December 2009
14 posts
Kindle Total Cost of Ownership: Calculating the... →
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I want to buy some technical books before the end of the year. Before I did, I thought I’d investigate the current state of e-reader products.
My primary interest is portability of my technical books library. There are always a couple of books I want to keep beside my desk when I’m working. Unfortunately, the books I want beside me varies, depending on the current context and...
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Amazon Announces It Sold More Kindle Books Than... →
Lots of folks have sent in various versions of Amazon’s hyped up press release about how it sold more ebooks on Christmas than physical books. While this ought to make some publishers reconsider their hatred of ebooks, there are two points that make this rather meaningless. First, how many physical books are usually sold on Amazon on Christmas day? My guess is not very many. Books are...
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Apple Media Plan Hits Your Cable Company Where it... →
Big change in TV distribution is in the wind, if the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Apple’s “all you can eat” iTunes television plan is true. According to the WSJ, CBS and Disney are considering allowing their entire television lineup to be sold on a single-fee, all-access subscription basis. Consumers will love this, but many traditional cable companies will probably feel as though Apple...
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US Holds Ridiculously One-Sided Anti-Piracy... →
US Vice President Joe Biden today hosted a roundtable looking at the so-called ‘Piracy Problem’. The summit was not as ‘open’ as promised a year ago in the presidential campaign though. Only copyright industry representatives were present, further reinforcing the belief that Biden sits firmly in the pocket of Big Copyright.
Copyright is an issue that affects everyone. Every word, image and...
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Wary Book Publishers Are Fighting the Future →
Norm Betts/Bloomberg Students with their school-issued Sony Reader devices.
Last week, a host of book publishers, led by Simon & Schuster, said they will delay publication of e-reader versions of many books because they were afraid the electronic copies were cannibalizing sales of more expensive hardcover editions.
As Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster, told The...
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Dear newspapers: I will pay for your content, once →
I am a willing subscriber to The Wall Street Journal’s online edition. It’s $100 a year, which is a lot for online content, especially considering that you can generally find a way to get for free. But I’m a professional writer, and times are hard for all of us. I consider it a professional courtesy to pay, even handsomely, for excellent work. What I won’t do is pay for...
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Apple vs Google: it’s all about who pays →
Pundits think there’s a war between Apple and Google over smartphone (and perhaps netbook) platform technology. They’re wrong, here’s why it’s really all about who pays.
After witnessing Microsoft lose round after round in contention with Apple (the ISO’s selection of QuickTime vs Windows Media’s AAF as the container for MPEG 4 in 1998, the iPod vs Windows Media Player vaporware in 2001, the...
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Google to Start Selling Own Phone Next Year →
Google Inc. has designed a cellphone it plans to sell directly to consumers as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The phone is called the Nexus One and is being manufactured for Google by HTC Corp., these people said. It runs Android, the operating system for mobile phones that Google developed, they added.
But unlike the more than half-dozen Android phones made...
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FSJ: A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson... →
So we set up a call with Randall this morning to discuss some of the profoundly stupid things his guy Ralph de la Vega said recently about creating incentives that would encourage people to stop using AT&T’s data network so much. Point of the talk was, when you’re lucky enough to create a smash hit product — when the stars align, and the hardware is great and the ecosystem is great and the...
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The Case for Partitioning Your Mac’s Hard Drive →
I’ve been partitioning my hard drives since my very first Mac — a used Mac Plus back in 1992. Yes, I divided the Plus’s commodious 20MB external SCSI HD into two partitions so I could boot either System 6 (for speed) or System 7 (for Internet support).
I’m not as big an aficionado of partitioning as I once was, although all of my Macs since the Plus have had partitioned hard drives, including...
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Dear Google kids: I’m sorry to inform you, but you... →
So says the SF Chronicle, ie the world’s best newspaper. But of course they have to be “balanced,” so right up top they punch in two opposing quotes. First there’s the “yes they’re evil” quote from Rob “I don’t always work for Microsoft, just most of the time” Enderle, and then the “no they’re not, nah nah” quote from Jeff “I don’t make all of my money off Google, just most of it” Jarvis. Then,...
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The New Yorker: Great Writer, Great Machine →
Last Friday, Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter sold at Christie’s for a staggering $254,500 to an anonymous American collector. “I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not yet published,” McCarthy wrote in his authentication letter. Of the machine—an Olivetti Lettera 32—Glenn Horowitz, a rare-book dealer who handled the auction for McCarthy, told the New York...
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Jeff Bezos on Kindle & e-Books →
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos in an interview with The New York Times talks about the future of e-readers and the Kindle. Bezos thinks it won’t be long before Amazon is “selling more electronic books than we are physical books.” Here are some key points from the interview :
+ If a book is available on Kindle, it sells 48 copies compared to 100 physical copies sold.
+ Kindle launched with...
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Apple buys music streamer Lala, but what's it... →
Apple has once again dipped into its massive cash hoard to purchase a small company, in this case the music streaming service Lala. Many are seeing this as a sign that the company is finally ready to move beyond music downloads.
Last week’s rumors have become this weekend’s facts, as various sources are confirming a possible deal we discussed on Friday: Apple has purchased the...