One plan is to reduce the cost of books though advertising: while in-book advertising is generally limited to “other books by this author”, and the occasional free chapter to bulk out the page count, books in Kindle can contain adverts which are updated daily. Every time you open a book a different advert can appear amongst its pages (just like this article). But it’s not just the bits between the text which Amazon can reach out and alter: even the prose itself will no longer be inviolate.
Oh fuck, as if you needed a reason to avoid the Kindle: it’s actually just an advertising delivery device.
Microsoft Surface
Two Methods of Interrogation
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These are just two of the most prominent examples of the interrogations of detainees after 9/11. Two examples cannot prove a point. They do illustrate an opinion that is held by many if not most interrogators: torture and other extreme techniques are useful in getting people to talk, but not necessarily to tell the truth.
Go and read the whole thing.
Another Busy Day In The US Senate
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Cartoon
SHOCKING! Ebooks could do EXACTLY what websites like ours do! It’s an outrage! Stay far away!
In the mean time, maybe you should also stop reading The Register, since it’s “actually just an advertising delivery device”. Or using a web browser, for that matter, since web browsers are “actually just an advertising delivery device”.
*rolls eyes*
The key in all this pot stirring by The Register is the word “can”. The Kindle surely can do all of these things, and of course that does not mean that they will, even though you’re ready to assume it. If they’re stupid enough to try it (which I doubt), then the first time they start putting ads in the middle of a novel, a shit storm will break out and they’ll have a user revolt on their hands. But ads next to magazine articles? Would that be the end of the world?
If anything, the high price point of the device (combined with the low price of ebooks) suggests that Amazon is not planning to monetize the Kindle as an advertising platform. If they were, they’d be selling them at $39 instead of $399.
All-right, let me rephrase it. I would really, really like it if, for a change, whoever develops some new technology doesn’t go “gee, wouldn’t this be a nice way to deliver advertising, since there’s clearly not enough ways to do that”.
Well, right now the only people who’ve said “wouldn’t this be a nice way to deliver advertising” are the people at The Register. If you read what Bezos has said about ebook, you’ll see that he talks about the importance of having the (e)book be unobtrusive so your attention can get completely absorbed and you get “transported into” the book. If he believes that and that was part of the design philosophy, do you think Bezos will let his staff start sprinkling ads in the middle of books?
I just went looking for Tim O’Reilly’s commentary on the Kindle. His stance basically is that he thinks the Kindle is not ideal but is taking the industry a step forward towards good ebooks, so he’s happy to see it. He’s not in favor of the DRM, but he thinks “the market will punish those who use DRM” and that the DRM problem will go away. I hope he’s right.
I hope he’s right.
That makes two of us.