- The new Cambridge, Massachusetts Public Library is a stunner.
- A new biography of Thelonius Monk is available. Could be a worthwhile read. The Morning News talks about it.
- Nook vs. Kindle as seen by NPR – Audio
I think NPR is correct that Nook is the most serious competitor yet to the Kindle delivery system, but they also seem to blunder into the same blind spot as everyone else – the price of the content and the actual selection of the books people want to read. Nook has a large selection but it is thinner on the titles that people actually want. And even if the Nook is slightly ahead of the Kindle on technology, I’m not willing to pay an extra couple of dollars per book for the privilege of using it.
Disclaimer: I work for Amazon.com although I do not work on Kindle.
- An attempt to move the DRM debate forward
Consumers will happily accept the shackles of DRM if the trade-off is worth it to them. For example, while some Kindle users grumble about loss of rights, they express joy at the ease of purchase created by the Kindle system. On the flip side, some readers — I am one of them — hate Adobe Digital Editions. My first experience resulted in the server being unable to authenticate. Seriously, I bought books and couldn’t read them because the fracking server couldn’t authenticate.
