books | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 04 Feb 2015 00:13:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png books | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Kindle Convert allows you to digitize your library https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/apps-software/brendan-morgan/kindle-convert-allows-you-to-digitize-your-library/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/apps-software/brendan-morgan/kindle-convert-allows-you-to-digitize-your-library/#respond Tue, 03 Feb 2015 22:31:10 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=233791 Amazon have released a PC application that you can use to turn your dusty old physical books, into Kindle ebooks. The app will allow you to scan any book while running text recognition to properly digitize the text and preserving any notes and pictures as well. These ebooks can then be uploaded to the Amazon …

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Amazon have released a PC application that you can use to turn your dusty old physical books, into Kindle ebooks. The app will allow you to scan any book while running text recognition to properly digitize the text and preserving any notes and pictures as well. These ebooks can then be uploaded to the Amazon cloud drive so that you can access them on any of your devices.

The software is unfortunately not free to Kindle owners, but it is currently on sale for $19 ($49 at full price) and you will need a PC running Windows 7 or 8 as well as a flatbed scanner to get up and running. It will guide you through every aspect of the digitization, from the title and cover of the book, to making sure every page is correctly converted. Also bizarrely the application is only available to US customers for now.
Kindle convert
Unfortunately it seems that while the software does what it says, it can be pretty slow and hard to use. Obviously every single page of each book you want to scan has to be scanned individually, text recognition errors have to be corrected and photos have to be cropped out. This does mean that Kindle Convert will not be for everyone, only those that really need to move their out of print, or personal collection of books to the Kindle platform.

While digitizing a book in this way does have some advantages, there are also other ways of doing so, such as by using the PDF format and scanning each page, but this does not necessarily do text recognition, requires an eReader that can view high-resolution PDF files and the files themselves can be quite large. Then again there are many Kindle owners who would not even want to move their old books to their Kindle, preferring to keep some physical books around. At the end of the day if Kindle Convert made digitizing too easy to do, this then it might impact on Kindle sales and that is obviously something that Amazon is keen not to see happening.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: I'm not sure many Kindle users will have the time or the patience to digitize a full book, but then again some shorter books could be done pretty easily. I guess it depends how much you use your Kindle and how much you value having some of your older books on it. Does anyone have any interest in trying this out?

Source: Kindle Convert

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Journalists accused of copyright infringement for talking about it https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/journalists-accused-of-copyright-for-talking-about-it/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/journalists-accused-of-copyright-for-talking-about-it/#respond Fri, 30 Aug 2013 15:44:56 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=150189 We've grown used to the fact that copyright lobby groups making strange claims of infringement on file lockers and search engines, as simply linking to copyright protected content or not doing enough to stop said content from being posted on your site is enough to get you in trouble with not only these groups, but …

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We've grown used to the fact that copyright lobby groups making strange claims of infringement on file lockers and search engines, as simply linking to copyright protected content or not doing enough to stop said content from being posted on your site is enough to get you in trouble with not only these groups, but the authorities themselves. It gets worse though, as journalists in Germany are now being accused of helping facilitate piracy by interviewing the owner of a prominent ebook pirate site.

The publication in question is Der Tagesspiegel, who's reporter Kolja Mensing, spoke with the owner and founder of Boox.to, a Tor utilising, free book distribution service that has no permission from any publishers to do so. It's huge too, if the official figures are to be believed: over 1.5 million books are downloaded from there every month.

The thing is, it's not turning a profit. The site's operators don't use adverts, but instead donations to keep the servers running and therefore, feel quite justified in describing themselves as a charitable organisation.

“I say it openly: we are not interested in the legal opinion of German publishers,” the site owner said, via TorrentFreak. “We see ourselves as a supplier in the market, such as Amazon and bookstores.”

torboox
With that many books being downloaded, this site has to be doing something that the other publishing houses aren't, even if the books are free

But here's where it gets interesting. It wasn't these quotes, or the comparisons that annoyed German publishers, but the fact that the press named the site's URL in the article. They were so mad in-fact, that they filed a criminal complaint against Der Tagesspiegel and another site that had republished the article, suggesting that by linking to Boox they had aided copyright infringement.

Imagine the laughter at the headquarters' of these publications, when it was discovered that the German publishers had also at a different time, put the name and the URL of Boox online. 

“There was just laughter and tears,” a Der Tagesspiegel spokersperson said. “The criminal complaint was publicly dumped during the first few hours. The criminal complaint itself was made as a matter of principle without any prospect of success in a German court room.”

These might not be the last publishers annoyed by Boox though, as the site has big plans. It's going to open up internationally, supporting languages from all over the world. 

Kitguru Says: As an author, I'll say it now, if you read my book, I don't care how you got it. Borrow it from a friend, buy it, torrent it, whatever – just read it. That's reward enough for me.

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Humble ebook Bundle II adds XKCD and more https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/humble-ebook-bundle-ii-adds-xkcd-and-more/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/humble-ebook-bundle-ii-adds-xkcd-and-more/#respond Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:51:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=141768 The Humble ebook Bundle II is still going apace, despite not selling quite as many as the average gaming bundle. However now, if you pay above the average, you'll get a few extra ebooks added to your library, including volume 0 of the XKCD comics. The basic stack of ebooks you get access to are: …

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The Humble ebook Bundle II is still going apace, despite not selling quite as many as the average gaming bundle. However now, if you pay above the average, you'll get a few extra ebooks added to your library, including volume 0 of the XKCD comics.

The basic stack of ebooks you get access to are: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, Boneshaker by Cheris Priest, Spin by Robert Wilson and Shards of Honor by Louis Bujold. The's just the start though. Paying above that lofty $10 average and you'll not only get the aforementioned digital comic collection, but you'll also get Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek, Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn, Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, Holly Black's Poison Eaters and Other Stories and Machine of Death, by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Malki.

humble
If you're struggling for reading material, this lot should sort you out for a while.

Most if not all of these books have high review ratings on both Goodreads and Amazon, so it'll probably be difficult to go wrong with any of these, even if some will appeal more than others.

Humble Ebook Bundle II Page

KitGuru Says: If you guys kick in a few dollars to this and hit me up on Facebook or Twitter, I'll send you over a free copy of my ebook too. Supporting authors is really important, especially through great initiatives like this. 

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Amazon’s bringing DVD extras to ebooks https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/amazons-bringing-dvd-extras-to-ebooks/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/amazons-bringing-dvd-extras-to-ebooks/#respond Wed, 03 Jul 2013 11:53:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=140725 Amazon has been granted a patent for adding what is described as “DVD extras” to ebooks, suggesting that in the same way as movies were enhanced via special features like cast and crew interviews, documentary footage and behind the scenes information, books could be similarly added to. Video isn't something that the average ebook reader …

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Amazon has been granted a patent for adding what is described as “DVD extras” to ebooks, suggesting that in the same way as movies were enhanced via special features like cast and crew interviews, documentary footage and behind the scenes information, books could be similarly added to.

Video isn't something that the average ebook reader is built around of course, with their eInk screens. However, pictures are no problem, likewise are supplemental materials. As Wired points out, how about a map of the region in the world the story is taking place? Or an illustration of one of the main characters drawn by your friend?

Or have this pop up to get you in the mood – *WARNING VERY NSFW*

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbEhByk4Icg']

Extra storylines could be brought in from other mediums, showing the transformation of certain characters – perhaps a certain Game of Thrones character into the poor retch known as “Reek,” for example. In that particular epic, there is a lot of background information that isn't included in the books or TV show, so there's lots of potential for appendicesed information to be brought forward and contextualised through a link, instead of being bundled at the end.

Likewise the Lord of the Rings has a lot of extra information that could be included earlier in the books.

Now though with Amazon owning the patent, good luck finding those sorts of features on anything not published in the Kindle format.

KitGuru Says: I like this idea. I was always a fan of a book with a map printed inside the front cover. That was somewhat lost with ebooks, but now you can have that map available at the touch of a button. 

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New ebook DRM surfaces in Germany https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/new-ebook-drm-surfaces-in-germany/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/new-ebook-drm-surfaces-in-germany/#respond Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:03:58 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=138903 While gamers might complain about DRM ruining games, readers might soon be saying the same when it comes to ebooks, as a German research group has just invented a new method of locking down digital copies of the world's novels, by injecting them with text and punctuation changes. The technique is known as a “text …

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While gamers might complain about DRM ruining games, readers might soon be saying the same when it comes to ebooks, as a German research group has just invented a new method of locking down digital copies of the world's novels, by injecting them with text and punctuation changes.

The technique is known as a “text watermark,” that changes some of the grammar or punctuation in a ebook, ever so slightly, the idea being that instead of locking a book completely, it'll just make it easier to track down who uploaded it to a file sharing site, thereby making people less likely to do so – at least in theory.

ebooks
Coolest logo ever? Source: EbookDRMRemoval

However, authors, and I can speak with some minor authority here, aren't necessarily going to like the idea of creative changes being made to their work. Even a comma here or there could alter the nuance of a page. Even if it didn't go so far as to change the story, it could make a reader think negatively of the author for 1: attempting to block a user sharing their work (for the record, share my book around as often as you like) or 2: putting grammar in odd places in the first place, making their ability as a writer seem suspect.

For now, the researchers have sent out examples of the watermarking DRM to publishers, in an effort to shop the technology around and to test what a wider audience thinks of it.

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think of DRM in ebooks? It's a common practice in digital mediums these days, but books were always one thing that were great for sharing and lending, do you think we should be blocking that just because the content isn't on paper?

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Amazon angers authors over domain name buyups https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/amazon-angers-authors-over-domain-name-buyups/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/amazon-angers-authors-over-domain-name-buyups/#respond Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:00:50 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=127761 Amazon is usually simultaneously the darling of authors and their worst enemy. Today it's looking more like the latter however, as Amazon is attempting to buyup the top level domains (TLD) of .book, .author and .read. These aren't the only ones the web giant is looking to purchase however. It's also put bids in for …

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Amazon is usually simultaneously the darling of authors and their worst enemy. Today it's looking more like the latter however, as Amazon is attempting to buyup the top level domains (TLD) of .book, .author and .read.

These aren't the only ones the web giant is looking to purchase however. It's also put bids in for .pin, .like and a variety of other book related TLDs. However none of these may go through, as Scott Turow, author and president of the Author's Guild has sent a letter (way to stay current, authors) to the governing body behind the sales, ICANN. It reads (via the Telegraph): “We strongly object to ICANN's plans to sell the exclusive top-level domain rights for generic book-industry terms, such as .book, .author, and .read.”

“Placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anticompetitive, allowing already dominant, well-capitalized companies to expand and entrench their market power. The potential for abuse seems limitless.”

Amazon
I wonder if Amazon will let me have Jonmartindale.book when mine comes out?

Publishers are piling in too, with the Association of American Publishers suggesting that the most likely domain for abuse was the .book TLD.

Each of the TLD applications costs just under £120,000 – leading Amazon to spend over $10 million in all its bids.

KitGuru Says: This does seem a little anti-competitive, since Amazon would then be able to withhold .book domain sales to authors that didn't work with it for book sales. The problem though, is that with such a high threshold, ICANN is guaranteeing only large organisations can afford to apply for the TLDs anyway, so someone's going to exploit it.

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Technology killing paperbacks https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/carl/technology-killing-paperbacks/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/carl/technology-killing-paperbacks/#respond Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:42:13 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=31665 I fondly remember as a kid, getting a new book and wondering what cool and exciting adventures lay within. The smell of the paper, the feel of the pages on my fingers as I flipped them over.  It appears as if the charms of a paperback are dwindling, as electronic books are outselling their physical …

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I fondly remember as a kid, getting a new book and wondering what cool and exciting adventures lay within. The smell of the paper, the feel of the pages on my fingers as I flipped them over.  It appears as if the charms of a paperback are dwindling, as electronic books are outselling their physical counterparts.

It really is to be expected, technology is advancing at a never ending rate and according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder electronic Kindle books “have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com.”

For every 100 paperbacks sold now, customers are downloading 115 Kindle downloads. This really isn't such a revelation however, because Bezos has been highlighting the Kindle momentum for many months. Even in July of 2010, the sales ratio against hardbacks stood at 143 in favour of ebooks, this has risen to 300 Kindle sales now against 100 hardbacks.

The third generation Kindle has now become Amazon's biggest selling product ever, even pushing past the final Harry Potter novel.

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