Earlier this week a ZDNET blogger discovered links to what seemed like spam sites within an eBook that he had purchased in the Kindle store.
This made us wonder if an eReader could get corrupted if you downloaded an eBook with bad links. We went to Q&A social networking site Quora and posed the question to software engineer Guido Bartolucci, who spent almost a decade as Senior Software Engineer at Amazon.com. We asked: “Is there any risk of an eReader getting corrupted if a Kindle file contained malicious links?”
Bartolucci responded: “Yes, it is certainly possibly, just like it’s possible for your computer getting corrupted from following a malicious link. But it’s very unlikely as the Kindle is running a locked down version of Linux and the reader software doesn’t do much.”
So while it doesn’t seem like it is likely to happen, the possibility still exists.
YouTube Now Renting New Movies
This news just in from EBookNewser:
News is breaking today that Youtube will soon be launching a new movie rental service with late releases from major studios including WB, Sony and Universal. A number of names have been rumored to have signed up for the new service, including independent studios like Lionsgate.
To be accurate, Youtube has had full length movies for some time now. You can even rent some titles. But the selection would best be described as anemic. The SF section, for example, has quite a few older movies but little published in the last 10 years. Youtube didn’t have the really popular movies. For that you had to go to iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Unbox.
I’m not too excited about this, myself. The Youtube video player has a poor design. It’s fine for short clips, but when you try to watch a full length movie you’ll notice its shortcomings.
via The Wrap
Library E-Books Coming to Kindle
From eBook Newser:
Amazon has bowed to the inevitable. Today it announced that you would soon be able to borrow eBooks from your local library and read them on your Kindle. The service is going to launch later this year in partnership with Overdrive.
Internet Culture?
David Brooks’ op-ed on the New York Times is very insightful. He makes the case that the internet culture produces better conversationalists, whereas the literary culture produces better students. Nicholas Carr’s book which challenges the internet culture for producing a short attention span culture has been challenged vociferously. In my own mind, this dichotomy is sometimes foolish. I prefer to be a good conversationalist informed about many things and a good student at the same time. For every hour of blog-reading there should be another hour for reading a book…or maybe a book on kindle; but that’s another story.
A Brave New World
TableTalk’s April edition features several articles on media, technology, etc. and its affect on our society. Burk Parsons offers a few helpful thoughts in his initial article. He observes how much families have changed. Even their conversations have changed. It is possible that everyone at a dinner table may be communicating with someone else, except anyone at the table. They may be all texting enjoying their own private virtual dialogue. Yet, Parsons observe that”using appropriate new media or technology wisely and carefully” may be the way God intends for us to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16). Jonathan Edwards resolutes, “…never to lose one moment of time; but to improve it the most profitable way I possibly can (5th resolution).” This proves that used wisely technology can be doxological.
Buzz OFF!
Well, I am thrilled with Google Buzz! I love keeping in touch with people from all sorts of backgrounds; further, it provides me an opportunity to share thoughts and quotes. However, some of the isolationists out there don’t seem to be too fond of the BUZZ.