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Amazon Kindle users surprised by 'Big Brother' move

danarhea

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Seems that Kindle has a downside - The ability of Amazon.com to remotely spy on your content and remove content at will. Granted that material was remotely deleted from Kindle users' ebook readers due to a copyright issue, but in doing so, Amazon.com revealed that it has access to users' ebooks readers, and can monitor user activities.

In an ironic twist, one of the titles in question was Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 - the book that introduced the concept of Big Brother. The story, considered a modern classic, has become synonymous with political spin and remote surveillance - and many Kindle owners could not help but see the juxtaposition as amusing.


"Sounds ironically like Big Brother is monitoring our Kindle content," said one user.
The irony here is that one of the books remotely deleted from many users' kindle readers was 1984 by George Orwell. LOL.

My take on this - People should know what they are buying when they purchase a product. As for myself, I have a Toshiba tablet computer that I have networked to my system, and nobody knows what is on it except myself and those I CHOOSE to reveal what I have on it. I figure that what is on my computer is my own damn business, and nobody else's unless I decide to share that information. So Amazon.com - Take a hike. If I ever receive a Kindle as a present, I promise to turn it into Kindling. :mrgreen:

Article is here.
 
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Yup. Plus, there are a number of books I would never buy this way simply because they are identical in cost to the hard copy, which is stupid. I'm not a kindle fan. As a researcher, I prefer real books, but would try a Sony reader if I gave it a try.
 
Yup. Plus, there are a number of books I would never buy this way simply because they are identical in cost to the hard copy, which is stupid. I'm not a kindle fan. As a researcher, I prefer real books, but would try a Sony reader if I gave it a try.

I enjoy ebooks. I have more than 30,000 books in various formats, and I use a tablet computer to read them. My tablet computer has a much larger screen than lame e-book readers, more than 6 times the size, you can use it to read about any format, and you can download ebooks at just about any torrent site, and you can also access the internet and use it like you would any other computer. I got a very good tablet computer, which includes wireless that I used to connect to my home network, on Ebay for $270.00.

Dedicated Ebook readers are simply a huge rip off, and a waste of money. Not only that, but Amazon.com has a Napoleon complex, so screw them.
 
So Amazon.com - Take a hike. If I ever receive a Kindle as a present, I promise to turn it into Kindling. :mrgreen:

Article is here.

Or just disable the backdoor. This does make sense once you consider that the Kindle doesn't have a removable media slot like the Sony and other E-readers do. I bet someone has figured out how to disable the backdoor protocol that allows Amazon to do what it did.
 
And this is where we start to see if people will begin blaming Amazon or the publishing industry, a la Apple versus the RIAA regarding DRM.
 
And this is where we start to see if people will begin blaming Amazon or the publishing industry, a la Apple versus the RIAA regarding DRM.

I don't blame Amazon. I blame the users who bought their crappy product without researching it first. LOL.
 
I enjoy ebooks. I have more than 30,000 books in various formats, and I use a tablet computer to read them. My tablet computer has a much larger screen than lame e-book readers, more than 6 times the size, you can use it to read about any format, and you can download ebooks at just about any torrent site, and you can also access the internet and use it like you would any other computer. I got a very good tablet computer, which includes wireless that I used to connect to my home network, on Ebay for $270.00.

Dedicated Ebook readers are simply a huge rip off, and a waste of money. Not only that, but Amazon.com has a Napoleon complex, so screw them.

I wouldn't want a larger screen. I would want a comparable size to a book, not a notebook computer with an overrated functionality feature that companies like Microsoft haven't been able to promote for well over a decade.

Where you are very right is in the file format support. Electronic documents should not be comparable in price to a physical book, both due to limited functionality of the electronic document and lower manufacturing and distribution cost. Paying to convert individually existing PDF documents is also a damn travesty, and a big reason why I haven't jumped on the bandwagon. I have a large number of PDFs for my research that would just love a product like the Kindle.

Amazon has the right idea, they just need to be able to:

1) Lower the price (which they have done from version 1)

2) Improve functionality of the physical device (which they will do)

3) Remove the damn fee for existing PDF document conversion

4) Reduce the ridiculous "Kindle version" price of books

5) Steadily improve store selection (which they will be doing anyway)

6) Convince publishing industry to
a) Encourage a new generation of readers who like electronic gadgets (thus don't read as much literature or texts), but are at the same turned off by the tediousness of electronic reading-to feel engaged with the act of reading

b) To not be afraid of text-to-speech functionality that will (hopefully) improve reading comprehension and encourage more spending at their store (eg, turning on text-to-speech while doing something else allows user to not be distracted entirely from act of reading-thus more 'reading' is accomplished).
 
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I don't blame Amazon. I blame the users who bought their crappy product without researching it first. LOL.

EULAs change frequently enough in products. That's not a really good thought, in my opinion. Secondly, we do need early adopters for technology like this, so let's not bash them either.

I would rather blame the publishing industry for not being able to have enough foresight with regard to the market that is out there.
 
Edit: It seems I was wrong. I must have read information incorrectly a long time ago about how the conversion process works. The fee seems to be only connected if you wish to do it wirelessly. However, what still irks me is the conversion process. It's far too reminiscent of Sony's DAPs that did not natively support MP3 or AAC.
 
Ain't it ironic that, times being what they are, they deleted Animal Farm and 1984?
 
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