Alright, text-to-speech is dumb on a device that's main selling point is that it's easy on it eyes. This is enough to convince me that the Kindle is doomed, because they're not focusing on what's important. Too bad, because I really like eInk.
I wonder what it would cost if they ditched the keyboard and other features that are peripheral to the experience of reading. Just get the content out there, Amazon. People who read hours on end and lose themselves in a good book don't care about annotations. They have computers for that.
Deliver the content out on eInk the simplest way you can.
Alright, text-to-speech is dumb on a device that's main selling point is that it's easy on it eyes. This is enough to convince me that the Kindle is doomed, because they're not focusing on what's important. Too bad, because I really like eInk.
I see text to speech is probably their way to offer mixed use at little to no extra cost. For example, listen to it in the car on a commute drive, then at home, read where you left off. One purchase works for both, and linking the two seamlessly wasn't possible before. I don't know if there are other uses, it's not like the Kindle is good for jogging.
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I wonder what it would cost if they ditched the keyboard and other features that are peripheral to the experience of reading. Just get the content out there, Amazon. People who read hours on end and lose themselves in a good book don't care about annotations. They have computers for that and paper if necessary.
You're suggesting taking paper notes along side a device that's trying to eschew the paper medium?
Annotation isn't the only use, I don't think it's even the primary intended use. What I see in the keyboard is that it allows you to use keywords to search the downloadable catalog using the device itself, which is one part of "getting the content out there". Lose the keyboard and you would almost be required to use a computer to order the book, and that restricts when you can do the book browsing. You can use the search to find words within the books that you own. As for the number of books, they claim to have a quarter million books, and I see them expanding that as much as they can.
why does a book reader need so much text-to-speech feature? in my particular case listening to that voice prevents me from reading... thoughtful reading does prevent from listening to audio track...
I chanced to make that feature in Apple's implementation useful in different manner.
So it's electronic, and fed from that great international network, the Internet
So why can't I buy it in the UK ?
Probably because the rights they've secured are US-only. I think it's amazing that people don't understand this by now.
A lot of book distribution rights are sold off by country or region because that's how it was done with paper books, it was the best way to break down the task. Even now with the internet being a viable distribution platform, most of those rights are still broken up by country, it's not as if those rights contracts evaporated. This exact same issue comes up with music and movies too. That's why it's so hard for companies to roll out their digital stores into another country.
I think the media companies are going to have to clean up the mess they made. It was a reasonable thing to do for the past several decades, but internet distribution really does change the playing field, trying to keep playing by the old rules is only going to end in tears. What made sense a decade ago doesn't make sense now, the situation has irreversably changed.
Not a slam, but a funny line taken of of context.....
For a few more years at least, when we probably WON'T be able to tell a synthetic voice from a real one. And there will be ...interesting... implications when that happens....
An interesting device that is seeing incremental upgrades as did the iPod.
But when I first saw the price I was in sticker-shock. $399 then and still $350 now for something to read books on a screen that would make my eyes hurt? I hate reading stuff on screen!
I just don't see this thing really taking off without it being cheaper.
At least with the iPod you could RIP your entire CD collection for use in your iPod. How do you easily RIP your entire book collection to the Kindle?
Basically, audio recordings are supposed to be a separate right, but this really isn't an audio recording. I wonder how many people buy the text and audio versions of a book, does offering text to speech feature for purchased text really diminish the audio book market?
It could be a legitimately thorny issue, but I don't know. There could be latent resentment as well, The Author's Guild had clashed with Amazon's offering of used books alongside new ones.
As a side note, I was surprised to read that Amazon owns Audible.com. Maybe I forgot about that detail. If Amazon didn't think it would hurt their audio book business much, would it really hurt the authors?
Comments
I wonder what it would cost if they ditched the keyboard and other features that are peripheral to the experience of reading. Just get the content out there, Amazon. People who read hours on end and lose themselves in a good book don't care about annotations. They have computers for that.
Deliver the content out on eInk the simplest way you can.
Alright, text-to-speech is dumb on a device that's main selling point is that it's easy on it eyes. This is enough to convince me that the Kindle is doomed, because they're not focusing on what's important. Too bad, because I really like eInk.
I see text to speech is probably their way to offer mixed use at little to no extra cost. For example, listen to it in the car on a commute drive, then at home, read where you left off. One purchase works for both, and linking the two seamlessly wasn't possible before. I don't know if there are other uses, it's not like the Kindle is good for jogging.
I wonder what it would cost if they ditched the keyboard and other features that are peripheral to the experience of reading. Just get the content out there, Amazon. People who read hours on end and lose themselves in a good book don't care about annotations. They have computers for that and paper if necessary.
You're suggesting taking paper notes along side a device that's trying to eschew the paper medium?
Annotation isn't the only use, I don't think it's even the primary intended use. What I see in the keyboard is that it allows you to use keywords to search the downloadable catalog using the device itself, which is one part of "getting the content out there". Lose the keyboard and you would almost be required to use a computer to order the book, and that restricts when you can do the book browsing. You can use the search to find words within the books that you own. As for the number of books, they claim to have a quarter million books, and I see them expanding that as much as they can.
I chanced to make that feature in Apple's implementation useful in different manner.
So why can't I buy it in the UK ?
So it's electronic, and fed from that great international network, the Internet
So why can't I buy it in the UK ?
Probably because the rights they've secured are US-only. I think it's amazing that people don't understand this by now.
A lot of book distribution rights are sold off by country or region because that's how it was done with paper books, it was the best way to break down the task. Even now with the internet being a viable distribution platform, most of those rights are still broken up by country, it's not as if those rights contracts evaporated. This exact same issue comes up with music and movies too. That's why it's so hard for companies to roll out their digital stores into another country.
I think the media companies are going to have to clean up the mess they made. It was a reasonable thing to do for the past several decades, but internet distribution really does change the playing field, trying to keep playing by the old rules is only going to end in tears. What made sense a decade ago doesn't make sense now, the situation has irreversably changed.
Computer voices are just so machine-like.
Not a slam, but a funny line taken of of context.....
For a few more years at least, when we probably WON'T be able to tell a synthetic voice from a real one. And there will be ...interesting... implications when that happens....
But when I first saw the price I was in sticker-shock. $399 then and still $350 now for something to read books on a screen that would make my eyes hurt? I hate reading stuff on screen!
I just don't see this thing really taking off without it being cheaper.
At least with the iPod you could RIP your entire CD collection for use in your iPod. How do you easily RIP your entire book collection to the Kindle?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123419309890963869.html
Basically, audio recordings are supposed to be a separate right, but this really isn't an audio recording. I wonder how many people buy the text and audio versions of a book, does offering text to speech feature for purchased text really diminish the audio book market?
It could be a legitimately thorny issue, but I don't know. There could be latent resentment as well, The Author's Guild had clashed with Amazon's offering of used books alongside new ones.
As a side note, I was surprised to read that Amazon owns Audible.com. Maybe I forgot about that detail. If Amazon didn't think it would hurt their audio book business much, would it really hurt the authors?