My mother keeps recommending Kindle to me. I can see the appeal of being able to download books directly to my computer, and then having a hand-held tablet-style computer with which I can port those books around with me... at least as far as my bedroom, where 99% of my reading gets done.But, as I mentioned here, Amazon -- the company that makes and sells Kindle and the books that it stores -- can switch off your Kindle and delete your books if you piss them off. Now, even more noteworthy, the New York Times reports that Amazon will just delete a title from everybody's Kindle for whatever reason they might deem worthy... with a refund, at least.
The irony of it? Last night, Amazon sent everybody's copies of 1984 and Animal Farm down the memory hole.
(Just as an aside, if I had a Kindle here in The Philippines, I don't believe I would have such a problem, since my Kindle would not actively be connected to the internet... but one never can be sure.)
I checked into it a little bit further, Jil, and it seems that you can't download books, magazines, newspapers unless you're in the USA. It requires whispernet and it's only available here. Look into it on Amazon.com. Perhaps I'm mistaken. I hope so.
ReplyDeleteMom
oops. Thank your friends for the info, Jil. I appreciate it. I was considering the possibility of getting you a Kindle in the future. Guess I won't now - besides not getting whispernet, I guess there's many other problems. 1984 is upon us...
ReplyDeletemom