eBooks and Price Fixing

I haven't had much time to write because I am trying to get through all of my work at the end of the quarter. Over break I will try to do a bunch of updates.

Sitting in Latin class today, I notice a bunch of people following along with the secondary sources on their kindles and ipads. For any class with secondary sources in PDF form, it's more cost-effective for students to buy an e-reader than to print out the articles.

On that note, I thought I would re-post something I saw today on Kindle World Blog, which is an article about the justice department reprimanding Apple and some of the large publishers for price fixing. This should be interesting...

New Toys: Technology of the Future

My biggest focus in cutting-edge technology recently has been the possibility of color e-ink. In China and Japan, there are already color prototypes for color e-ink readers [1]. I had not been even considering what would replace the dvd player, but my father just brought a new device home that he found on a one-day sale. What he bought is a Smyth-sized [2] piece of equipment that has three USB ports, a wireless antenna, and a built-in 1 terrabyte harddrive and plays most of the file formats with which I have had contact. It is called the ScreenPlay DX and is made by iomega.

The purpose of the device is to play downloaded movies and even to stream movies off of the internet. It's pretty cool. I am loading up the 1TB harddrive with some things to watch and will review it tomorrow.

Update: The machine is pretty cool overall. I have two problems with it. First, although it is supposed to automatically load up access to the harddrive, on neither of the computers could access the media library properly, although I could load movies onto it. The other problem that I have with it is that the remote is a little bit hard to use.

Endnotes

1. Two color e-ink articled to check out are one from Kindle World Blog and one is on PC Mag.
2. When I say Smyth-sized I mean that it's about the same size as one of the most important texts on my bookshelf, Hebert Weir Smyth's Greek Grammar.

Kindle Updates and Cooking Updates

There is an exciting new update for the Kindle. There are going to be real page numbers which will correspond to page numbers in the print editions. This is what everyone complained about trying to use kindle books in classes. CNET news posted the story. I believe that this update will be for all kindles (although the article is a little vague on this matter), but apparently the rest of the updates will only before the Kindle Wireless and the Kindle 3G (i.e. not my beloved DX).

Servia and I made Three Teacup Chicken again tonight and I added pictures to my previous blogpost. It was wonderful. I highly recommend it. We made a few changes to the recipe. We made a 1/2 recipe (for the two of us) but used double the amount of garlic and ginger (i.e. the same amount one would use to make a whole recipe) and 4 instead of 3 shallots.

Vocabulary Geek: Digital Dictionaries

I am a big fan of the family's hardcover version of the OED, but there are some cool features to the new world of electronic and online dictionaries that are springing up all around us. Some of the best new applications, of course, are things like the Online (or CD-Rom) Oxford English Dictionary, which mean that one does not have to cart around a gigantic volume.

Of course with the digital age there are myriad free dictionaries online, both tratitional and specialty, and even those for the purpose of understanding slang and euphemisms, like Urban Dictionary. The ones that stand out to me are the ones that provide something new, yet preserve the love of language inherent in a dictionary. For example, the Kindle has integrated the dictionary into all kindle documents (including those downloaded from places like Project Gutenberg) so that one can simply look up a word while reading. The Kindle comes standard with the The New Oxford American Dictionary, but this can be replaced by buying another dictionary, such as the Kindle OED, and reading the Kindle manual for instructions. It can also be replaced by a dictionary in another language if that is your primary reading language. On the newest version of the Kindle (Kindle 3), even PDF documents allow for dictionary look-up.  Unfortunately this feature cannot be employed at the same time as the text-to-speech feature, but that may be solved in later versions.

What caught my eye this morning was a new (or at least new to me) feature on Meriam-Webster's website. The dictionary takes statistics from those who view the website in order to see what words are "trending" and then people on staff try to account for that trend based on recent events. Three examples from the recent week are the words: mercurial, tawdry, and vitriol. I thought this was a fabulous way to connect news, the unique platform that websites have to check statistics, and fun English vocabulary.

Kindle DX: A Side-by-Side Comparison

My mother's college roommate came into town this week and stayed with us. She used to be a librarian and a library sciences professor. Although she has some limited vision, her vision is so low that she is legally blind and has not been able to read a book in almost 15 years.

Last year, she and my mom bought my Kindle DX for me as a gift (which was lovely). My mom's college roommate finally decided to buy herself one of the new generation of Kindle DXs and she loves it. Although the buttons are almost impossible for her to read, she is learning how to use them by feel and by increasing the font to the second-to-largest size, she has been able to read again.

Since she was staying with us, I got to play around with her new kindle and see the differences first hand, although I did not try out the internet on it, so I cannot report on that aspect.

There were some notable great developments.

1. The new Kindle DX is 50% brighter. There was a significant difference in a side-by-side comparison between the two devices.
2. The new kindle has global 3G, which is fabulous.
3. The pages seem to turn a little faster, although that might be my imagination.

Some things I'm still holding out for:

1. The new 6 inch kindle has an improved PDF system, so that one can actually put notes on individual PDF pages. Seriously-- this is much more useful on the kindle DX because of the larger screen size. Why did they not add this new software to the kindle DX? It makes no sense to me.
2. The font size on menus cannot be modified. As amazon has successfully marketed the device to those with low-vision, it would be useful to let them see their menus as well as the books.
3. You cannot have the dictionary look up a word while the text-to-speech feature is in use or even paused. You have to actually stop the reading and look up the word before resuming.

Eyestrain, iPads, and e-Readers

I cannot understand the phenomenon of the Apple iPad. Many of the places that I go, my first instance was when I got stuck waiting for Jury Duty, I notice people over the age of 60 with iPads. Although I understand the benefits of an easy-to-use, portable computer, I simply cannot understand why I primarily see this crowd reading books on their iPads. I am sure that enhanced e-books are awesome, but I cannot imagine why someone would want to read off an LCD screen, and this is particularly important tho those of the age group I see most often with iPads.

vs.

Having a visual processing disorder, I try to avoid reading off of LCD screens. I print a lot of articles into PDF with programs like PDF creator and read them on my kindle. When I work on this blog, read the New York Times, etc.,  I wear a set of computer glasses with a particular color and lens that relaxes the eyes (recommended by my neurologist). I definitely understand the desire to have a computer one can stash in one's purse or messenger bag, but I can check my email on my cellphone or my Kindle DX (and without the $15 per month of the iPad for 3G which is free on the Kindle DX) and I have an 11" laptop that is much more powerful and much less expensive than the flashy iPad.

The lack of e-Ink in something which one uses for reading boggles the mind. I know that the iPad was designed for much more than reading, but most of the people I see (and this is obviously anecdotal evidence) use it primarily for reading. Even more confusing is the Nook Color by Barnes & Noble, which is a dedicated e-Reader with an LCD display. An article on KindleWorld explains that people are claiming research has been done to show that LCDs are not as hard on the eyes as originally thought, but I cannot imagine that this is true, given my own personal experience.

According to KindleWorld, there will be a new "KinTablet," in which Amazon is the e-Reader with Android technology and creating a tablet. I guess this is not surprising is the tablet is the way of the future, but according to the same article on KindleWorld, most e-Books are still bought by those with dedicated e-Readers, and the there has been a recent upsurge in sales.

The Bookstores of the West

One of my favorite things in the world is shopping for books. I love books. I love the way they feel in one's hands, the way they smell, the differences in paper, binding, and cover art. Even though I also own lots of electronic books and a Kindle DX, I will always love and own lots of books.

I do a lot of shopping for books online, partially because books are often cheaper from Amazon or Half than in a store, and partially because it is convenient. However, nothing compares to browsing a bookstore. My job on campus when I was in college was at the bookstore and I bought a lot of books because of the discount.

Two of my favorite bookstores in the world are in the Northwest. I splurged, with the remainder of a gift-certificate, and bought six books today because one of them was having a sale. So, I thought I should profile these two great stores:

Powells, and specifically the immense location on Burnside, is one of the greatest places ever. The store is two stories tall and takes up about half of a city block. It includes a coffee shop and a rare book room. The books are organized by subject and color coded by room as well as given a Dewy Decimal number. It's amazing. Used books are interspersed among the new books and rare editions are displayed in glass cases. It's awesome. Right now, they are having a set of sales to celebrate the 16th anniversary of their founding. They also sell books online.


The other great Northwestern bookstore is Elliot Bay.I fell in love the second I set foot in this store. Most of the books are new, but there is a huge used book room and when I was there the coffee shop walls were lined with shelves of $1 books. It is absolutely fabulous.

Updates: Kindle and Free Books

I wrote two blogposts of the last few weeks which I feel are in need of updating: A Bibliophile's Review of the Kindle DX and Problems With Free Books. (I also recently updated the Blog on the Minoan Octopus Jar.)

Kindle for Cooks

One of the things that I did not mention in my original review is my use of the kindle for cooking. I use it in two ways. One is to download and put recipes on my kindle and stand it up on my counter-top. This only works, obviously if one downloads a cookbook or creates a PDF or MOBI document. I used a particular case, a platform kindle case, that allowed me to stand the kindle upright so that I could read the recipes easily. The other way that I used the kindle was to have it read to me while I was cooking. I downloaded a free version of The History of the Peloponnesian War and had the Kindle read to me while I was cooking so that I did not waste time [1]. It was pretty helpful, except for the pronunciation of the Greek names. For example, Themistocles (the-mist-oo-cleez) was pronounced (the-mis-do-cls). Although the humanoid voices can be kind of annoying, it gets the information across and entertainment can be found by poking fun at it.

As a random technological sidenote, I have had my phone for 6 years and it is finally beginning to break down (people cannot hear me when I answer the phone and I have to shout, etc). Does anyone have a good recommendation?

A Clarification and More Amazing Free Books

I realized that I never explained the meaning of the title "The Problems of Free Books." The idea is that Google Books provides some downloadable free books as well as providing essentially an enormous, no-membership-required digital library that allows the reader to browse through editions of books online for the purposes of research, as well as for the ability to preview books online. For any other book, there is the difficulty of finding the book in the first place, making sure that it is the correct edition, etc. Speaking of free ebooks, there is another Amazing Site (referred to me by Propertius II) that has a bunch of academic books marked "public" which can be read online.

Endnotes

1. At the time when I was doing this, I was taking a class on Thucydides: Book 1 in Greek, I was attempting to read the rest of Thucydies' History of the Peloponnesian War for context. Usually I would read the beautiful Landmark Edition, which was a wonderful gift from my parents, but I ended up just trying to breeze through the kindle edition, and look at the Landmark for reference.

The Problems with Free Books

This morning, my mother emailed me a thoroughly amusing article called "The Trouble with Google Books." The article deals with the errors and problems that Google books has, specifically with metadata (i.e. the data that allows you to find the book you are looking for, e.g. publication date, author, etc). Some of the pieces are particularly hilarious, such as attributing a book an the Mosiac Web browser to Sigmund Freud's distinguished co-authorship [1]. My biggest problem with google books was that it always omitted exactly those pages of a book that I needed most when I looked something up because some other enterprising classicist had checked it out of the library before I got there [2].

Although I have always been a massive lover of cheap books and used books (which is the only way I could have amassed the massive collection of books around my house and in boxes in the garage), receiving a Kindle (see my previous blogpost) I have become a zealot for free electronic books. Part of the time while Cerinthus was visiting, I stupidly spent showing him the wonders of ACLS Humanities E-Book Archive (because he still has access to our college's server). It is incredible. Although one can only download PDF pages in three pages bursts, there are some fabulous academic texts on every subject from archaeoastronomy to modern urban planning. If one compiles the books oneself, they're free (provided, of course, access to said archive through school or an academic institution). I also have spent a lot of time searching for books, especially classics books and found a number of different places (to many of which I link on Platonic Psychology). Some interesting ones are as follows:

• Project Gutenberg: An archive of out of print books and audiobooks. Has a pretty awesome variety of formats available, including MOBI documents for the kindle. They are now also compiling audiobooks, as well as adding works in their original languages, such as Greek and Latin (as well as German, French, etc)
• Internet Archive: Very much like Project Gutenberg, this archive includes a variety of out of print books in many different formats, including the Sanskrit Grammar that I included in my blogpost last night.
• Textkit: A selections of out of print materials for teaching Classical Greek and Latin.
• Free Books from Amazon: this is all in kindle format (but can be read with free kindle reading apps), but it includes out of print books, as well as government documents like the U.S. Budget, and a number of new studies on digital media and learning by MIT, like this one.
  

There are some more but this is a start and I would love to hear about more I have not found yet.

Harping on my education theme, again (sorry!), I think cheap used books and free ebooks are awesome. I believe, most certainly, that authors and the institutions who aid in dissemination their work should be paid and that they provide a vital service for society. However, the library near my house has a book section only twice the size of my bedroom. Thus far, I found no classics texts there I am interested in reading. The books are simply too expensive for a small local library. It seems to me that libraries are one of the great places that one can supplement or design their own education. It makes no sense that only university libraries have the necessary academic texts when cities and towns without universities are the ones could most use an extensive library. So I think that used book sites and free ebooks are great because they provide access to a whole range of materials not otherwise available.

Endnotes

1. This reminded me of when I asked a group of my SAT kids what they knew about Charles Dickens' writing, and I got three blank stares and a girl who told me that she had only read half of Alice in Wonderland and did not remember it very well. I was also shocked to learn that out of a 13 person class, not one person knew who Adam Smith was. On the other hand, every one of them can work a smartphone, an art which I have not yet mastered.
2. My junior year this was a particularly pernicious trend, which prevented me from ever getting a chance to read Genres in Dialogue for my Phaedrus paper. Luckily, I received a copy for my last birthday and I am enjoying it thoroughly.