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Kindle Fire owners: Is there any way at all to stream video from the Fire to a TV or any kind of set top box (Roku, Apple TV, XBox, anything)? Via CM9 rooting or otherwise, I'm all ears. Just looking for a way to stream stupid YouTube videos to my big screen. I have a Roku in the bedroom and an Apple TV in the living room, but their native browsing interfaces aren't that great.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2012 23:11 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 15:42 |
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To those running CM9 or any other ICS port to the Fire, are you wiping and then flashing or are you flashing over top of the stock ROM? If I wipe first, WiFi doesn't work at all and I haven't really gone much farther to see anything else that might be broken. If I don't wipe, none of the Amazon apps work even after deleting and reinstalling them. This is with the plain ICS from XDA, not the Hashcode variant (which seems to be nothing but a tweaked theme and a kernel last I checked). In either case, I accidentally hit the silence ringer button on the power menu and now com.android.phone is repeatedly crashing no matter what. I've tried everything but restoring to my backup of the original ROM and then reflashing over it again (I expect that'll work, I just would prefer to keep all my game saves and such so I'm fighting with it until I get bored).
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 03:26 |
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Looks like the Justice Department will be going ahead with the lawsuits against publishers and Apple, but are in settlement talks.quote:The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...1767489216.html
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 15:06 |
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Good, I think it's ridiculous that ebook publishers are trying to squeeze more out of us with a format that has very few costs associated with its creation, storage, and distribution.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 16:26 |
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That's my big beef. If they'd come in from the beginning and said "Hey, we're going to price these at half the cost of a mass-market paperback because all the invisible work like writing, editing and layout still need to be paid for but there's no printing costs!" then this would be a non-discussion and there wouldn't have been all the crazy bullshit of the last several years. Who would've balked at adding a lower tier to an already-tiered quality/price system? (ie: first editions -> hardcovers -> trade papers -> mass papers) It's a perfect single-item big fix for history, like time-traveling to shoot Hitler. Someday. 
Splizwarf fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2012 around 18:08 |
| # ? Mar 8, 2012 18:05 |
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I don't care about eBook prices so much as the blatantly anti-consumer practice of agency pricing.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 20:56 |
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Is "minimum advertised pricing" considered agency pricing? Because I don't mind that. It would get annoying if I had to click twice to see the price of all major ebooks under system, but it's worth it if prices move closer to $9.99 than MSRP.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 21:34 |
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:Is "minimum advertised pricing" considered agency pricing? No. Agency pricing is where the book is being sold directly by the publisher and the retailer is just the agent. This way the publisher controls what the price is across retailers. Also everyone (retailer, author, publisher, ect) gets the exact same cut. So no one can compete with prices for ebooks. Before, ebooks were sold to Amazon/B&N at wholesale prices. Then Amazon/B&N would sell the ebook at whatever price they wanted to, including under wholesale. Which meant that they were losing money on the ebook.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 21:51 |
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Are you saying that nobody being able to compete on the price of ebooks is bad, but Amazon undercutting everyone else's prices and selling at a continuous loss to prevent competition until the smaller vendors go out of business is... okay? I thought that was the main reason people were against Wal-Mart, but I guess it's cool this time because popular culture has anthropomorphized Amazon into a friendly business who's on our side? Splizwarf fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2012 around 22:00 |
| # ? Mar 8, 2012 21:57 |
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I didn't say whether I thought it was good or bad. I do think that price fixing isn't the way to fight Amazon. Ideally, I would rather have ebooks sold without DRM (which is a joke to break anyways), so you could easily choose where you buy your books instead of basically only be able to buy books from whoever makes your reader.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 22:08 |
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Splizwarf posted:Are you saying that nobody being able to compete on the price of ebooks is bad, but Amazon undercutting everyone else's prices and selling at a continuous loss to prevent competition until the smaller vendors go out of business is... okay? Yes it is okay because none of the "competition" is worth poo poo. And the publishers were/are charging outrageous prices because they're greedy.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 22:34 |
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If ebooks were sold at wholesale to book sellers, without DRM, we wouldn't have to look to conglomerates to support these systems. Your local, family owned, bookstore might actually have a chance of surviving. Without DRM, you would have limited infrastructure needs. As long as the terms of the wholesale pricing wasn't restrictive, there would be very little overhead for the small bookstore to supplement their physical copies with virtually ANY ebook that someone would want to buy. No, they wouldn't be able to price them at a loss like Amazon sometimes does, but it would equalize the footing in a way that nothing else can right now. They don't have to compete with Amazon on warehouse space. They would get equal wholesale prices. The distribution chain for the local would only be slightly inconvenient for the user compared to amazon (even that could be mitigated a lot with the right kind of setup.) Digital wares could be a big lifeline for local businesses that cater to a niche non-digital market, but you have to cut out the DRM first and put everyone on equal wholesale terms.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2012 23:50 |
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Splizwarf posted:Are you saying that nobody being able to compete on the price of ebooks is bad, but Amazon undercutting everyone else's prices and selling at a continuous loss to prevent competition until the smaller vendors go out of business is... okay? It's more like Amazon's actions are good for authors, consumers and themselves while the publisher's actions are only good for...not even themselves. They were making more money under the original system. The ebook market before Amazon came into the fray was a joke despite being around for ten+ years and it was that way for a reason. That same reason is why Sony was almost immediately pushed completely out of the picture by Amazon and Barnes & Noble despite being in the market for far longer. Also, what smaller vendors are there? The market has already been boiled down to Amazon, B&N, Google, Apple and I don't care about a bloodbath between multi-billion dollar corporations. Plus Amazon has a good track record of looking beyond their immediate bottom-line so even if they push out all of the competition, they would still keep the same prices because that is the best price point to keep growing the market which is their ultimate goal (since that equals more money) Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2012 around 23:54 |
| # ? Mar 8, 2012 23:51 |
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bull3964 posted:If ebooks were sold at wholesale to book sellers, without DRM, we wouldn't have to look to conglomerates to support these systems. But why would the average person want to go to the trouble of finding out a "local" store even existed and had an ebook site? Most people online have probably already bought at least one thing from Amazon, they already have their payment info set up, why bother with some random "local" shop?
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 00:29 |
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Install Gentoo posted:But why would the average person want to go to the trouble of finding out a "local" store even existed and had an ebook site? Most people online have probably already bought at least one thing from Amazon, they already have their payment info set up, why bother with some random "local" shop? To support local businesses. If I had a local bookstore that sold ebooks, they'd have my business. Especially if they sold DRM free. I'm even willing to spend a bit more to support an independent seller.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 00:31 |
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Install Gentoo posted:But why would the average person want to go to the trouble of finding out a "local" store even existed and had an ebook site? Most people online have probably already bought at least one thing from Amazon, they already have their payment info set up, why bother with some random "local" shop? For the same reason why you would want to buy local for anything else, supporting the local economy and being social in your community. It's also great way to bridge the digital divide for those who are clinging to print right now. They may not view ebooks as cold and clinical if they have that personal touch to them. Bookstores are also a good place for other types of social events like readings for children and outlets for local authors. There is a place for the local bookstore out there, but they simply can't compete right now due to the superior inventory and distribution systems of places like Amazon or B&N. More open access to digital sales would at least HELP level the playing field. It doesn't guarantee success, but it helps in a way that nothing else can right now.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 00:44 |
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bull3964 posted:For the same reason why you would want to buy local for anything else, supporting the local economy and being social in your community. It's also great way to bridge the digital divide for those who are clinging to print right now. They may not view ebooks as cold and clinical if they have that personal touch to them. Bookstores are also a good place for other types of social events like readings for children and outlets for local authors. There is a place for the local bookstore out there, but they simply can't compete right now due to the superior inventory and distribution systems of places like Amazon or B&N. Yeah, you could have the equivalent of an internet cafe/bookstore that sold ebooks and used/rare books. I'd go there every day.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 00:46 |
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bull3964 posted:For the same reason why you would want to buy local for anything else, supporting the local economy and being social in your community. It's also great way to bridge the digital divide for those who are clinging to print right now. They may not view ebooks as cold and clinical if they have that personal touch to them. Bookstores are also a good place for other types of social events like readings for children and outlets for local authors. There is a place for the local bookstore out there, but they simply can't compete right now due to the superior inventory and distribution systems of places like Amazon or B&N. But what does it actually get me as a consumer? Cause it's not like these books are being made in my home area, the way local food or clothing or that other stuff is. A "local" digital store is just an attempt to market something most certainly not made here as if it was. Myparticularlocalareabookstore.com is just going to be another generic online storefront.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 01:10 |
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Splizwarf posted:Are you saying that nobody being able to compete on the price of ebooks is bad, but Amazon undercutting everyone else's prices and selling at a continuous loss to prevent competition until the smaller vendors go out of business is... okay? Actually, there's no such thing because it means you're destroying your company's equity if you do that and, even if you did succeed you wouldn't have any guarantee that no new competitors would go into business
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 01:13 |
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I still see a place for the local store. A lot of people still like to browse the bookstore before they buy. It's already a big problem of people going into a store and eventually buying it online. For ebooks, a store could simply email you the book after you bought it at the counter. Especially if local shops could price their ebooks below their physical books.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 01:15 |
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Install Gentoo posted:But what does it actually get me as a consumer? Cause it's not like these books are being made in my home area, the way local food or clothing or that other stuff is. Screw the online storefront. Oh, it can be there just as another outlet, but that wouldn't be the point. The point is you would GO to the store to make digital purchases, talk to other people, talk to the store owner, get book recommendations from a human, discuss what you read, and be social. The idea would be as torgeaux stated. Someplace to BE with other people who love books. Also, I would easily pay $8.99 for an eBook DRM free from a local outlet rather than $6.99 from Amazon or B&N knowing that the margin from that sale went to support a local member of the community rather than make Jeff Bezos a little bit richer (not that I have anything against the guy, I would just rather not concentrate wealth further.) Beyond that, the wholesale buying model without DRM just makes SENSE if the publishers are afraid of amazon. It gives any startup, physical or no, much more equal footing to compete. bull3964 fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 02:15 |
| # ? Mar 9, 2012 02:07 |
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bull3964 posted:Screw the online storefront. Oh, it can be there just as another outlet, but that wouldn't be the point. The point is you would GO to the store to make digital purchases, talk to other people, talk to the store owner, get book recommendations from a human, discuss what you read, and be social. That doesn't make much sense considering that the store will be trying to push their physical products over the digital products on their generic website. Digital products don't sell, who cares? But those physical items don't sell...goodbye store. Also (and maybe this is just my own poor personal experience at local stores but) the stores don't want to hire fans of whatever thing they are trying to sell, they want to hire salesmen. There isn't much deep discussion or good recommendations to be had (or at least nothing that can match a recommendation system that tracks your purchases plus a message board) The whole thing reminds me of Blockbuster and Blockbuster Online. They cannibalized and destroyed their own business by trying to dip their hands into both pots. But that isn't a bad thing. You can still get that experience by going to your local library.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 02:34 |
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Sporadic posted:That doesn't make much sense considering that the store will be trying to push their physical products over the digital products on their generic website. Digital products don't sell, who cares? But those physical items don't sell...goodbye store. That's why you would cater to what your local market wants in physical books and not have to worry about stocking this week's 10 best booksellers beyond a few token copies since you would have digital editions to sell. That's the thing that's killing local bookstores. They don't deal with enough volume nor have enough shelfspace to keep pace with the big box book stores (both brick and mortar as well as online.) They have to balance what makes their regular customers happy while making sure to stock the right amount of whatever the flavor of the week is. They could eliminate some of their risk that comes with gauging demand of new bestsellers that appeal to a more general audience. If "The Hunger Games" bombs in their local market for whatever reason, they may only have 10 physical books to liquidate rather than 100 since they decided to rely on digital copies absorb part of the demand if the book was really popular. Basically, right now they are caught between two possibilities. They may overestimate demand for a new book or they may underestimate. If they overestimate, they take a bath when they are forced to liquidate stock. If they order too few, they flat out lose sales. Having the ability to sell eBooks could help even out those peaks and valleys and potentially keep the store running. Again, it may work, it may not. The REAL point is, wholesale pricing of DRM free eBooks would open up these possibilities. This is something we don't have now if you are forced to enter into complex agreements with the publishers in order to sell eBooks as well as support a DRM scheme. bull3964 fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 03:11 |
| # ? Mar 9, 2012 03:08 |
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bull3964 posted:Screw the online storefront. Oh, it can be there just as another outlet, but that wouldn't be the point. The point is you would GO to the store to make digital purchases, talk to other people, talk to the store owner, get book recommendations from a human, discuss what you read, and be social. Ohhhhh, I had no idea you meant buying them in an actual store. The idea I was getting off your post was you'd be going to bob's-local-book-store.com instead of amazon.com, not going to a physical shop with actual people there.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 03:45 |
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Install Gentoo posted:Ohhhhh, I had no idea you meant buying them in an actual store. The idea I was getting off your post was you'd be going to bob's-local-book-store.com instead of amazon.com, not going to a physical shop with actual people there. Yeah, just having another online portal wouldn't give much utility, I agree with that. Wholesale eBook prices for booksellers could give them freedom to do deals we don't see in the market today as well. They could easily run a special "Buy the hardback print book, get the ebook for free" or "buy two used books, get 3rd eBook for 50% off." These are types of deals you don't see right now and can never actually exist with the agency pricing model. Basically, the eBook gives them another tool to move physical books and get foot traffic in the store. bull3964 fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 03:59 |
| # ? Mar 9, 2012 03:56 |
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I think this whole debate on local physical bookstores surviving is kind of dumb. I've worked extensively in the music industry and have seen what happened to local music shops, it'll eventually happen to bookstores that focus just on books. I could see a local arts place thriving: coffee shop, ebook store (no room for physical catalogue), and just other weird stuff. But solo book shops, I'm sure some will survive, but not many. More than the music shops though. What would be nice is if independent writers get more access to a larger reader base. I think supporting independent writers is a more realistic dream than independent bookshops.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 05:44 |
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Well, music stores really have the same problem as physical book stores do. In order to sell digital copies of music, you need to summon the lawyers and ink arcane music deals directly with the labels instead of just buying the music wholesale. The only leg up music has is that it is readily available in DRM free formats so we are at least partway there. I would be on board with your idea though of a local coffee/music/book shop. The main obstacle, again, comes down to how digital media is distributed by the entities that control the content. Digital media could be the great equalizer between companies that have the resources to optimize their supply/distribution chain and the little guys who can't enjoy economies of scale. When you reduce the cost of distribution to drat near zero and remove the advantage of bulk purchase and warehouse space, nearly anyone should be able to enter the space and compete much more effectively against the juggernauts. Too bad it won't happen.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 05:57 |
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Sporadic posted:Also (and maybe this is just my own poor personal experience at local stores but) the stores don't want to hire fans of whatever thing they are trying to sell, they want to hire salesmen. There isn't much deep discussion or good recommendations to be had (or at least nothing that can match a recommendation system that tracks your purchases plus a message board) This is your poor personal experience at local stores, bookstores don't need salesmen, they need people to operate the registers. Since anyone can handle that, they can select for some other trait, and benefit significantly from hiring people who like books. The places you've gone are either badly managed or they don't like you.  Sporadic posted:You can still get that experience by going to your local library. Still have one of those, do you?
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 15:05 |
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Splizwarf posted:This is your poor personal experience at local stores, bookstores don't need salesmen, they need people to operate the registers. Since anyone can handle that, they can select for some other trait, and benefit significantly from hiring people who like books. Splizwarf posted:The places you've gone are either badly managed or they don't like you.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 15:55 |
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Duckman2008 posted:I think this whole debate on local physical bookstores surviving is kind of dumb. The main point is that the market for ebooks shouldn't be either "cheap books on kindle or not so cheap books for nook" OR "price fixed books on nook and kindle." As long as those are the only two models we allow, then year local bookstores have no option but to die out. Some sell books through google books, but then that only allows them to reach about half the market or less. Getting rid of the device lock-in would at least allow local shops to get in the business. Instead, B&N and Amazon are just waiting for them to go away. The publishers say that they want more competition in the market to balance amazon's dominance, but then they won't take steps outside of price fixing to help open up the market.
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 17:00 |
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Specialized retail stores (Best Buy, Borders, Game) in general are kind of a dying breed. Talking about ways to preserve independent book stores is kind of a missing the forest for the trees thing although it's well-intentioned. Open eBook licensing and standards would mitigate it a little, but small book shops were dying even before eBooks became popular.
Vertigus fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 21:22 |
| # ? Mar 9, 2012 21:19 |
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What makes you say that Best Buy and Game(Stop, I assume?) are dying?
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 21:54 |
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Splizwarf posted:What makes you say that Best Buy and Game(Stop, I assume?) are dying? He means Game, a UK store which is on the brink of death (as in, it looks like it'll be gone in a few weeks).
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| # ? Mar 9, 2012 22:18 |
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Splizwarf posted:What makes you say that Best Buy and Game(Stop, I assume?) are dying? Like the other guy said, Game is a UK store that's dying soon, and there's articles like this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydo...ness-gradually/ about Best Buy that show it's making the same mistakes that put companies like Circuit City out of business (Copying instead of innovating, failing to adapt to changing consumer culture, treating customers as enemies, cutting employee benefits and training and chronically understaffing, etc.). When it comes to book stores and the issue with online retailers selling physical and digital books at cut-rate prices, the only way you can save them is by enacting legislation to prop up the unsustainable business model. Book stores the way we know them today are going away, period. That's not to say that book stores in general can't survive, though. The owners will just have to do a lot of legwork to make sure their business model isn't "We have book, we sell you book". Vertigus fucked around with this message at Mar 9, 2012 around 22:56 |
| # ? Mar 9, 2012 22:50 |
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Splizwarf posted:Still have one of those, do you? All over the place in our socialist paradise  They even lend eBooks. Crazy.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 03:25 |
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Vertigus posted:Open eBook licensing and standards would mitigate it a little, but small book shops were dying even before eBooks became popular. Yeah first blow was the large chains (most of whom are now dead themselves) and the second blow was Amazon itself, back when it was just physical books (which helped kill the chains for the most part).
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 06:32 |
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My bad, I figured US because of Best Buy and Borders. Sorry about that. Circuit City's problem was that they hired a new CEO who was famous for liquidating all his previous companies, and then they threw their hands up in shock when he did it again. I used to hang out at the same nerd-games shop as some of his direct underlings (the CC national HQ was in Richmond, VA) and they were frightening. That article is poorly-written by a guy who makes claims like "Amazon does not take orders it cannot fill, and it does not wait until the last minute to cancel them without offering any kind of solution."  Come on, man, did you read it?
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 06:39 |
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It took me three years of ...training? education? Sorry i'm not sure theres an english word for it. Well it took me three years to officially become a Bookseller in germany. Now i know enough about the german bookmarket to open my own bookstore or work in any bookstore. Of course no store is hiring so i ended up doing something completely different. It really sucks if you spend three years learning every detail about selling books and love working in a bookstore and then you can't find a job because of those drat ebooks killing all the bookstores! Nah i was kidding about that last part. I love my Kindle and its really funny how people try to apologize for using one when they hear that i can't find a job as a bookseller. Still makes me sad that i'll probably never work in a bookstore again. I loved doing that  Its interesting that even in germany, where the prices for books are fixed so even Amazon can't sell books for cheap, the whole publishing industry is in a whole heap of trouble.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 13:04 |
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Shai-Hulud posted:Its interesting that even in germany, where the prices for books are fixed so even Amazon can't sell books for cheap, the whole publishing industry is in a whole heap of trouble. Price-fixing will do that, yes
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 14:25 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 15:42 |
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Splizwarf posted:What makes you say that Best Buy and Game(Stop, I assume?) are dying? Best Buy can't go out of business fast enough. And their quarterly ratings, including holidays, have been terrible recently. Their only bright spot is mobile phones.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2012 14:30 |
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