THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eel O'Brian on December 06, 2010, 08:21:36 PM
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http://books.google.com/ebooks
Syncing across Android, iDevices, Nook & Sony eReaders, PC
Downloaded the iPad app, pretty nice but a little wonky in that when you hit the "get ebooks" button it launches safari (so there's a lot of bouncing back and forth).
You can read straight from safari or any other browser, though, and the interface is pretty nice.
Been loading up on free books, I really dig the chapter illustrations in some of the older works.
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http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=179849
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no kindle...
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Because Kindle sucks, hope this clears things up.
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Kindle is the e-reader based god!
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How's the pricing? I'm outside the US so I can't even browse :( Hopefully it'll drive down prices. New releases on Amazon are fucking insane- The new Steven Johnson Kindle ed. was MORE than the hardcover
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How's the pricing? I'm outside the US so I can't even browse :( Hopefully it'll drive down prices. New releases on Amazon are fucking insane- The new Steven Johnson Kindle ed. was MORE than the hardcover
Looks about the same. Most stuff is $9.99, some new releases are $12.99 or 14.99.
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It looks like you're located outside of the United States. Although you're welcome to read about Google eBooks, please note that Google eBooks are only available for sale to customers in the U.S. at this time.
How's the pricing? I'm outside the US so I can't even browse :( Hopefully it'll drive down prices. New releases on Amazon are fucking insane- The new Steven Johnson Kindle ed. was MORE than the hardcover
What he said. Damn! Guess I'll just have to stick with Stanza and drinkmalk.com thanks to IP region locking. ON BOOKS. :maf
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
Information wants to be free, mayne.
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
Information wants to be free, mayne.
but people want to git paid
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
Information wants to be free, mayne.
but people want to git paid
That's just what The Man wants you to believe. Artists do it for the sake of art.
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any good free books? i doubt i can get stuff that i can't get on kindle
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
Well they probably should, now that we have the Internet, and you can actually publish shit yourself.
Write a book, publish it on kindle, profit.
Where's the contract?
oh hai there Cory Doctorow. Taking a break from spending all your money, are we?
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any good free books? i doubt i can get stuff that i can't get on kindle
There's a few things I noticed that aren't available through Stanza's download services. I've been browsing through old (like, pre-1920) Westerns for research, and the selection on Google is much better.
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Region locked books is kinda lolworthy.
I guess 'they' should just tear up all those publishing contracts and make a big bonfire out of them, eh!
Actually, I'm fine with companies respecting their agreements, and publishing/distribution contracts -- I'm all for it. I just think there's an unreasoning degree of paranoia and craptacularness with blocking users by their IP address. If something costs money, use my credit card's billing address. If something's free, let me access it. If it's free where my billing address shows me to be, there shouldn't be anything wrong with me receiving it. Because if I can fly to the USA, use my iPod to download a book that I couldn't download from my previous physical location, they're doing it wrong, where all values of "it" are "internet."
I understand that they're concerned that they can be sued for impinging on someone else's contract; if Random House is publishing at USD5 in North America and they've subcontracted to Shueisha who are selling in the Very Different Japanese Publishing Market putting out the same book in four slim volumes at 1000 yen each... they're going to feel threatened. But this overarching IP block they've put in place for their marketplace sales have largely hobbled the usefulness of their app right out of the gate.
It's not like I'm even at a shortage for stuff to read, especially thanks to your recent and kind delivery of one-fourth of the Library of Freakin' Congress. I'm just incensed that IP address blocking for media, which hobbled my Xbox 360's ability to rent movies even when I want to pay for them, for free Hulu TV viewing, for Pandora's music recommendation system... is now being applied by the previously beligerent and fearless appearing Google... on books.
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Yeah, but you shouldn't be in the least surprised, should you? Because you acknowledge that the exact same companies face the exact same issues with other media.
These companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple...) have been spending fortunes on top legal talent to get around all these restrictions, but there is evidently no easy way to do it without renegotiating an unworkable slew of separate agreements. If they didn't have that block in place, they'd be risking getting sued by a billion different authors and publishers for damages. Whether there was any merit to the claims or not would be irrelevant; they'd still have to spent $$ defending themselves.
Anyway, this is all a great argument for Kindle/Amazon - buying stuff from the US is a snap, and you can change your 'current address' ad infinitum to get around regioning. Complaining about the available selection on amazon.com is ABSURD relative to the bad old days of brick-and-mortar bookstores only.
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These companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple...) have been spending fortunes on top legal talent to get around all these restrictions, but there is evidently no easy way to do it without renegotiating an unworkable slew of separate agreements.
Only games wise, but Sony seem to have managed it without any negative backlash. I'm puzzled as to how they've managed that.
By carefully staying a distant 3rd
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These companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple...) have been spending fortunes on top legal talent to get around all these restrictions, but there is evidently no easy way to do it without renegotiating an unworkable slew of separate agreements.
Only games wise, but Sony seem to have managed it without any negative backlash. I'm puzzled as to how they've managed that.
By carefully staying a distant 3rd
They've gotten pretty good at that.
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By carefully staying a distant 3rd
so Google should be able to follow that lead on this Ebooks project then! :cookiem
there ya go. Except that they've been accumulating content (and ways of accessing it quickly, and getting it to people quickly) and Android devices of all shapes and sizes are now seemingly everywhere (and Chrome OS on the way...)...I wouldn't count them out at all.