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Amazon sued over Kindle

The Discovery Channel is suing Amazon over the Kindle for patent infringement, claiming they invented the concept of encrypting a book to be sold digitally over the internet. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m usually the dorky uncle wearing the

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Used Books Recession Proof?

Chris Volk at Bookfever has put together an interesting, short survey of booksellers and how the recession is affecting them. To summarize: booksellers are reporting average sales 10.6% lower than the prior year. On Biblio, we’re definitely seeing used book sales weaker than we anticipated

Kindle is Heir-Apparent to Betamax

They really just don’t get it. In a move to prevent the possibility that someone could use the Kindle to buy e-books from (gasp!) a retailer other than Amazon, the same had its attorneys contact MobileRead and demand that they remove some user posted scripts

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Web 2.0 may not be evil after all…

OK — I have to admit that I’ve long been more than a bit sceptical about social networks and the whole web 2.0 fad.  Mainly, I’ve long suspected that there is a direct and inverse relationship between how quick and easy it is to broadcast

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The Scanning Age; or, a primer on the Corporate State

A recent article in the New York Times talks about Google’s so-called “pursuit” of copyholders on the books they are digitizing.  This is part of the settlement announce last October that effectively legalizes Google’s blatant trademark infringement.  As part of the settlement, Google is given

Eaten any good books lately?

Bern Marcowitz (co-author of Care and Feeding of Books) is fond of pointing out that the Torah & Bible both talk about eating books no less than five times. This got me thinking about the recent books I’ve read – how would they taste?

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Rest In Peace Mr. Farmer

Philip Jose Farmer passed away in his sleep this morning at the age of 91. Farmer was one of the first authors I found when delving into science fiction for the first time. I remember reading Dayworld during summer break in middle school, leaning  against