Tools of Change for Publishing: Devices: October 2008

Connecting the Dots Between Google Book Search and Android

Peter Brantley
October 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Ed Nawotka of Beyond Hall 8 discusses the possibility that the Google Book Search settlement permits them to envision product delivery through Android-capable devices:

Perhaps most important of all is how this cements Google as the industry leader in the distribution of digital books. Sure, there's Amazon with its Kindle...and the Sony E-reader...each with hundreds of thousands of titles available. But what happens when Google links its open source Android operating system -- now powering cellphones -- to the Google Book Search? You will, quite literally, have a library in the palm of your hand.

The Oprah Effect and the Kindle

Mac Slocum
October 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | Listen

Chris Nuttall from the Financial Times says Oprah Winfrey will likely "endorse" the Kindle on today's show:

Amazon is featuring a trailer of her Friday show on its site with Oprah talking about her new "favourite gadget" which is "life changing for me." From a side-on view, the product she is talking about looks very [much] like a Kindle.

In an email to subscribers, Amazon says its founder Jeff Bezos will be appearing on Oprah to talk to her about her new favourite gadget.

This report technically qualifies as a rumor, but there's an awful lot of supporting evidence.

It'll be interesting to see if Oprah's influence extends to a $359 device (or a $309 device, after application of the Oprah-approved promo code). And if the Oprah effect leads to a Kindle spike, will Amazon finally reveal sales figures?

(Via the Reading 2.0 list and Teleread)

The Analog Hole: Another Argument Against DRM

Liza Daly
October 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Listen

Digital rights management (DRM) might be unpopular with the public and plagued with social and technical challenges, but at least it's a guarantee that digital books can't be pirated — right?

Not so fast. Experienced computer crackers will find weaknesses in any encryption scheme, but regular folks with basic computer skills can exploit the one weakness found in all DRM'ed media: the analog hole.

What is the Analog Hole?

The "analog hole" reflects a basic principle of physics: before humans can consume any digital media, the ones and zeroes that computers understand must be converted into an analog format that our senses can perceive. For music, it's sound waves; for video and for digital books, it's patterns of light.

If you've ever visited a major metropolitan city you've probably seen the analog hole in action: street vendors selling pirated copies of popular movies, often months before they're officially released on DVD. Most of these are "cam" films, shot in real movie theaters using camcorders. Even without access to a physical copy of the film, pirates are able to capture its analog expression: the sound and pictures as perceived by a theater-goer.

In music, the analog hole is often used to get around software preventing digital copying. A user simply plays the the desired song on their computer using the legal DRM-enabled software, and records the audio coming out of their computer. Now they have a copy of the sound recording, which can be re-imported into the computer and digitally-encoded, with the original DRM stripped out. (A similar principle is at work when DRM systems go defunct and users are told to pirate their own music, although the industry uses the euphemism "making a backup.")

Film and music companies are painfully aware of the analog hole and have taken steps to close it, either by monitoring patron behavior (as in movie theaters) or by petitioning to legally limit the recording features of consumer electronics.

Because reading is a visual experience, there is the possibility of an analog hole exploit. Unlike with camcorder copies or re-burned MP3s, there is a potential for no loss in quality. And with a little ingenuity, the process can be completely automatic.

One example: Ebooks and Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Here's a sample digital book as displayed in Adobe Digital Editions. (This book is public domain and isn't technically covered by DRM, but the principle is exactly the same.)

I hid as much of the Digital Editions menus as I could and took a screenshot of this first page of Pride and Prejudice.

Next I downloaded some free optical character recognition (OCR) software. OCR programs can "read" images and output the words in them as plain text. It's a normal part of digitization projects, in which archival printed material is first scanned and its text is automatically extracted. At the consumer level, OCR software is often bundled with commercial scanners and fax machines.

I took my screenshot and fed it to the OCR software. Here's what I got without any special fine-tuning or spell-checking. Note that all typos are from the OCR software.

Chapter 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession ofa large fortune must be in want of a wife, However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

...and on through the entire first page. This output was in HTML, ready to be posted to the Web for anyone to read.

The OCR isn't 100 percent accurate, of course, but neither are the widely-available pirated ebooks created by laborious scanning of physical books, page after page. I was also using free software that requires careful fine-tuning to get working optimally; commercial OCR software is much better, especially when combined with spell-checking.

It wouldn't be difficult to automate the process of advancing one page in Digital Editions, taking a screenshot, and passing that on to my OCR software. Once the workflow was in place, I could strip hundreds or thousands of books of their DRM in a matter of minutes.

Another Possibility: Speech Recognition

My local library is kind enough to allow me to check out digital audiobooks. Naturally they're also secured with DRM (so much so that I can't actually play them, as they require Windows Media Player and I have only Mac and Linux computers). But assuming I could play them, I'd have available to me a nice stream of professionally-produced audio.

You're using speech recognition software every time you call a customer service line and an automated voice prompts you to speak your credit card number. If that's happened to you, you also know that speech recognition isn't 100 percent accurate yet, but under certain conditions it can be quite good. Automatic speech-to-text transcription isn't nearly as far along as optical character recognition, but it's another analog hole exploit that will eventually become trivial to perform.

Does This Mean Publishers Shouldn't Produce Ebooks or Audiobooks?

No! What I hope to convey is that DRM is not a true safeguard against ebook piracy. (It is, however, a known deterrent to ebook adoption.) I've heard a lot of passing the buck on DRM: publishers claim authors want it, booksellers claim publishers insist on it. These days it's hard to find someone to publicly state that they're actually for it.

I think of DRM like this: years ago my apartment was broken into and I called a locksmith to replace the door. My landlord had authorized me to get "the best lock possible," and the locksmith obliged with a four-foot steel bolt. It was almost too heavy to turn but made a very satisfying noise when it snapped shut.

I asked the locksmith, "Is this really unbreakable?"

"The lock is, sure." He slapped the door frame. "But this is made out of wood. If I really wanted to get in I'd just kick out the door. That's why I'm honest about what I sell." When I looked puzzled he handed me his business card. It contained his name, phone number, and company slogan: "A feeling of security."

Authors and publishers should be compensated for their talent and their hard work, and the desire for DRM is understandable. Book lovers, too, want their favorite authors to succeed. But digital books are a form of technology as much as they are literature, and technologies that are successful adapt to people's needs. Is just a "feeling" of security worth the ire of good customers who want to read their books wherever and however they like?

Apple is Now a Phone Company

Peter Brantley
October 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Apple reported stunning results for the last quarter, and it has clearly become a dominant phone company in a very short space of time. John Gruber from Daring Fireball has the real punchline, but his analysis of the results is excellent reading as a whole:

The entire iPhone platform is only 15 months old. The cheapest model still costs $199. The room for growth in this market is unlike anything Apple has ever seen. So the question is: Despite continuing strong iPod sales and record-breaking Mac sales, how long until the iPhone is undeniably the primary product and platform made by Apple?

My answer: Not long.

Report: No Kindle Launch in UK This Year

Mac Slocum
October 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Europe's complicated mobile landscape will prevent the Kindle from launching in the UK this year, reports The BookSeller:

In an interview with The Bookseller, Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon in the UK, said it was not yet clear when the Kindle would launch in the country ... "In Europe it is a minefield as there are so many [mobile] operators. If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it is not going to work on that beach."

Sony's Reader does not include mobile or Wi-Fi connectivity, which may have expedited its recent launch in the UK.

(Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream.)

Open Question: How Can Publishers Capitalize on Hot Topics?

Mac Slocum
October 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

You can't fault Newsweek and Amazon for cashing in on pre-election interest with a series of Kindle-only candidate biographies. There's certainly nothing wrong with profitable aggregation of content, either. But the efficiencies gained from ebooks, e-readers and print on demand raise secondary questions I'd like to explore with the TOC Community:

Can long-form content (print or digital) effectively capitalize on trendy subjects?
Is there still a market for quickie books? Can they compete with Web content?
Should publishers use Web/digital as a testbed for hot topics, then provide long-form content down the road? Or, will this technique spread them too thin?

Please share your thoughts in the comments area.

Newsweek Repackaging Candidate Coverage for Kindle Bios

Mac Slocum
October 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Listen

Newsweek will aggregate its coverage of John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden into four Kindle-only biographies. From Amazon's Kindle Blog:

The book-length biographies contain archived reporting and commentary from Newsweek's coverage of the candidates from the magazine's award-winning political correspondents. Each biography takes readers through the lives of the candidates, from their personal beginnings to their political breakthroughs.

The $9.99 books will be available for download tomorrow. Amazon previously released Kindle biographies of both prospective first ladies.

Readius Rollable E-Reader at Frankfurt Book Fair

Mac Slocum
October 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

The Readius rollable e-reader will be presented at this week's Frankfurt Book Fair, according to the Readius official blog. First announced in July, the Readius is a cell-phone-sized gadget that includes a five-inch rollable E Ink display.

The Digital Generation and E-Readers are Tied Together

Mac Slocum
October 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Over on Radar, Nick Bilton from the New York Times R&D group weighs in on the future of paper and e-readers:

A common response to the prospect of an eReader is, "But I love the feel of paper, I love a good book in my hands." I can empathize with that sentiment, but I don't think the digital generation can. If it's not a touch screen, or hyperlinked, or instantly available at the press of a button, then it's not worth their time. And as soon as a reasonable iPod-like replacement comes along, paper won't be worth the publishing industry's time either.

New Sony E-Reader Has Touchscreen, No Web Connection

Mac Slocum
October 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Web connectivity has always been the key difference between the Kindle and Sony's Reader. With Sony's release of its third-generation e-reader, Web connectivity is still the big separator. The PRS-700 is faster and offers more storage than its predecessors, but it does not include a Wi-Fi or cellular option.

The PRS-700's most notable upgrades are an LED reading light and a touchscreen interface. From CNET's Crave:

Like the iPhone and other next-gen touch-screen phones that have been appearing lately, the Reader incorporates some gesture-based commands. You can swipe your finger across the display to page forward or back (you can choose between a left or right swipe to advance pages in the settings menu). Swiping and holding your finger down at the end of the swipe allows you to advance or rewind through pages at a fast clip.

The new Reader will be available in November for $399.99.

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