In their post "How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked" they describe the process of spoofing a web browser, downloading a bunch of JSON files, reconstructing the obfuscated SVGs used to draw individual letters, and running OCR on them to extract text.

There were a few problems with this approach.

Firstly, the downloader was hard-coded to only work with the .com site. That fix was simple - do a search and replace on amazon.com with amazon.co.uk. Easy!

But the harder problem was with the OCR. The code was designed to visually centre each extracted glyph. That gives a nice amount of whitespace around the character which makes it easier for OCR to run. The only problem is that some characters are ambiguous when centred:

When I ran the code, lots of full-stops became midpoints, commas became apostrophes, and various other characters went a bit wonky.

That made the output rather hard to read. This was compounded by the way line-breaks were treated. Modern eBooks are designed to be reflowable - no matter the size of your screen, lines should only break on a new paragraph. This had forced linebreaks at the end of every displayed line - rather than at the end of a paragraph.

So I decided to fix it.

A New Approach

I decided that OCRing an entire page would yield better results than single characters. I was (mostly) right. Here's what a typical page looks like after de-obfuscation and reconstruction:

As you can see - the typesetting is good for the body text, but skew-whiff for the title. Bold and italics are preserved. There are no links or images.

Here's how I did it.

Extract the characters

As in the original code, I took the SVG path of the character and rendered it as a monochrome PNG. Rather than centring the glyph, I used the height and width provided in the glyphs.json file. That gave me a directory full of individual letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and ligatures. These were named by fontKey (bold, italic, normal, etc).

Create a blank page

The page_data_0_4.json has a width and height of the page. I created a white PNG with the same dimensions. The individual characters could then be placed on that.

Resize the characters

In the page_data_0_4.json each run of text has a fontKey - which allows the correct glyph to be selected. There's also a fontSize parameter. Most text seems to be (the ludicrously precise) 19.800001. If a font had a different size, I temporarily scaled the glyph in proportion to 19.8.

Each glyph has an associated xPosition, along with a transform which gives X and Y offsets. That allows for indenting and other text layouts.

The characters were then pasted on to the blank page.

Once every character from that page had been extracted, resized, and placed - the page was saved as a monochrome PNG.

OCR the page

Tesseract 5 is a fast, modern, and reasonably accurate OCR engine for Linux.

Running tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng produced a .txt file with all the text extracted.

For a more useful HTML style layout, the hOCR output can be used: tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng hocr

Or, a PDF with embedded text: tesseract page_0022.png output -l eng pdf

Mistakes

OCR isn't infallible. Even with a high resolution image and a clear font, there were some errors.

• Superscript numerals for footnotes were often missing from the OCR.
• Words can run together even if they are well spaced.
• Tesseract can recognise bold and italic characters - but it outputs everything as plain text.

What's missing?

Images aren't downloaded. I took a brief look and, while there are links to them in the metadata, they're downloaded as encrypted blobs. I'm not clever enough to do anything with them.

The OCR can't pick out semantic meaning. Chapter headings and footnotes are rendered the same way as text.

Layout is flat. The image of the page might have an indent, but the outputted text won't.

What's next?

This is very far from perfect. It can give you a visually similar layout to a book you have purchased from Amazon. But it won't be reflowable.

The text will be reasonably accurate. But there will be plenty of mistakes.

You can get an HTML layout with hOCR. But it will be missing formatting and links.

Processing all the JSON files and OCRing all the images is relatively quick. But tweaking and assembling is still fairly manual.

There's nothing particularly clever about what I've done. The original code didn't come with an open source software licence, so I am unable to share my changes - but any moderately competent programmer could recreate this.

Personally, I've just stopped buying books from Amazon. I find that Kobo is often cheaper and their DRM is easy to bypass. But if you have many books trapped in Amazon - or a book is only published there - this is a barely adequate way to liberate it for your personal use.

Background

Amazon have decided to stop letting customers download their purchased eBooks onto their computers. That means I can't strip the DRM and read on my non-Amazon eReader.

So I guess I'm not spending money with Amazon any more. I'm moving to Kobo for three main reasons:

1. They provide standard ePubs for download.
2. ePub DRM is trivial to remove.
3. Kobo will undercut Amazon's prices!

Here's the thing. I want to buy my eBooks. It is trivial to pirate almost any modern book. But, call me crazy, I like rewarding writers with a few pennies. That said, I'm not made of money, so I want to get the best (legal) deal possible.

Kobo do a price-match with other eBook retailers. It says:

We'll award a credit to your Kobo account equal to the price difference, plus 10% of the competitor’s price.

I found a book I wanted which was £4.99 on Kobo. The Amazon Kindle price was £4.31.

4.99 - ( (4.99 - 4.31) + (4.31 * 0.1) ) = 3.88

I purchased the book, sent a request for a price match, and got this email a few hours later:

OK! So what steps can we automate, and which will have to remain manual?

Amazon Pricing API

Amazon have a Product Advertising API. You will need to register for the Amazon Affiliate Program and make some qualifying sales before you get API access.

In order to search for an ISBN and get the price back, you need to send:

{
 "Keywords": "isbn:9781473613546",
 "Resources": ["Offers.Listings.Price"],
}

Using the updated Python API for PAAPI:

from paapi5_python_sdk import DefaultApi, SearchItemsRequest, SearchItemsResource, PartnerType

def search_items():
    access_key = "ABC"
    secret_key = "123"
    partner_tag = "shkspr-21"
    host = "webservices.amazon.co.uk"
    region = "eu-west-1"

    api = DefaultApi(access_key=access_key, secret_key=secret_key, host=host, region=region)

    request = SearchItemsRequest(
        partner_tag=partner_tag,
        partner_type=PartnerType.ASSOCIATES,
        keywords="isbn:9781473613546",
        search_index="All",
        item_count=1,
        resources=["Offers.Listings.Price"]
    )

    response = api.search_items(request)

    print(response)

search_items()

(Add your own access key, secret key, and tag. You may need to change the host and region depending on where you are in the world.)

That returns something like:

{
    "search_result": {
        "items": [
            {
                "asin": "B09JLQHHXN",
                "detail_page_url": "https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09JLQHHXN?tag=shkspr-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1",
                "offers": {
                    "listings": [
                        {
                            "price": {
                                "amount": 2.99,
                                "currency": "GBP",
                                "display_amount": "£2.99"
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

(I've truncated the above so it only shows the relevant information.)

Kobo ISBN & Price

Let's get the ISBN and Price of a book on Kobo. There's no easy API to do this. But, thankfully, Kobo embeds some Schema.org metadata.

Look at the source code for https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/venomous-lumpsucker-1

<div id="ratings-widget-details-wrapper" class="kobo-gizmo"
     data-kobo-gizmo="RatingAndReviewWidget"
     data-kobo-gizmo-config ='{&quot;googleBook&quot;:&quot;{\r\n  \&quot;@context\&quot;: \&quot;http://schema.org\&quot;,\r\n  \&quot;@type\&quot;: \&quot;Book\&quot;,\r\n  \&quot;name\&quot;: \&quot;Venomous Lumpsucker\&quot;,\r\n  \&quot;genre\&quot;: [\r\n    \&quot;Fiction \\u0026 Literature\&quot;,\r\n    \&quot;Humorous\&quot;,\r\n    \&quot;Literary\&quot;\r\n  ],\r\n  \&quot;inLanguage\&quot;: \&quot;en\&quot;,\r\n  \&quot;author\&quot;: {\r\n    \&quot;@type\&quot;: \&quot;Person\&quot;,\r\n    \&quot;name\&quot;: \&quot;Ned Beauman\&quot;\r\n  },\r\n  \&quot;workExample\&quot;: {\r\n    \&quot;@type\&quot;: \&quot;Book\&quot;,\r\n    \&quot;author\&quot;: {\r\n      \&quot;@type\&quot;: \&quot;Person\&quot;,\r\n      \&quot;name\&quot;: \&quot;Ned Beauman\&quot;\r\n    },\r\n    \&quot;isbn\&quot;: \&quot;9781473613546\&quot; …'>
</div>

Getting the data from the data-kobo-gizmo-config is a little tricky.

• Using Python Requests won't work because Kobo seem to run a JS CAPTCHA to detect scraping.
• There is a Calibre-Web Kobo plugin but it requires you to have a physical Kobo eReader in order to get an API key.
• The Rakuten API is only for the Japanese store.

So we have to use the Selenium WebDriver to scrape the data:

from selenium import webdriver
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import json

#   Open the web page
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get("https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/venomous-lumpsucker-1")

#   Get the source
html_source = browser.page_source

#   Soupify
soup = BeautifulSoup(html_source, 'html.parser')

#   Get the encoded JSON Schema
schema = soup.find_all(id="ratings-widget-details-wrapper")[0].get("data-kobo-gizmo-config")

#   Convert to object from JSON
parsed_data = json.loads(schema)

#   Decode the nested JSON strings
parsed_data["googleBook"] = json.loads(parsed_data["googleBook"])

#    Get ISBN and Price
price = parsed_data["googleBook"]["workExample"]["potentialAction"]["expectsAcceptanceOf"]["price"]
isbn  = parsed_data["googleBook"]["workExample"]["isbn"]
print(isbn)
print(price)

Kobo Wishlist

OK, nearly there! Given a Kobo book URl we can get the price and ISBN, then use that ISBN to get the Kindle price. But how do we get the Kobo book URl in the first place?

I'm adding all the books I want to my Kobo Wishlist.

Inside the Wishlist is a scrap of JavaScript which contains this JSON:

{
    "value": {
        "Items": [
            {
                "Title": "Venomous Lumpsucker",
                "Price": "£2.99",
                "ProductUrl": "/gb/en/ebook/venomous-lumpsucker-1",
            }
        ],
        "TotalItemCount": 11,
        "ItemCountByProductType": {
            "book": 11
        },
        "PageIndex": 1,
        "TotalNumPages": 1,
       }
}

(Simplified to make it easier to understand.)

Although there's a price, there's no ISBN, So you'll need to use the "ProductUrl" to get the ISBN and Price as above.

Sadly, unlike Amazon, there's no way to publicly share a wishlist. Getting the JSON requires logging in, so it's back to Selenium again!

This should be enough:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import time

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get("https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/account/wishlist")

#       Log in
username_box = browser.find_element(By.NAME, "LogInModel.UserName")
username_box.clear()
username_box.send_keys('you@example.com')

password_box = browser.find_element(By.NAME, "LogInModel.Password")
password_box.clear()
password_box.send_keys('p455w0rd')

password_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)

time.sleep(5) # Wait for load and rendering

But the Kobo presents a CAPTCHA which prevents login.

There is an unofficial API which, sadly, doesn't seem to work at the moment.

Next Steps

For now, I'm saving specific Kobo book URls into a file and then running a scrape once per day. Hopefully, the unofficial Kobo API will be working again soon.

OK! OK! That's not the main reason. It has pretty good support from the manufacturer and a vibrant community around it. Masses of memory, warm lighting, and oodles of space. And, I think, pretty hackable.

Quick video

Specifications

• Android 6.0 - with a promise to update it to Android 8.0
• Touchscreen with Wacom stylus
• 1.5GHz CPU
• 2GB RAM
• 32GB storage plus a microSD slot
• 7.8 inch E-ink Carta HD (300 PPI) screen
• Dual colour front lights
• USB-C for charging, data transfer, and headphones
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• Speakers and microphone
• 3200 mAh battery

Essentially it's an Android tablet with an eInk screen. The Wacom stylus can be used for handwriting and note-taking.

The reading experience

Amazing! The screen is goregous. You have precise control over the thickness of the fonts, line spacing, word spacing, and more. Pinch to zoom works perfectly. You can even side-load your own fonts. You can also read in landscape mode with two columns. I find that particularly useful.

Links within books work, as do footnotes and endnotes. The keyboard is pretty quick for searching. You can change how bright the light is - and flip between warm and cool lighting.

It also does Text-To-Speech, so a little robot can read books out via the stereo speakers. It'll also play MP3s. No headphone jack - but it supports Bluetooth and USB-C.

There are some glitches in the default reading experience - especially when it comes to punctuation.

Formats supported

A sample of ePub, .mobi, PDF, and .txt files all worked well.

It shows up as an MTP device when connected to a computer via USB. Or you can send files via Bluetooth. It also has a built in webserver, so you can send via WiFi.

ePub 3

I tried the default reader using some of the sample ePub 3 documents. It coped with Arabic (right to left), Japanese with Ruby, and inline images.

Weirdly, it didn't like linebreaks in running text - collapsing them so there was no spaces between words.

It didn't support embedded fonts in eBooks. But, that's ok, you can add your own!

Fonts

Create a directory called /fonts/ on the device. Paste in either TTF or OTF fonts. They magically appear in the reading app!

No support for WOFF / WOFF2 fonts in the default reader.

Apps

There are a few built in apps - the standard Android browser is included. There's an app store and the ability to side-load. There are a bunch of reading apps if you don't like the default one.

Yup, you can install the Amazon Kindle app if you really want to!

(Screenshots are in colour, but the screen is black and white.)

Note taking

I don't like handwriting - but the Wacom stylus is easy to use. You can draw on the screen, annotate PDFs, and erase your scribblings.

Quirks

It doesn't come with a case, nor a screen protector. I'm in two minds about this. It has a glass screen, so should be fairly rugged. I don't plan on using the Wacom stylus, so I doubt that'll scratch it. But seeing as any blemish interferes with your reading experience, some protection is a must. I purchased a £20 case for it.

Start-up time is slow. This is an Android tablet, so doesn't have quite the same energy efficiency as other readers. From off to reading takes about 45 seconds. You can set it to never switch off, but you'll need to charge it a little more often.

The UI isn't brilliantly translated into English. You'll understand it, but the grammar and spacing are quirky. You can also see a few HTML entities in the the UI. So, not perfect quality. But usable.

There are also some untranslated /UI elements.

The UI takes a little getting used to. Some options are hidden away in menus, others behind icons. Most things you'll only have to set once, but it can be a challenge finding everything.

The first time I rebooted, it reverted to Chinese, but it was pretty simple to set it back.

Cost and Verdict

I paid £190 from eBay - plus £20 for a case. I reckon that's a bargain! There are cheaper eReaders out there - but this is the only one I found with USB-C. It doesn't tie you in to the Amazon Kindle monoculture.

As an Android table, it's basically fine. Good enough for occasional web browsing, and some specifically optimised apps.

And as a book reader? Close to perfect! Text is crisp and clear, page turns are instant. Lots of options to fiddle with to get your books just right.

So, here it is, the world famous mystery that is the Voynich Manuscript now in convenient eBook format.

• PDF - suitable for Kindle, nook, Kobo, Android, iOS and for most devices (60MB)
• CBZ - suitable for comic book readers, tablets, etc. (60MB)

As the book is pure images, I decided not to convert to .mobi or .epub. Those are great formats, but offer nothing to picture books that can't be provided by PDF.

Here's how I converted the book for all the different formats.

Size

The original files were quite large - over 4MB per image - leading to a total eBook file size of 660MB. A little on the chunky side to easily distribute.

Using mogrify, it was easy to convert the images to a more manageable size.

A simple mogrify -resize 25% -quality 85 *.jpg took the total file size down to 63MB with no visible reduction in quality.

But, of course, there were a series of problems.

Firstly, some of the pages are double or triple width. They are scanned at a different size from all the other files.

In this case, the quarter size file is too small to read. Here it is after resizing:

Indeed, each image is at a subtly different size. So simply resizing by percentage doesn't work well. The size of all the images was determined using ImageMagick's "identify" command. While the largest images had a height of around 6,000 pixels, the smallest had a height of 1352. I figured that a height of 1280 would be enough to satisfy most eReaders and tablets.

mogrify -resize x1280 -quality 85 *.jpg

Once done, the total file size of all the pages was 59MB. Good enough! With the advantage of having every page the same height - if not width.

Cropping

The scans of the images contain lots of extraneous information - most notably the edges of other pages.

Manually cropping each image is possible - although tedious. It results in a slightly higher quality image - click for bigger:

Although it would be possible to automate a simple crop, each page has a unique layout. If there's further interest, I may spend some free evenings cropping the pages individually.

Page Order

As I said in my blog post of 2010:

The Yale site has all the scans available as high-res JPGs or MrSIDs - but it's a pain to download hundreds of images from the site.
So - I turned to a torrent. Don't worry! These images are hundred of years old - they are in the public domain.

(NB, if your ISP is censoring the link from The Pirate Bay, you can use this Magnet Link instead).

I'm still slightly unsure of the order of all the pages. Some have numbers printed on them, but it's not clear whether they're sequential. Indeed, it's probably impossible to know how the pages were originally ordered. So, I've left them in the same order as the Yale scan.

Converting

I didn't transform the images to greyscale because, although current eInk devices are only black and white, future devices will have full colour displays. Although using greyscale would reduce the file size by a minor amount, most modern devices should have enough internal memory to store a colour file of that size and - hopefully - have enough power to render each page without difficulty.

Kindle Formatting

I initially uploaded the PDF to Amazon's Kindle store. After it had finished converting, it ended up looking like this: All the pages had been rotated and chopped in half. Helpful.

I decided that it would be easier to use Kindle Comic Creator - it seemed to work fine in Linux using WINE.

That had the advantage of being easily able to select sections of pages as "panels". I had to whack the quality of the images down a little to fit within Kindle's 50MB upload limit. However, despite the total image size being 30MB, the resultant file was still over 60MB! It also turned out that the Kindle Comic Creator resized images so they were no taller than 1024px.

Using the Kindle Creation software imports and keeps your original files - doubling the file size! There are tools to strip the bloat but they won't produce valid files to upload to the Kindle store.

So, I had to make a dirty compromise. I scaled the images to 1,000 pixels high, and set JPG compression to 65%. The images aren't as high quality as I would like - but the file size is a svelte 49MB (despite the source being 22MB!).

After all that kerfuffle, once Amazon converted it, it was back down to 23MB! If there's interest, I'll see if there's any way I can make it higher quality in the future.

Conclusion

I really don't know why I didn't complete this a few years ago. Just another of those projects which got lost on the back burner!

• PDF - suitable for Kindle, nook, Kobo, Android, iOS and for most devices (60MB)
• CBZ - suitable for comic book readers, tablets, etc. (60MB)

This is a long and rambling blog post which asks two questions:

1. Given that we can only read one book at a time - can we set up a "Kindle Stock Exchange" for our unused media?
2. If so, what effect would this have on content producers and sellers who rely on artificial scarcity?

This has been mulling over in my head for some time.

Image from FreeFoto.com

Transactional Friction

One of the great advantages of the digital era is the reduction of transactional friction.

The time, effort and money it takes to perform a transaction in the online world is radically reduced from that of the physical world. Sending a letter to the other side of the world used to take weeks - and involved ships, planes, and physical delivery. Now a click of the mouse sends it anywhere in an instant.

Neal Stephenson's novels in the Baroque Cycle document the rise of the bank note. It used to be common practice for wealthy people to lug their gold with them when they went on journeys. This was, as you can imagine, a highly inefficient practice - it was slow, dangerous, and expensive. The bank note reduced the friction of having to physically transport gold.

The efficiency of being able to settle large debts without the need to physically move goods was a revolution which introduced the free movement of capital, and dramatically altered the nature of debt and lending. It shaped the modern world.

The digital world can also free us from the needs of the physical. While many of us already have some goods that only exist as 1s and 0s on disk - some pioneers have already shifted as many of their possessions as possible away from the physical world. They've turned their heavy, impractical, and inefficient gold into a light, practical and frictionless bank note. A lifetime of books, films and music - stored on a lightweight thumb drive. Or floating weightless on the Internet.

That's why, last year, I decided to burn all my books.

Making Money

Here's a picture of my book shelf. At any moment, I can only read one book at a time, watch one DVD, and listen to one CD.

Would it make sense to sell all the books and DVDs I owned except for the one I was currently using? When it comes to physical books - no.

It would be so inefficient. It takes too much time, money, and effort to sell a single book than the value I would recoup from doing so. Sticking a book on eBay, postage, packing, dealing with refunds etc. is a lot of effort for relatively small gain.

The digital world changes all of that. While the ability to instantly consume is exciting, what intrigues me is the ability to take my goods to market - and the consequences that would have on capitalism.

What would happen when - rather than buying books instantly - I can offer them for sale instantly?

Selling My Bookshelf

Imagine if you could easily rent out your DVDs - like a mini-BlockBuster. They're sat unused on the shelf all night, ignored while you're at work during the day, left unplayed when you go shopping.

The hyper-efficient online world makes this possible.

Just like taking a loan secured on my assets (car, house), I can release equity from my digital goods by selling them when I'm not using them. Which is most of the time.

99% of the time, your DVD collection isn't in use. You may share them with your family, friends, and co-workers - why wouldn't you share them with everyone?

There are some very good reasons why not in the physical world - access, lack of selection in your collection, wear and tear - but in the frictionless online marketplace, most of these concerns disappear.

Just as on eBay, your single DVD sits on the same shelf as someone selling thousands of DVDs. The buyer probably doesn't care about range of selection or the providence of a seller - she just wants the item she desires.

With digital copies there are no issues of wear and tear and an online copy of a work is instantly accessible.

A second hand digital work is identical in quality to a factory fresh copy. My ebook edition of Little Brother is bit-for-bit identical to one bought anywhere. In a perfect market, it would fetch the same price as one purchased from a retailer. Or, more likely, the retailer would reduce the price to the lowest available on the market.

(This leads us down an interesting path. The whole notion of "second hand" or "used" goods disappears when we're talking about digital copies. But that's for another post.)

Real Time Trading

We can even go a step further. Stock trading used to be conducted by sweaty men shouting in arenas. There are now electronic agents on the the stock exchange which process millions of trades per second. Every millisecond the computers execute trades based on real-time information.

I've said previously that you can only read one book at a time. Your eBook reader will only display one page at a time - so why not sell the pages that you aren't reading? In the physical world, perhaps two people can read a book at the same time (if they're close and not overly annoyed with the other's reading speed). In the digital world, you could have one reader for every page in the book.

The second you click "Next Page" your eBook reader could instantly find the cheapest price for the page you want to read - and sell the pages you're not reading for the best price.

A DVD could be separated into scenes or - to push it to the extreme - individual frames. If I sell my movies when I'm not watching them - why shouldn't I lend or sell them while I am watching them?

The Effect

Moving from transporting gold to transporting bank notes to digital trading has radically changed the nature of money and banking. The free movement of capital completely disrupted the way the world works. The free market dominates economic thought. But it is only a free market between giant players. Only corporations can afford to play capitalism's game.

Will the free market be brought down to individuals? Will a grandmother in her living room be able to sell her digital goods as easily and freely as Warner Brothers?

What does the media publishing landscape look like when every consumer can change their bookshelf into a second hand store? Why would anyone buy a copy of a work from Amazon when they could borrow from their neighbour - even if that neighbour lived on the other side of the world?

Would we see multiple Bourse to facilitate the exchange and a willingness for people to sweat their assets?

Perhaps it will move us to "subscription" models for mixed media - taking a £50 per month subscription to books in the same way many of us do for television channels.

What does it even mean to sell goods when they can be replicated instantly at zero cost?

I don't know - but I think it will be exciting to witness.

There Is An Analogue Hole In Your Mind

Applying analogue thinking to the digital world leads us down some interesting rabbit holes. As a thought-experiment, it's incredible to imagine that we could end up in a crazy world where we pay-per-word, where the right to read is predicated on software stock brokers trying to extract every micro-cent of value out of copyrighted works.

We need to break out of our old ways of thinking. The zero-friction economy is a paradigm shift (in the sense of Kuhn). We need to adapt our modes of thinking and our economies to this brave new world.

Looking at the prices of eink devices at wholesalers, this looks broadly accurate. They do seem to be selling at around wholesale cost - customers also get Amazon's fabulous support, free software updates, and high quality manufacturing.

Yet there is a curious anomaly. Why aren't Amazon selling ePub books?

Terminology

A quick diversion into the terminology used in this article.

• eReader - the physical hardware. Kindle, Kobo, nook, etc.
• eBook - the electronic file containing the words & pictures. ePub, Mobi, PDF, etc.

Background

There are, broadly speaking, two main formats for ebook - ePub and MobiPocket. Think of them like the difference between 8-Tracks and cassette tapes - they both hold music, but play on different system.

ePub works on just about every eReader on the planet - with the notable exception of the Kindle.

MobiPocket (or Mobi, for short) only works on the Kindle⁰.

Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive comparison of which device can handle which format.

So, we have a problem. The books you buy from Amazon can't be read on your Sony, Kobo, Nook, or Generic eReader. Well, they can, but you have to remove the DRM, covert the book to the ePub, and hope that everything works ok.

What a pain in the arse.

What Would Happen If...

Now, I'm not suggesting that the Kindle should be able to read ePub books. Obviously, it's technically capable of doing so - but it would mean that Amazon customers could compare prices with other retailers and start to leave the Amazon ecosystem.

What I'm suggesting is that Amazon should say "Buy this ebook for your Kobo" and deliver an ePub to those poor, unfortunate souls who haven't been blessed with a Kindle.

There are lots of statistics regarding eReader share. Some suggest that Amazon have a ~47% share of the eReader market in the US whereas the Kobo eReader has a 46% share in Canada, and 50% share in France.

Let's say that the Kindle has a worldwide share of 50%. Amazon has two options:

1. It can aggressively pursue that market share by producing more innovative, cheaper hardware, and hope to convert users to the Amazon flock
2. It can accept that some people don't want its hardware and start selling books directly to those users

Amazon claims that it makes more money from eBook sales than hardware. So why doesn't it expand its market to the 50% of eReaders which are currently not served by its store?

At the moment, customers with Kobo, nook, and other eReaders can compare prices across a number of eBook stores. What would happen if they could add Amazon to the list of shops they could compare with?

the world's first ad-supported Kindle, going on sale within Target and Best Buy locations for $114. That represents a gentle $25 savings compared to the price of today's cheapest Kindle, but those 2500 pennies don't come free -- you'll be asked to endure "advertisements on the bottom of the device's home page and on its screen savers."

Engadget

Can It Work?

On the strength of the current evidence - no.

Browsing on the Kindle's web browser is a slow and frustrating experience. It's slow at downloading, takes ages to render, and scrolling is a nightmare. That's ok - it's primarily a book; not a browser.

But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that advertisers just don't know how to advertise on this medium. Take a look at the crap that goes on in mobile advertising. Do you think that advertisers will have the wherewithal to make a Kindle-friendly advert?

Not even Amazon can make it work. Take a look at this.

While browsing on the Kindle, I spotted this banner advert. What struck me was that the advertiser had clearly target the Kindle - probably via User-Agent sniffing. Intrigued, I clicked on it, only to be greeted with this monstrosity. Yes - not even Amazon's store renders well on the Amazon Kindle. While the mobile version of the site may work, there would still be no way to buy the book. Even if it did, I'm in the UK and can't buy from the American store.

So, I ask again: If Amazon can't write a website which works well on a Kindle - what makes you think an advertiser can?

What Would Work?

Many years ago - I was in discussion with the people who almost got the Kindle on their mobile network. There were a number of different business models floated - many completely unsuitable - but some only waiting for the right time.

1. The hardware for the Kindle is (reasonably) expensive as an upfront cost.
2. Most customers are mathematically challenged

Would people buy the Kindle in the same way that they buy a phone? Give customers a £111 Kindle FREE! (on a £9.99 per month contract).

Of course, the missing piece of the puzzle is what you get for the £9.99. Amazon book tokens? Free OTA podcasts? Subscriptions to newspapers?

I don't have the answer - but I suspect Amazon wants to lower the cost of the hardware and increase the attach rate (number of Kindle books a user buys).

Why not do an offer similar to this.

• Kindle costs £111
• Comes with £200 worth of Amazon book tokens!
• The Amazon vouchers are in the denomination of 2*£10, 6*£7.50, 20*£5, 35*£1
• Or, perhaps the vouchers are in the form "50% off", "25% off", etc
• Vouchers are provided to the user over 12 months
• Vouchers expire after 3 months

The purchase price is all of a sudden much more palatable given the FREE vouchers. The discounts could probably be eaten by some publishers - or at least partially. The "risk" of buying an eBook is significantly reduced in the eyes of the customer - leading to an increased attach rate. Most customers aren't going to use the full value of the vouchers.

Just sticking on banner adverts for perfume seems so... lazy!

Amazon's Strengths

Amazon has a great record on "people who bought X also liked Y". Why not bring that to Kindle? Instead of this incredibility lame screen...

...why not recreate this page for the 21st century? Amazon has my credit card details and my address - they don't need advertising from third parties!

• Finished reading Pride and Prejudice? Buy the DVD!
• Enjoyed Brick Lane? Get this great balti dish set delivered to your door!
• Wow! Oryx and Crake was pretty good huh? Download the sequel - The Year of the Flood

Subsidising the hardware cost with enforced banner adverts is a flabby and uninventive 1990's business model. It also places the Amazon brand at risk of a crappy user experience.

I don't think readers will welcome a turgid little banner for perfume. But I think they will embrace relevant and contextual advertising which adds value to their reading experience.

I tried a few generic book lights but they were either too dim, didn't fit correctly, used obscure batteries or - as with the official booklight case - ensconced in vegetarian unfriendly leather.

Then, I discovered the Verso Arc Light - manufactured by a company called LightWedge. It's got everything I was looking for in a book light.

• Small and light
• Rechargeable via micro-USB
• Bright
• Fits other eBooks

Gratuitous Demo

Before I get into the specs - here's a demo of how it works.

The movement on the light is slightly odd. I like the way it gently slides out - but it does make it feel a little flimsy.

Rechargeable

I looked at a number of ebook lights and their either required batteries - which may be hard to find if you're on holiday - or a proprietary charger. Lightwedge have done the smart thing and made the Arc Light rechargeable via the same connector as the Kindle. That means when I go away I only need to take one cable to charge my Kindle, light, phone, and BlueTooth. Viva USB!

Bonus - it even has a charging light to let you know it's charging and when it is completely charged. It took a few hours to fully charge, but you can charge it a little at a time. It will even charge and light at the same time. At 15 hours of light on a full charge - you shouldn't need to plug it in too often.

Accessories

As well as coming with a standard micro-USB cable (no US plug - just the cable) there are two adapters to make the light fit other ebooks - they specifically mention Kindle 1,2,3,DX, Sony PRS-300 & PRS-600, Kobo and nook. I found that the fit was snug, even with a gel-case on my Kindle.

It's unlikely to fall off unless you give it a sustained shake. It's padded, so it won't scratch or mark your device.

Price

The Arc Light retails online for US$40 (~£25) - and that's before shipping from the USA. Luckily, I found a dealer in Ireland selling the Verso Arc Light on eBay. Total cost including shipping was €25 (~£22) and was delivered within a week.

Let There Be Light!

The light is bright and covers the whole screen. Naturally, it's slightly darker towards the bottom of the page - but still bright enough to read easily.

Verdict

As I said, it feels a little flimsy. Others have complained about build quality - but mine seems all right so far.

I would have liked a little carry case or pouch to keep it insulated from knocks and bumps while it isn't in use - but that's a minor niggle. The USB cable it came with was fine for charging - but didn't seem to support data transfer from my phone. As cables are ten-a-penny, it's not much of an issue.

Overall, a great accessory and a must-buy for any Kindle owner with a partner who needs their beauty sleep!

What strikes me is how detailed the poster is. The power of the quote. The sheer neutrality of the sentiment. Books - any book is a weapon. Whether it is The Communist Manifesto or Atlas Shrugged. Imagine a Kindle full of books placed into the hands of a child. If all those books were in the same vein, it would be very easy to distort their world view.

And I think that's the key. It is books - plural - which act as weapons. Like any gun, sword, or fist, they can be wielded by either side.

I think the OLPC is a magnificent product. But what happens if we distribute a (ruggedised) eBook reader to children around the world? That's what Worldreader is aiming to do. Taking eReaders around the world. No longer are people restricted to the handful of books they may have nearby. No longer having to choose between travelling to a library or travelling to work. A lifetime of books on every device. With mobile phone coverage increasing around the world, access to every book ever written.

Of course, there's nothing to stop people reading Mein Kampf. Nothing to stop them reading Harry Potter. We just have to trust that, in this war of ideas, the ideals of peace, justice and liberty, are more powerful than the alternatives.

So, here's the Kindle wallpaper. Hopefully it will remind you that every book on your device is a powerful and disruptive weapon.

I've submitted this to the Kindle Wallpapers blog. You can download it by clicking on the preview above.

Anathem

Neal Stephenson's Anathem By rights, I should have loved this book. But I didn't. I couldn't even get 5% of the way through. Perhaps it was the deliberate use of overcomplicated language, or perhaps because it feels like it's an n-th generation copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz - I just couldn't get in to it. There are obviously some fascinating ideas in there, but I feel that Stephenson has gone for "Epic Tome" where a judicial use of the red pen would make it far more readable.

Seeing Further

Bill Bryson's Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society The essays contained within range between frighteningly good (Richard Dawkins on evolution) and mawkishly unfathomable (Margaret Wertheim who seems to think that because there might be an eleventh dimension, that means the Bible is literally true.... WTF?). The essays are, on the whole, entertaining and informative - but they do stray quite wildly from the subject of the Royal Society. After being so cruel to Neal Stephenson, I should say that his essay on Leibniz and Newton is deliciously good - and it reveals much of the historical background to Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

The Last Dragon Slayer

Jasper Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer I think that Jasper Fforde is the most original fiction writer. If you've never read a Jasper Fforde book before - The Last Dragon Slayer is amazing. If, however, you've already devoured all the Thursday Next books - this will give you an odd sense of deja-vu.

• Young, tenacious, female protagonist? Check!
• Mysterious animal companion who can only say one word? Check!
• Mega-corporations with comedy product names? Check!
• TV Chat Show hosts with sinister motivations? Check!

You get the picture. The only thing missing is the copious footnotes*. That said, it is a great story, set in a subtly complex world. The characters, pacing, jokes and denouement are all satisfyingly entertaining. Much like Terry Pratchett a few years ago, it's a little too "Jasper Fforde By Numbers". Certainly worth reading.

As has been pointed out - Dragon Slayer is meant to be a children's book. Personally, I don't think there's anything in this book which makes it suitable only for children. Also worth noting, Dragon Slayer doesn't have the usual array of special features and web content that I associate with Fforde's other work. There is a webpage with some enhanced content.

*Although that may be a repeat of the missing footnote problem which struck First Among Sequels.

Heat Wave

Richard Castle's Heat Wave This is a fantastic holiday read - if you're a fan of the TV series "Castle". The show has Nathan Fillion playing crime-writer Rick Castle. Stuck for ideas, he tags along with detective Kate Becket and writes a book loosely based on their crime-fighting capers. So, this isn't the novelization of the series; it's the fictional writer's fictionalised book based on fictional events. Confused? The whodunnit aspect of the book isn't fantastic - it reads like a rejected mid-season story - but you don't get the book for that. You buy it for the outrageous levels of fan-service it bestows upon the viewer/reader. Even the dedication has an in-joke:

To the extraordiany KB and all my friends at the 12th

A superb tie-in - although not as challenging a crime novel as, say, Jeffery Deaver. Many thanks to Miss Geeky for bringing the book to my attention earlier this year.

The Fry Chronicles

Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles The follow-up to his previous autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot. Stephen Fry has an almost painfully self-conscious way of describing event - often engaging in a meta-analysis of his own thoughts and feelings. This only covers a fraction of his life - from entering university to starting to become famous - yet it is a fulsome read. It concludes with a shameless cliffhanger for his next autobiography - let's hope we don't have to wait 13 years for the next one.

Life

Life: Keith Richards It seems that half the people on the beach were reading Keith Richard's autobiography. I'm not a massive fan of the Rolling Stones and only read this on the recommendation of Martin Glassborow. I was glad I did - it was an engaging and witty read. Completely different in almost every respect from Stephen Fry's autobiography although, bizarrely, dealing with exactly the same themes - love, sex, growing up, becoming famous, and drug abuse. There are a few passages which deal with the intricacies of guitar playing which I skipped over - and some of the discussions about the songs and riffs he wrote are almost meaningless unless you're very well versed in the Stones. Other than that, it's a highly recommended book - and works wonderfully as a companion piece to Fry's.

World War Z

Max Brooks' World War Z (As recommended by Peter Ibbotson) What a joyously bit of post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Told in a retrospective documentary style - much like Day of the Triffids. Fast, fun, and utterly believable. The perfect holiday read.

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson's books litter the world's beaches as they are rapidly devoured. I was left moderately underwhelmed. I was about 2/3rds of the way through the book before I got on the plane home - and didn't feel a compelling need to open it once seated. It's all told in a rather plodding style. I have a half-baked theory that books popular with women tend to concentrate on the little environmental details - the shoes, the food, the crunchiness of the gravel underfoot - Larsson makes this almost a fetish; faithfully recounting the exact number of degrees the thermometer reads and the number of the bus his protagonist jumps on at one point. One nice touch is that his knowledge of computers is broadly accurate - a nice change from the Dan Brown school of writing. The central mystery takes an age to be revealed - it's only 50% through the book that you get any idea of what's happening. There's a lot of build-up around not too much story. I'll finish it, but unless the last third is dramatically different to the rest of the book, I struggle to see why the series has become so popular.

Amazon Kindle

A special mention to the Amazon Kindle. It's hugely liberating to be able to pack a suitcase and not worry about whether the books will take you over your luggage allowance - or if you haven't packed enough to read. The free 3G was also useful in completing online check-in for the flights home - and reading the occasional weather report.

While the Kindle is amazing for reading books, it is atrociously bad as a library keeper. There's no way to easily organise books into folders, you can't search by the title of the book you're looking for, and with over a thousand books on the device there is a noticeable slowdown in sorting and searching.

The Kindle versions of some books are still more expensive than the hardback versions - utterly unacceptable. There's also no way to lend books to non-Kindle owners. As my wife has an Elonex 511EB, it was easier for be to get the books from stores other than Amazon and convert them for use on the Kindle.

I've no doubt that Amazon will adopt the ePub standard in the next 18 months - until then readers will be stuck in the same situation we were in in when iTunes only sold music in Apple's proprietary format. Plus ça change...

Me reading a Kindle on the beach....

Last year, I took a mixture of eBooks and physical books away with me. This year, I'm only taking eBooks.

That's where I need your help, gentle reader. Which books should I take? Which books do you recommend for a beach read?

Criteria

1. eBooks only. Liz & I have a Kindle and an Elonex 511EB - happy to have eBooks in any format (epub, mobi, txt) and convert them. Would prefer to avoid PDF.
2. I like a wide range of books - although I lean towards Sci-Fi. Here's what I read last year.
3. No Dan Brown.
4. Nothing that will make me angry. As much as I want to read the latest Heather Brookes book about how disfunctional British justice is, I'm on holiday to relax. I'm relying on the sun to make my blood boil - not my choice of book.
5. I've started to get rid of all my paper books - but you can see a list of everything I have read on Anobii.com.

Over To You

So, what are your top picks for holiday book? Let me know in the comment box bellow.

Regardless of what the book means, it is a beautiful and mysterious work of art. And I want to read it on my Kindle!

Archive.org has an ebook version of the Voynich Manuscript, but it has gone through a bizarre OCR process which, unsurprisingly, leaves it unreadable. So I've decided to roll my own!

Getting The Manuscript

The PDF on Archive.org is a bit cumbersome and doesn't work very well on Kindle or other readers. The Yale site has all the scans available as high-res JPGs or MrSIDs - but it's a pain to download hundreds of images from the site. So - I turned to a torrent. Don't worry! These images are hundred of years old - they are in the public domain.

The Original Image

The images I obtained are extremely high resolution scans of the manuscript.

I've shrunk down the above image - here is a detail of it, so you can see just how high quality the scans are. A typical page is 3MB - taking the whole book to around 700MB. There's easily enough space on the Kindle, but the time to render every page will be prohibitively long.

Crop and Resize

Firstly, the image needs to be cropped to the same aspect ratio as the Kindle screen (0.75), then resized to 600*800. From 3MB, the image is now 111KB.

Greyscale

eInk typically only handles greyscale images. So I dropped the colours out of the image. This takes the file size to under 100KB.

We can make the image marginally clearer to read by dumbly removing the background colour. As you can see, this doesn't look wonderful - many details are lost and there are odd looking artefacts throughout the image.

How They Look On The Kindle

The images look fantastic on the Kindle.

The full page - click for bigger

The coloured image - click for bigger

Black and White Screenshot - click for bigger

Clear Background Screenshot - click for bigger

It turns out that there's no real need to remove the background colours - although it does make it maginally clearer. Changing the the image to greyscale also has little appreciable difference. I think I'll probably keep them in colour so that future ebook readers can see them in all their glory.

Incidentally, I tried the high-resolution file. The kindle took around 30 seconds to render it. Here's a quick screen grab of it fully zoomed in.

Full Size Screenshot - click for bigger

TODO

This is a work in progress. Converting several hundred images will take a fair bit of time - unless I fully automate it and drop the cropping. The Kindle can be hacked to display images (or use them as screensavers) - but I will convert the images into an ePub and Mobi so they can be easily read by all eReaders. Once done, I'm sure the mysteries of the universe will be revealed to me!

Very Easy - Pictures

Wouldn't it be great to view pictures on your Kindle?  Well?  OK - pictures, perhaps not so much - but comics?  Yes please!

For best results, image files should be the same resolution as the Kindle. 600px * 800px - and grey-scale.

Let's use the XKCD comics - mostly because they're already the right size and mostly in black and white. And they're awesome.

This hack can be done in under 30 seconds.

1. Plug you Kindle into your computer using the USB cable.
2. In the root folder, create a new folder called "pictures"
3. In the new folder, create another folder called "XKCD"
4. Copy the pictures into the XKCD folder.
5. Eject the Kindle & unplug it.
6. From the Kindle home screen, press ALT and Z at the same time.
7. The screen will now show an XKCD book.  You can scroll through the pages using the normal page scroll buttons.
8. You can also change the size of the pictures.

Very Easy - Screenshots

Hold down ALT, SHIFT, G, at the same time. Done. The .gif files are stored in your documents folder.

Very Easy - Diagnostic Information

To get this diagnostic information do the following.

• Turn the Kindle on and unlock it.
• Press Menu
• Press Settings
• Hold down the Alt key
• While holding down Alt, type Y Q Q
• Ta da!

You can also type R Q Q to get this screen.

Easy - Jail Breaking and Screensavers

These are fairly easy hacks. Copy a file onto your Kindle and hit update. For up todate files and instructions, visit the MobileRead Wiki on Kindle Jailbreaking.

Found This Useful?

If you've enjoyed this post, or found it useful - you can buy an Amazon Kindle via my referral link.

Created by my colleague Elliot Moore.

I've got a rather neat femtocell - the Vodafone SureSignal. It extends the 3G signal into my house by way of my broadband.

To stop anyone leaching my broadband, you need to register "approved" phone numbers with the SureSignal.

So - given that the Kindle has a Vodafone SIM card - how do we find the Kindle's phone number and register it with the SureSignal?

There are three ways you can find your Kindle's phone number. None of them are "easy".

1. Ask Amazon
2. Open your Kindle, remove the SIM card, place the SIM in a phone, dial the USSD code *#100#
3. IMSI->MSISDN translation

Confused? Read on.

Asking Amazon

This got me nowhere. I send them an email and they asked to phone me back. The tech support there are very friendly and helpful - but they simply didn't know how to find out the phone number.

Opening The Kindle

If you have nerves of steel - and I don't - check out this disassembly guide. You risk damaging your expensive new toy and voiding your warranty.

Hack it :-)

Click For Bigger

To get this diagnostic information do the following.

• Turn the Kindle on and unlock it.
• Press Menu
• Press Settings
• Hold down the Alt key
• While holding down Alt, type Y Q Q
• Ta da!

Make a note of the IMSI, IMEI and SIM number (ICCID).

The Tricky Part

Find someone at Vodafone who is willing to do an IMSI->MSISDN translation. (IMSI is the internal number, MSISDN is your 07 phone number).

You could try your luck calling 191, or emailing customer services. They may (genuinely) have no idea what you are talking about. See if you can get escalated to someone technical who will be able to look up the number for you. It is likely that they'll ask for the IMEI (device serial number) or ICCID (SIM card serial number) to verify that the device is yours.

I'm indebted to my Anonymous Mole who kindly performed this for me. No, I won't reveal her name. Or his. Or its. One of the joys of hacking is social engineering your way to someone who can help you.

Adding It To The SureSignal

The first time I tried to add it to the SureSignal - I got this error.

So, I dropped an email to Vodafone asking them to manually add the phone number to my account.

Sadly, this was the reply I got.

After a bit of prompting, explaining that the SIM was in a Kindle, I got back this. So, no adding Kindles - or any other MVNO SIM to a SureSignal :-(

Hang on! Isn't this UTTERLY pointless?

Why, yes. Yes it is. The 3G version of the Kindle comes with WiFi. The WiFi connection allows you to download converted Kindle documents for free. The 3G connection will charge you for the data transfer.

All things considered; it's better to just use WiFi where you can.

Click for bligger

First up, the obligatory unboxing video. Don't worry - it's short!

First Impressions

I've only had a few hours to play with the Kindle - so these are my initial findings.

Web Browsing on the Kindle

The Bad

Let's start with what I dislike about it...

• It's a little too big to hold in one hand. It just sits wrong. I'm sure I'll be able to get used to it, but it is a little uncomfortable.
• The UI is messy. There are a lot of options there - far more than the 511EB - but too little thought has gone in to the UI. It's easy enough to read on, but navigating books and features is a bit confusing.
• Speaking of the UI - I can find no way of changing the lock screen image. It also took me ages to switch off the annoying "annotations".
• The keyboard is atrocious. Whereas the 511EB has no great need of a keyboard - at least the keys are well defined and feel pleasant to use. The Kindle isn't in the same league as the ZX81 "dead flesh" keyboard - but it's pretty repellent. There are also no number keys despite plenty of space.
• No ePub support.

The Good

• The screen. Wow. Just.... fucking wow! Bigger and brighter than the 511EB. The whites are whiter. The 16 level grey-scale does wonders for images.
• The speed of screen refresh. Again... amazingly fast. With the 511EB I got used to hitting the "next" button just as I got to the last line of text. The Kindle blows this away. Super fast.
• The back has a rubber coating - stops it from slipping and is enjoyably tactile.
• Build quality. It's a little flexible, but it doesn't emit the creaks and groans of the 511EB's plastic frame.
• Start-up speed is instant. It's running Linux, not Windows CE - so it doesn't need to be switched off when you're done with it.

The... Weird...

• Amazon could learn a trick or two from Apple in terms of presentation. The box the Kindle comes in is needlessly large.
• The power cable is white. So is the plug. A little odd for a black book, no? Sure, Kindle users aren't likely to be as aesthetically precious as Apple devotees - but a bit of consistency doesn't hurt.
• 
• The UI is going to take a lot of getting used to...

Conclusion

It's too early to be certain - but this is in the running for my new favourite device ever. Converting all my ePubs to Kindle will be a bit of a chore - but Calibre should do most of the heavy lifting.

I'll need to throw some hefty PDFs and files with weird characters in them, but so far, it's doing a sterling job.

The size and weight aren't a huge issue - especially compared to a paperback - but there's no denying Amazon haven't done themselves any favours there. The UI is either so rubbish that I'll rewrite it or something which will fade into the background.

The 3G is a mixed blessing. The WhisperNet method of wirelessly buying and trying books is astonishing. But I'm worried I'll be tempted into web browsing when I ought to be reading.

Overall? Pretty close to perfect.

So, why am I abandoning Elonex?

Simply put - Elonex abandoned me. Their staff and website promised updates which never came. We're not just talking about additional features - there are some serious bugs in the device. They ignored emails when people complained about faulty devices - as, it would appear, did Waterstones.

In short, their business model was BOPO. Buy One and Piss Off. No customer support. No attempt to buy loyalty. No thinking of a long term investment.

Last year, the price of the EB511 was fairly competitive. It still sells in Maplin for £150 - that's around half the price of some Sony models.

Yet the Kindle has the same price point, comes with 3G and - most importantly - customer support.  Software which seems regularly updated.  And it is backed by a company who don't treat customers with outright disdain.

Elonex could have made a huge impact in the budget eBook market - but their attitude to customers has put me off buying any of their products.

The Kindle is not all roses, though.  There are some potential downsides.

• ePub - the most popular ebook format isn't supported.  The eBook management software Calibre can convert the files into a suitable format.
• Over enthusiastic use of DRM - potentially to remove books you've already bought.
• Lack of expandable storage.  Only 3GiB.  I say "only" - because that's more books than you could hope to read in a lifetime.

I'm sure there are some other issues which will surface over time. But for now, count me among one of the faithful. Kindle - HERE I COME!

Run VT, Errol!

Startup Screen

Click to download full size

I've set my startup screen to show my phone number and email address. Combined with the startup password, it's a fairly simple way to protect your device and hopefully get it back if lost. Of course, all of your books can be taken from the SD card - so make sure you've got a backup!

Click on the above image to download the file. Edit it to show your details then save it to the root directory of your SD card as "start.jpg". Unplug your reader and press "5" Settings. Press the right arrow twice. Press down twice to select "System Maintenance". Then press "3" Startup Pic. If it has found the file, press enter to confirm. You can always change your image again to anything you like.

Screen Refresh

The refresh rate is extremely fast. This is because it uses a "Partial" refresh rather than the traditional "Global" refresh. The advantage of this is speed, and you don't get the momentary inverted screen that you do on other readers. The disadvantage is that you can - if you look very very closely - see the faint trace of an after-image. You can just about make out the ghosts of previous letters. Even after 50 page turns, they aren't distracting - but you can hit the refresh button on the keyboard to make them go away. You can also go into the settings menu and set the screen refresh to "Global".

Bugs

• Some have noticed that the 511EB displays Chinese characters where it should be displaying accented European characters like á - this is due to the way files are saved. If they are in UTF-8 format, all characters display correctly.

• The typesetting is a little off. It doesn't force a hyphen into words like a traditional book (this is a good thing), but it breaks the line at any punctuation.

As you can see, when I say " That's a nice book." the line wraps at the wrong place. It' s slightly annoying.

• On the default set of books, some of the words run together. It's arguable whether this is a bug in the book file or the reader - either way, it should have been fixed during QA before release.
• Searching for books works, but looks like it doesn't. Because there are no numbers by the files, it's not immediately obvious what you have to do in order to select them. The search box takes up the first two "rows", so to select the first book it finds, press "3". For the second, press "4" - and so on.
• Text-To-Speech is a nice gimmick, searching within a book is very useful. Yet they're both absent from PDFs and the hugely popular EPUB formats. I cannot fathom it. They're both rendered as text on the screen - so what's stopping the reader from searching and speeking?
• Mac and Linux compatibility. This is a Windows CE device - but there's no reason for it not to work on other operating systems. If a simple card reader from PoundLand can work, there's no reason why this cannot. Removing the card isn't hard, but it's an annoyance for those of us not on Windows.
• The keyboard is slightly wasted. There is no note taking facility. The password screen only accepts numbers. Yes, it works, but it could be so much more. The placement of the Delete key is odd. It's next to the spacebar. I'm used to the delete key being above the enter key. On this model, that's the cancel key. So, rather than deleting a character, I often find myself cancelling.
• The Title Bar shows the title of the book you're reading. Fair enough. But it truncates it for no apparent reason. So, if your book is titled "Lewis Caroll - Alice in Wonderland", all you'll see is "Lewis Caroll - A..."
• The truncating is present on the Bookcase. If your books are titled "Cory Doctorow - Ander's Game" and "Cory Doctorow - After the Siege", all you'll see is "Cory Doctorow - A..." - good luck working out which is which! The solution is to save books in folders. So, for example, I have

|-- e_book | |-- Cory Doctorow | | |-- Ander's Game.txt | | |-- After the Siege.epub | |-- Lewis Caroll | | |-- Alice in Wonderland.txt | | |-- Alice Through the Looking Glass.epub

• PDF zoom. PDF is a rubbish format for an ebook. The page paradigm really doesn't work when you're on a screen. When the 511EB zooms in to a PDF, the page down button litterally takes you to the next page - not the next part of the page you're on. You have to use the arrow keys to scroll around the page.

Finally, there's no screen rotation. To be honest, this isn't a feature I'd ever use - but some people like to have it.

Conclusion

As I said before, this is a cheap and cheerful ebook reader. The speed of page turning speed is impressive. EPUBs and PDFs work well, but missing some of the extra features like searching and Text-To-Speech. It handles large files - although performance takes a slight hit. The build quality is what you would expect, a bit cheap and plasticy. But it only weighs 190 grammes. The quality of the keyboard is sufficient and the display is as good as any other eReader.

A Word on Waterstone's

Given the number of bugs (admittedly, fairly minor) it seems odd that Waterstone's are heavily promoting this model. My local shop has 3 rather prominent displays. To dedicate so much space without even testing the unit takes some bravado. They have taken over half of their window display.

511EB in the window of Waterstone's

They have a whole book case devoted to the unit.

Heavily Promoted

They're also putting it up against the much more expensive Sony eReaders.

Dummy Model

Yet they're not as committed to this as you may think. There are no working models on display. With the Sonys, you can try them out, see if they're fast enough, explore their menus - the lowly 511EB gets a cardboard dummy.

The majority of questions people have asked me could have been answered by having a working model. The Waterstone's website is also full of people asking basic questions. Questions which really should have been preemptively answered on the site. I've registered with the site so I can answer some of them, but a device like this deserves more information up front. Elonex - the reseller of this device from Hanvon - have committed to firmware updates. I hope, for Waterstone's sake, that they come out quickly and regularly. Otherwise, Waterstone's will face a lot of angry customers and will set back the progress of eReader adoption.

Ebook readers are the latest in a long line of "written-word" technology. From clay tablet to papyrus to the printing press, humans have always found better ways of displaying words. The latest innovation is e-Ink. A remarkable material which simulates the look and feel of paper - but where the display is controlled by microelectronics.

As a book lover, I've been eager to get my hands on a Kindle, or nook, or Sony eReader - but they're all prohibitively expensive. Until now. Waterstones - a leading book retailer in the UK - has started selling the Elonex 511EB. An eReader with the retail price of £129.99. Now, that's not quite as cheap as paper - but it's around half the cost of the Kindle.

Unboxing

The Elonex 511EB.

You also get a quickstart quide, a USB cable and iPhone-esque white earphones. The device comes with a 4GB micro SD card (Sandisk branded) - enough for around 8000 books. There are 100 free eBooks included - you can also download them directly from Elonex.

What's In The Box

Cost

I won a £20 Waterstones voucher in the Times' Cheltnam Microfiction Competition - so the cost for me was £110. You can also sign up to Waterstones' loyalty card - which will net you 389 points. That's £3.89 off any subsequent purchase.  At a shade over £100 it's certainly the cheapest eReader I've found.  It lacks some of the features of its high-priced cousins - no wireless, no touch screen, smaller screen.  But, to my mind, that's not a problem.

Features

Here's a run-down of some of the more interesting features of the device.

• Text-to-speech.  A synthetic voice will read in English, Mandarin or Cantonese.  The voice can be set to male or female.  It's not the best TTS I've encountered, but it's adequate.
• Memo recorder. As well as a QWERTY keyboard for you to write your own novel on, there's a built in microphone so you can record any thoughts you might have.
• Format support.  The device will render TXT, HTXT(?), HTML, PDF, ePub and DOC.  It admits that complex DOC and PDF may not render correctly.  It has Adobe Digital Editions support should you wish to read a DRM'd eBook.
• SDHC.  The device comes with a 4GB microSD card and will take up to 32GB.  That's probably more books than you could read in a lifetime - but leaves plenty of room for...
• Music playback. MP3, WAV and WMA. It doesn't say what bitrates etc it supports.  No support for OGG, which is a disappointment.  The two speakers on the back are loud enough - but aren't going to be replacing your HiFi.  The headphone socket is a standard 3.5mm jack.
• 

  MP3 Screen

• Picture support for JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF and BMP.  Obviously it's only a black and white screen with 8 levels of grey.  You can set one of your images to be the start-up screen.
• Security. You can set a password if you're worried about it being lost or stolen.
• The screen is 800*600 at 170dpi.  The refresh rate seems a mite quicker than the more expensive screens - but only a mite.
• The device shows as a mass-storage device when plugged in to a computer - so there's no software to install on your Mac or PC. I did have some troubles with Linux - see the bugs section.
• There's a lock button at the top.  It also has the usual array of eReader functions - bookmarks, text search, remembering your last position, font size changing.  It comes with two built in fonts - Arial and Times.
• Lots of settings to play around with.

Bugs

For a device this cheap, there are bound to be one or two gremlins.  There's support in the device for firmware upgrade - so hopefully Elonex will fix them.  Incidentally, eReaders like this usually run Linux.  There's no mention of it on the box and Elonex doesn't link to any GPL'd sources - so maybe it's running a totally custom OS. Update! Pdurrant at the MobileRead forums notes that this is a rebadged version of the WISEreader N520 - a device made by Hanvon and running WinCE 5.0.

Firstly, it doesn't seem to handle non-standard characters very well. The "é" in "Les Misérables" is rendered as Chinese character. (The text is a lot more crisp than my scanner can show)

Character Encoding Bug

Text doesn't flow very well in text files. It takes all the line breaks a literal breaks in the text - as you can see here.

Text Flow Bug

This is particularly bad in HTML as you can see here.

Alicehastextflowissues

When we take a look at the HTML, we can see the issue.

Alice's Adventures in HTML

The line breaks here are ignored which leads words to run in to each other. This is the fault of the HTML file - but this shouldn't have got through quality control.

Linux support. I'm one of those crazy people who runs Ubuntu Linux. The 511EB should just show as a USB drive when plugged in. It doesn't. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I can't get it to show up. The SD card is removable so you can get access to the files that way.

File System

It's a little inconvenient - but it did lead me to this discovery...

Beneath a rubber flap is the microSD card and a rather strange looking port. It may well be a micro USB connector - the new standard for charging mobile phones - or it could be something proprietary.

micro usb?

There's no manual. Most of the features are self explanatory - but for those who don't like exploring a device, it wouldn't have been any effort to include a manual on the device.

Verdict

This is a great device.  It is missing a few of the features of the Kindle - but at this price point, who cares?  Sure, no one wants to throw away £100 - but if you left this on a train, you wouldn't be half as upset as if you'd lost an eReader costing £250.

The e-Ink screen is made by Prime View International - they're the same company who make Sony's eReader screens.  So the quality of the screen is really good.  It has a crisp display - once you've set the fonts to your preference - and a quick refresh rate.  Like all e-Ink screens, it can be read in direct sunlight.  There's no backlight, so you'll need a torch if you want to read under the covers.

There are a few bugs - but they're not show stoppers.  Hopefully there will be some updates to the firmware.

If all it did was display text - it would be a bargain.  Considering it plays music, has text-to-speech, has a full keyboard for note taking AND a microphone, it's a lot of kit for very little cash.

I haven't exhaustively used the device - so I may be missing something that's important to you.  Please leave a comment if you'd like to know anything specific about it.

Waterstones

I'm a little disappointed to have to write this review.  But the information on Watersons' website is woefully inadequate.  Would it have been too much effort to link to a manual, explain what file formats it supported, or had several pictures of the device?  I bought this from a physical store where they didn't even have a working device on display - only a cardboard model.  If retailers are serious about selling high-tech kit, they need to ensure that all the information a customer needs is available to them.

Who would spend over £100 on a device without first seeing a detail spec-sheet? I hope this review has given you enough information to make your mind up about this device.

Read part 2 of the review.