The same problem exists with the new Google ebooks service.

I back up my computer with Time Machine and Carbonite. I'm not worried about losing the ebooks stored on my computer. I don't need Amazon or Google to "keep my books safe."

Compare to O'Reilly Media: "Whenever possible we provide [eBooks] to you in five DRM-free file formats — PDF, ePub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, DAISY, and Android .apk — that you can use on the devices of your choice." (from their website)

Music from iTunes is similar to eBooks from O'Reilly: no DRM, download the files and store them yourself.

http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

But essentially this is the same risk as your house burning down and taking your books with it. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

I don't know of any actual Kindle owners who feel that way.

Android App search is terrible. Now this bookstore is too.

You'd think Google could get search right.

Edit: See for yourself: http://books.google.com/ebooks?as_brr=5&q=probability+th...

  - Library of Congress 1993
  - Library of Congress subject headings 1980
  - Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series 1962
  - Mezzofanti's System of Learning Languages Applied to the Study of French. (Close, but no cigar)
  - Wildlife and oceans in a changing climate
  - Occupational outlook handbook

Machine learning - Kai-Zhu Huang, Hai-Qin Yang, Irwin King

Machine learning techniques for multimedia - Matthieu Cord, Pádraig Cunningham

Advances in machine learning applications in software engineering - Du Zhang, Jeffrey J.-P. Tsai

Machine learning in cyber trust - Jeffrey J. P. Tsai

Machine learning for multimedia content analysis - Yihong Gong, Wei Xu

Data analysis, machine learning and applications - Christine Preisach

Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition - Petra Perner

Try a US VPN :)

I can't help laughing when they even write about how incredibly open they are.

And what, even the video is private ? I'm guessing it's just location blocked. .. but why??

I think it is still too hard to turn a book into an ebook. Google did a fine job of digitizing a bunch of library title, but that wont do it.

They have to share a spread that technology (make it cheap). I want to put my books into a backpack, go to a store nearby and pick my books up the next day together with the ebooks. In germany that would not be against the law, because it's a private copy. Maybe for 10 bucks per book (1Cent/page?).

That would jumpstart the whole ebook thing in europe ... finally.

This is my naive consumer perspective, not a publisher perspective.

No need to think hard about it: Google simply doesn't give a shit. Really. Let me remind you that, almost two years in, Google Voice is still completely and utterly useless outside of North America.

> You may find enlightenment this way.

Enlightenment as to why the video of their ebooks demo would be region-locked?

This is a big call. There are many, many factors that prevent a global release of something like Books.

What did you visualize?

You may not like it, but it's surely just pragmatism on their part. It requires a considering investment in lawyers and time for each country they launch in, so it makes sense to start with their home (and likely largest) market.

Most US companies will launch something in English only with the domestic market in mind to test the waters, then when it becomes economically viable to do so expand licensing and other issues out to other countries.

I'm sure the companies that innovate in your country do the same.

You can get technical literature from PragProg or OReilly from anywhere. There are plenty of good small ebook publishers out there.

It should come as no surprise that Google searches for ebooks rate piracy-related sites higher than ebook shops. It is currently way harder to buy an ebook than to pirate it.

But book publishers suck in the same way record companies suck. And they will go the same way record companies went.

Similarly, from everything I've seen on E-ink devices, I could write a reader I'd be much happier with. For instance: half-page updates so one can speed-read without pausing between pages. Without the ability to do so, they're relying solely on their internal developers to make correct decisions for everyone.

In other words: "Adobe DRM"

[0] http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=179863

  1. Get a group of friends together with similar reading tastes.
  2. Create a new shared Google account.
  3. Share books.
  4. Profit? (Any reasons this wouldn't work?)

Or the equivalent of a bunch of people sharing a Steam account.

Therefore there are natural use cases where you have the same Google account logged into Google ebooks on multiple devices at the same time.

Therefore Google must allow for those use cases.

Those use cases can be mimicked by friends sharing a Google account.

Google could check for obvious misuse. For example, they could look for two devices separated by a large distance and using the same Google account with Google ebooks at the same time. I know they already do something like that with Gmail (for a different reason).

There are legitimate reasons to have two devices logged into Google ebooks with the same account at the same time.

Video games are different. Few people play two video games at the same time.

An O'Reilly book seemed fine, so I want to imagine that technical/math-notation intensive books are hard to optimize for e-reading. Anyone have some knowledge about this? How hard is it to make a technical book's digital font easier to read if you don't already have the LaTeX/pdf?

Another cool feature I really like is the ability for small bookstores to create their own storefront. That is a smart move. By opening the cloud, they will capitalize on the marketplace created by someone else.

http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/supported-devices

Amazon and Apple own the ebook market and Google doesn't even have a tablet. Can you read Google ebooks on a Kindle? So much for read anywhere. Sorry Google but you're late for the party.

You know, there are also people out there with Sony, BeBook, and iRiver readers.

How exactly is this open?

• Android and iOS have dedicated reader apps that support offline reading. Something is downloaded, but it might well be DRM wrapped.

• Web browser based reading appears to be online only. No mention of downloading and using your own native reader on a laptop.

• The interesting one is the nook. For nook the book is transferred into the native nook reader. Sounds like there might be some way to get the book in that process, or maybe they have already DRM'd it with B&N's blessing.

Please, I already have a book reading app I like. I don't want your vanity take on what a book reader should be. Just sell me the book.

Closest I can get is http://books.google.com/help/ebooks/content.html which says PDF and ePUB formats that might have DRM in them -- but I wasn't aware there was any (significant) DRM in PDF format.

What kind of asinine universe are we creating for ourselves? This is what I never understood about iTunes:

1. The world discovers MP3s: music that you can listen to on any digital music player! You know how you can take a tape cassette and play it in any cassette player, and hear music? It's like that! Yay!

2. iTunes sells iTunes music: music that you can listen to on... Apple devices! Wait, what?

You mean I can download digital music from iTunes, but it might not work on my digital music player?

It must be because it's better, then. What's that? There's no technical advantage? I am confused!

Now it's happening again! We have eBooks of various assortments. You read eBooks with eReaders. Unless they're incompatible. How can you tell? Well, it depends on where you bought each of them. It's getting to where you need a damn chart.

We don't make cars that only run on certain fucking roads. Why do we make music that only plays on certain fucking music players?!

I know all about DRM, and the incentives behind it. I know "why" it works this way. I'm just lamenting how stupid it is that we are making things more complicated, and less inter-operable. It's fucking 2010. We're in the future now. We should know better.

Kindle uses a convoluted, badly designed container, where everyone else uses ePub, which is an open standard.

Bottom line: There is not Kindle support because Kindle is too picky.

I hate DRM and I love my B&N nook, but fuck it, I want Amazon to make Kindle app for nook!

Really tired of seeing "not available in your part of the world yet" for the last few years in most eBook stores.