News Waterstone's making own eBook reader

Waterstone’s has revealed plans to develop and sell a rival to Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/09/09/watersone-s-making-own-ebook-reader/1

 

Good luck with that.

 

I do want an eBook reader, but I'm not prepared to buy eBooks until they come without DRM. Until then, dead tree wins out for me.

 

I'm waiting for eBooks to be cheaper than printed books. Except tree saving, I see no point in buying eBooks right now. It is less confy, has no appeal and cost the same price than books.

 

Each to their own, I find ebooks more comfortable to read, especially as if you're lying down and in a comfortable position you don't have to fidget to change a page, and instead just press a button.

 

What's the problem with DRM on eBooks?

TSB

 

In that case ok, but the smell, the feeling when touching the paper ... plus I'm mainly bying "technical" books and I need to be able to look at more than one page at the same time or having more than one book opened. It only involves me, but eBook will never replace book. They are another medium, but are worse.

An example, I've started to read the discworld books in pocket edition and then switched to a 3 time more expansive edition printed on higher quality paper. Trust me or not, but the reading experience is really improved.

 

Several of them, that you don't experience with ordinary books. Amazon sell plenty of eBooks, but you're tied into using their device (which incidentally does not play well with other stores which use Adobe DRM with ePub). You can't return them or sell them on, nor can you borrow eBooks for free from your local library. There's the possibility that the software goes belly-up and locks you out of your own books. Linux support is practically nil.

Oh, and there's the fact that music is sold DRM-free and online sales are doing really well, despite the fact that music is much easier to copy than books.

 

I love my nook. The local libraries have ebook lending and most everything I want to read is available on Project Gutenberg so I'm set.

 

I love my Kindle, would be good to see a bit of comitition in the market, DRM free would also be a plus.

And for the whole physical book vs digatal / real books are cheaper...50% of the books i have on my kindle are out of print with only a few first editions knocking about, yes they would be nice to own but i dont have thousands pounds : )

 

Nope, Kindle app for PC/iPhone/iPad/Android allows you to read them perfectly fine on other devices. No restriction on how many copies you have or what devices they are on, only that you can't give it to someone else or sell it on.

There's no such scheme available from my library and I don't want time bomb infused DRM copies of software on my device anyway.

There's the possibility that my house catches fire and all 1,500+ of my paper books go up in flames. I take appropriate precautions for each situation - backups for the former, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers for the latter. Common sense applies to both.

Twas ever thus. Why are you surprised?

Frequently by Amazon and the Kindle format doesn't have any active form of DRM.

This isn't meant as a dig or flame but you do appear to have a few misconceptions where the format and device are concerned.

 

Only devices that run the Kindle app. Yes, that is an issue: anyone remember Real Player? Imagine if you bought a DVD that would only play in real player? Not a great prospect.
Additionally, the Kindle app may do all you want it to do, but if you're used to a program that does more, or need the program to do something specific, you're SOL.

Except your backups of DRMed files are often non-functional. For the Kindle DRM specifically, the file needs to be signed to the device you read it on. You buy a new kindle, and your DRMed backups no longer work on it unless you can connect to a remote server. Server goes, your books are gone.

 

I meant for other eBook readers like the Sony ones - if I buy one I don't think there's any way to read Kindle eBooks on it. In turn, I don't think the Kindle can read ePub books, particularly DRM-protected files.

Good point but insurance covers that! The thing with DRM is that unlike a potential fire, you can't take any step to mitigate it. You're pretty much at the mercy of the provider, and if they're not interested in helping you, you'll have to delve into cracking tools. All this just to read a book!

Really? Everything I've read about it seemed to imply a DRM lock-in on all books. Is there any way to tell whether a particular book on Amazon has DRM or not?

The industry isn't really helping a lot with dispelling these misconceptions. They just rather you didn't ask questions and buy their stuff already.

 

AFAIK the Kindle format is only locked to the device if you download directly to it from the Kindle store. Otherwise you can pull the file down to your PC and there is no active DRM on it. As long as you can read the format you can move the file to another device.

ePub is not supported on the Kindle, nor is lit but mobi definitely is. Pretty much every site I've bought books from offers the mobi format which is what I choose by preference. Much easier as it'll work on PC, Kindle or mobile if required.

And r3loaded, insurance would definitely NOT cover some of my books - the first editions, signed copies from authors no longer with us and those that have been out of print for over 20 years aren't something I can easily replace. Not a chance I'm prepared to take!

 

The title of this news story says Watersone.

 

Meh ebooks have their place, yes DRM is a bit restrictive but hey ho.

Things will change with time.

 

I own a Kindle, and it's good for novels, but I'm finding way too many typos in the text. In addition I really want:

- Colour e-Ink screen
- Large screen, such as the Kindle DX, which allows...
- Medical textbooks! Not gimped copies, but the full thing

 

Yeah my semi-issue is DRM as well with buying eBooks. If it was a standard DRM across the industry, I'd have no issues. However, since if I buy a kindle book it isn't portable to other formats, an iTunes book isn't portable to anything non-Apple, Sony uses Adobe eBook DRM which is mostly just a Sony used thing (I think Kobie uses it as well), Borders Nook like uses their own DRM, etc.

Though, the Kindle will read non-DRM'd .mobi files and the others AFAIK will all read non-DRM'd ePub files. There are a handful of publishers who you can purchase non-DRM'd eBooks (Baen books line of eBooks I think are all non-DRM'd which is nice at least the couple I have bought from them don't seem to have DRM)

I have plenty of eBooks for my iPad

If it is a format issue, download Calibre ebook software. It is an ebook content manager, has a webserver to host your books on for your devices (I don't feel like storing all 6-7GB of books (mostly PDFs, some of which are books) in my iPad and sometimes I don't want to have to turn my computer on and synch to iTunes, I just hit wake-on-lan to my file server, open the webpage hosted on the file server through calibre and pull down the book) and it'll convert from just about any eBook format to any other format. It does an excellent job between mobi, epub, lit and topaz files. A decent job also coverting any of those to PDF. So-so at best from PDF in to a real ebook format, especially if there are any graphics, but meh.

Most Kindle books I've seen downloaded to a PC are DRM'd and looked to the kindle/kindle reader app. I plan on getting a nook touch at some point for a dedicated ereader, but I hate the nook app on my iPad, I like iBooks a hell of a lot more.

Just my 2 cents, I think non-standardized DRM, and to a lesser degree formats, is hurting the eBook industry to at least some degree on top of a price structure that is built around hard copy format prices as well (an eBook version SHOULD be cheaper than a paperback, at least at the time the paperback comes out. I can see an initial release where the eBook is slightly cheaper than the hardcover and then once the paperback comes out the eBook is somewhat cheaper than the paperback, but I refuse to pay more for an eBook than a paperback, and that is the case with 98% of the stuff I've seen or am interested in).

 

I thoroughly enjoy my Kindle. I was skeptical at first, but after my parents bought me one for Christmas I decided I may as well give it an honest try. I find I'm reading more now than I did before, partly due to the sheer convenience of carrying around my books wherever I go.

Certainly I don't think it's crucial to be able to read any book I own at any time, but for me the convenience is the ability to carry large books in such a small portable format. The two things that annoy me are the lack of Kindle support from my local library (though Amazon states this is coming in "late 2011") and the ability to loan books to my wife (and her to me). Although the Kindle technically supports the capability to loan books, Amazon place the ultimate decision with the publisher. Therefore, most of the popular books are restricted and can't be loaned. My parents worked around this by connecting both of their Kindles to a single account. That way either one of them can read anything the other one purchases. That method only works because both of the devices are tied to the same credit card, so it doesn't really help in the case of friends who want to share books, but there you go.

 

I want a colour ebook reader The one by the chinese company, can't remember it's name, looked good, but the colours need to improved.

And i dont mean an lcd screen.