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Meh, on just books?

I wish they'd try and take them on as Amazon.com and not just be another player in a pre-failed eBook market. I love Amazon.com for buying stuff, and most of the purchases are not book. More competition in that realm would be great, but in eBooks? Meh, what a waste.

posted by : BB, 17 October 2009 Complain about this comment
What I'd like to see:

A subscription &/ library service and a soft leather bound OLED reader (newspaper style) with touch-screen controlling capability.

Free with a subscription to the WSJ, etc.

Or maybe an OLED hankie would blow.

posted by : Ah-Cha Cha, 16 October 2009 Complain about this comment
BAH!

I prefer Project Gutenberg, thanks. Prices are more in line with what I'm willing to pay.
Hey check out all the old Tom Swift books from childhood days:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/a#a267

I also prefer archive.org for old movies and texts, that are also available at my preferred price point. Hey check out the original "Google Beta" web page from Dec 1998:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://www.google.com/

posted by : Grunchy, 16 October 2009 Complain about this comment
@spark29

"why does my e-book need a 3G access if i have a 3G phone. that doesn't make any sense to me."

Because there's other people out there and some of them don't have 3G phones?

"i am not so familiar with the new wifi stuff but if they replace the bluetooth standard wouldn't wifi be totally enough?"

??

posted by : Phil, 16 October 2009 Complain about this comment
3G e-book reader

There is all this talk about 3G and e-book readers... why does my e-book need a 3G access if i have a 3G phone. that doesn't make any sense to me.

i am not so familiar with the new wifi stuff but if they replace the bluetooth standard wouldn't wifi be totally enough?

i would prefer to see google work together with plastic logic personally

posted by : spark29, 16 October 2009 Complain about this comment
Business Controller

Sounds like a solid business model, and perhaps will increase acceptance of electronic books. I don't see a financial downside to electronic books, they reduce waste both via reduction in paper materials as well as the energy and environmental delivery costs. This could benefit both retailer and consumer.

That having been said, I see reluctance from the crowd that feels uneasy not having their purchased materials stored locally, they may be afraid that the books could be deleted, taken away, or worse, censored without their approval. We have already seen this happen, with Amazon and the Kindle/Orwell fiasco.

I also see reluctance from the crowd that likes to read their materials from paper. Maybe if these books were printable, or even partially printable. Using this cloud storage, how would one read their books on an airplane, or any place without internet access for that matter? A suggestion would be to allow transfer to an iPhone or Android phone for remote use, but cloud-only storage?

We'll see.

posted by : T Benjamin, 16 October 2009 Complain about this comment

Google plans to take on Amazon

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