It’s been over three months that I’ve been living with an Amazon Kindle. For those of you contemplating investing in an Amazon Kindle, this review would come in mighty handy.
Amazon was one who practically created a market for eBook readers when they launched Kindle, very successfully way back in 2007. The first model was clunky but the technology was path breaking. The success of Kindle spawned an entire generation of rival products. In keeping with competition, the Kindle2 is a far improved product.
The biggest advantage for ebooks like Kindle is that they use the E-Ink technology that closely mimics the printed paper. You are almost tempted to touch the screen and feel the roughness of the paper!
Kindle and other eBooks which use E-Ink technology greatly scores over iPad or reading from laptops. That’s because iPad and netbooks use LCD screens which need to be lighted from behind. Kindle’s E-Ink technology does not need lighting and works on reflected light from the surroundings. This automatically means that Kindle uses much lesser power and consequently its battery life lasts for weeks.
Another advantage is that you can read Kindle even while sitting under bright sunshine. Try doing that with an iPad or a netbook and you’ll only be seeing a glaring screen. However, the Kindle loses out as the sun goes down. Since Kindle does not have backlighting, you will have to switch on your light and read it just the same way you would read a normal book.
Another huge advantage that the Kindle has is the wide range of books to choose from. That’s where the sheer might of the world’s biggest book store comes into play. It’s the reading content that becomes important. Even though Kindle may lack in coolness and features like the touch features of its competitors, it beats the living daylight off its competitors when it comes to book titles.
TR Santhanakrishnan, CEO of TaurusQuest, who has been using Kindle for over six months, draws an analogy with the Blackberry. He says, “Blackberry did not have touch screen for a long while and yet it was significantly better for a business user than iPhone.”
The Kindle allows you to highlight sections of a book and take notes, just like the same way we would like to jot down on a real book. Using technology to mimic real world actions is what makes the tool endearing to use. It is also intelligent enough to remember the page where you last left reading. When you switch on the Kindle much later, it opens up that exact page for you to restart reading.
So, why buy a Kindle or for that matter any eBook reader? The biggest reason is the portability. You can load hundreds of books and carry them on a single device. No need to lug big books. It makes perfect sense to buy one if you are a regular reader.
If Amazon was smart, they would vastly discount the hardware. Even though, Kindle is the highest selling unit on Amazon.com, they actually earn far more money in terms of book sales…which is really where they make a fortune. So, follow what Kodak did a decade ago. They sold their click cameras at dirt cheap rates and made money on film rolls.
In the month of March, there have been reports that Barnes and Noble’s new ebook reader, the Nook, had been outselling the Amazon Kindle in the US. With the advent of iPad and its stupendous success (it has already sold 10 lakh units in US alone), it has further eaten into Kindle’s market share. Unfortunately, neither the Nook nor the iPad is available in India yet. So, if you are in the market to buy a good ebook reader, Amazon Kindle is a safe option.
Source- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/the-good-and-the-bad-of-amazon-kindle/612594/0
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Facebook recently kicked up a huge storm over the privacy debate when it tweaked its terms and conditions a bit. The tweak may have been small but its repercussions were so huge and Facebook had to retract the changes immediately.
So, what did Facebook do? Simple, it said it now owns anything you post on its website. It wants to have the right to use your content, including your photos, your writings, and your friends’ contact details for whatever purpose, including advertising. And it can use it forever, even if you delete your account.
Actually, it looks a lot more scary if you read the clause in legalese. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicence) to:
* Use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any user content you post on or in connection with the Facebook service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or enable a user to post, including by offering a Share Link on your website;
* Use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising. And that’s just one part of the clause
With so much legalese thrown at you, it’s no wonder people got nervous. Facebook eventually buckled, when it noticed the huge user uproar and mass deletions of accounts.
In this article, I’d like to take a balanced debate over the entire privacy issue. So, I asked my blog readers to voice their honest opinion on what they think of it. Anirudh certainly isn’t happy with someone else claiming ownership over his creation. He says, “If you create something, then you are the owner of it. As the creator, you have the full right to decide who to show or share it with. Facebook now is forcefully trying to take my data that I created”.
Chinamyi, a popular singer in AR Rahman’s troupe, says that it’s for precisely this reason that she will never upload and share the music she creates on sites like Facebook. I can sense the bitterness when she opines, “We are not used to intellectual property rights. We are used to being exploited, not credited, not paid for, especially in the creative field. That’s where most of the plagiarism exists”.
There are folks who understand the rationale behind Facebook’s move. Rish G says, Facebook is not wrong in claiming that it owns your content. “The terms of service are similar to those when you join a company–you sign an agreement that says anything that you create/invent/develop is proprietary to the company. You join Facebook, anything that you write or post would by default be owned by Facebook. Heck, it’s their servers. If one is worried is that whatever they write is owned by Facebook, they are free to create their websites and own what they write by adding the copyright disclaimer.”
To me, it sounded like a very valid argument. Another reader, Pratiksha wants people to ‘chill’ and not over react. She points out that the Facebook clause does not say it owns your data and it only says it wants to use your data. In other words, it’s like you are granting Facebook a non-exclusive licence and as the creator, you can still use the data however you want.
Anuradha points out that the fundamental problem crops up when we don’t bother to read the terms and conditions. She asks, “How many of us read the T&C before agreeing to install software or open a mail/blog/file sharing account?” The answer, sadly, is almost none. And I’m not surprised why. Why would anyone want to read 16 pages of long, verbose legal speak which is written not to be understood.
Kausik warns that there might be more serious terms tucked in between the swarm of legal speak. Ram thinks that the entire issue is overblown and a big media hype. A few others, who are indifferent to the entire brouhaha, wonder what’s there to make a fuss. They argue that we all created a bigger ruckus on privacy when GMail started placing contextual ads in our email messages. But we still continue to use GMail and the world continues to revolve around the sun.
Move on, is the message. On his part, Mark Zukerberg defended the site’s action of keeping the content even if the guy deletes the account by drawing the email analogy. He says, “When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in the friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates his/her account, the friend still has a copy of that message.”
Partiban says that keeping messages are fine but he completely disagrees when it comes to photos and blog posts. He says, “Photos and posts are not sent to friends. They are published in my account and I should have the right to delete them permanently if I want to.”
Shrav, an engineering student, issues a warning that should Facebook implement the new law, he will move away from Facebook as will thousands of others. But it doesn’t look like Facebook is in any hurry!
Source- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/user-revolt-pays-off/428028/0
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