Editors from Columbia’s Science and Technology Law Review explained to us a year ago the pitfalls of not owning your Kindle books, a fact that Amazon revealed to be more horrifying than we thought. Guess what? It’s worse.
Amazon basically guaranteed that I’ll never buy a Kindle last night by bending to the wishes of a publisher and deleting every single legitimately-purchased copy of 1984 and Animal Farm from all Kindles remotely. Ridiculous.
Oh, the power of a good multi-million dollar lawsuit. Amazon is vindicating litigious types by agreeing to replace Kindle 2s with cracked screens for free, instead of charging $US200 for repairs. I wonder if they’ll fix mine. [News Factor]
We know as well as anyone that Kindles can be frustratingly fragile, but that’s why you buy a case, right? For the plaintiffs in a fresh class action lawsuit against Amazon, it was actually the case that caused the problems.
Finally, we have ourselves a proper Kindle 2 knockoff, courtesy of—who else?—the Chinese.
Amazon just added access to your Kindle notes and highlights—the ones you make on your Kindle—from your web browser. Just sign in at kindle.amazon.com and you’ll see them.
Also, that’s a Kindle DX she has in her hand, not a Kindle 2. Everyone else on the Heroes set needs to stand on apple boxes to hide the fact that she’s six-foot seven.
The Kindle 2′s text-to-speech option is controversial, but publishers can opt out of the function if they’d like. Now, Random House, a major publisher of writers like Stephen King, has flipped the kill switch on 40 of its ebooks on Amazon. Remember when Stephen King was pretty much the face of the Kindle? It’s like a double cross in a really, really boring but ever so suspenseful thriller novella. [Electronista]
ColorWare will take your Kindle 2 from B&W to color* for the modest price of $US199, or they’ll sell you a pre-colourised model for $599. (*Note: Colourisation process does not include the E-Ink screen.) [ColorWare]
