When I first read about Amazon’s new app for the iPhone, I was reminded of the saying, "If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em!" Or something like that. For me, this story broke when I read this Publishers Weekly article that detailed Amazon’s new app:

The company launched its Kindle for iPhone and iPod Touch app this morning, making it available for free from Apple’s App Store. By downloading the software, iPhone and iPod users will get access to the 240,000 e-books now available through Kindle. Amazon’s Whispersync technology will let users switch back and forth between the iPhone and Kindle and pick up reading a book or publication where they left off. The iPhone app will not include Amazon’s text-to-speech function.

I love that last sentence. The line makes an ominous reference the trouble Amazon found itself in for including text-to-speech capability in their new Kindle 2. Amazon recently caved to pressure from groups like the Authors Guild and will let publishers decide whether to allow their books to have that functionality.

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This past week has been a rather difficult one, to say the least. It started when my Powerbook G4 decided to suffer a catastrophic failure – the details of which you can read in this previous post. And the week reached its low point on Saturday February 14 (yes, on Valentine’s Day, but I wasn’t feeling the love) when it became clear that the computer was beyond my ability to repair it.

Here is the result of my efforts:

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When I wrote this post about the new and improved Kindle 2, I hardly gave much thought about its text-to-speech functionality, other than noting that the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) would probably applaud the feature.

However, I failed to see this from the point of view of the Authors Guild, who claims that the Kindle 2 is infringing on the copyright protection of audiobooks. Then I read this article from Yahoo!:

The challenge revolves around audiobooks, which are treated separately from printed material from a copyright standpoint. A retailer can’t record a copy of a book on a CD and sell it or bundle it along with a novel without paying a separate fee, just as buying a copy of an audiobook doesn’t entitle you to a free copy of the printed version.

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The other night I was happily surfing the tubes, when my Mac Powerbook G4 started making funny clunking sounds. Before I could react, everything froze up on me and I had to shut the computer down. After waiting a few minutes, I tried turning it back on and to my horror, I could only get a blank blue screen and a funny whirring-clunk noise coming from the hard drive.

After doing some research (I still have my old Dell laptop, which still works fairly well) I found that the hard drive on my Mac is probably toast and will have to be replaced. Hopefully a new hard drive will do the trick.

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Amazon (aff link) has finally released the next generation ebook reading device, Kindle 2. Jeff Bezos himself unveiled the new Kindle today at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. Stephen King (a big Kindle fan himself) was also on hand to help promote the device and even read from a new short story available exclusively on the Kindle.

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I make no secret about how much I love my iPhone, and how that love has only grown since I loaded it with the eReader application from Fictionwise (which I reviewed in detail here). But last night I decided to give the Stanza ebook reader a try as well. I have read a lot of good things about Stanza, so I thought, why not see what all the excitement is about?

While I haven’t read any ebooks using Stanza yet (I have read several on eReader, however), I’m already seeing just how powerful an application Stanza is. Here are a few things that really stand out for me:

1. Stanza allows you to download ebooks directly on the iPhone, without using a computer.

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While ebooks are starting to increase in popularity and garner more mainstream attention in the US, youngsters in Japan have no problem reading novels on their cell phones. I have blogged about this once before in this post and it still remains an interesting topic.

Today I came across a very interesting article on a website called JapanToday about the trend of reading and writing novels on cell phones:

With cell phone sites buzzing with talented amateur writers such as kiki, the publishing industry is heralding the coming of a new demographic of young authors and readers who might change the industry the way kiki challenges the conventional novel.

The process of writing, posting and reading these novels is pretty simple:

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In a blow to the online retailing community, a judge in New York struck down two lawsuits by Amazon and Overstock, giving a new state tax code, which would require online retailers (such as Amazon) to collect taxes from their customers, the green light:

Things are not looking good for Amazon and other online retailers who have been avoiding collecting sales taxes from customers, and for customers who have avoided paying them. A fairly new New York state tax law—dubbed the "Amazon Tax"—has been given the green light as a judge dismissed two lawsuits alleging that the law is unconstitutional. The judge said the law isn’t unfairly targeted at certain retailers, and that online retailers who make a decent chunk of money off of New York residents should help shoulder the burden of tax collection.

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Where do you go for free internet access? And no, piggybacking off your neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi is not the answer I’m looking for.

In these hard economic times, it’s no surprise that libraries are suddenly becoming more "in-demand" than ever – not only because they offer you free books, but because most public libraries also have free internet access. However, most libraries appear to be using dated technology and simply do not have the funds for upgrades, not to mention more equipment to alleviate time limits on internet use.

The Gates Foundation is coming to the rescue, at least, for a few states. According to this post over at Ars Technica, the charity is going to pump some money into a few states to get internet access updated and more widely available:

To help struggling libraries get on their 21st century feet, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a grant program of $6.9 million that will go toward launching a pilot broadband initiative in a handful of US states.

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Sometimes people propose ideas that just make you shake your head and wonder: "What are they thinking?" Strangely enough, a lot of these ideas come from our own government (sarcasm!).

The state of New York has proposed one such idea: Tax ebooks and other digital content. I heard about this idea before, then read about it today on this post over at the Teleread blog. The consequences of such a tax could be devastating to the budding ebook market:

The New York insanity, if enacted into law, could lead to more taxes of this ilk in other states and add to expenses for small e-booksellers. It could even encourage piracy by jacking up costs for legitimate buyers.

Both points made in the above quote are pretty scary. First, once one state enacts a stupid law like this, others are sure to follow in a domino-like effect. Second, the tax will force prices to rise on all digital content, which will probably lead to more problems with piracy.

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