Ghost Razor

Yeah, this is off topic, but I when I’m not doing the video game thing, I’m reading books.  I read a LOT of books.

And I would really, really like an e-paper based eBook reader.  So today Amazon launched their new eBook reader, the Kindle.  It’s ugly as fuck, but they have some sweet wireless setup going on.  Unlike basically every other reader out there, the Kindle has a free, EV-DO based wireless network that allows you to browse, buy, and download eBooks from Amazon’s ever increasing collection (they plan to eventually make every book they carry available).  You can also grab newspaper, blogs, RSS feeds, etc.

Great, sign me up.  Take my $400 dollars, I don’t care that your device is hideous, it looks marvelous.  Wait a second, as per usual, Canada gets the raw end of the stick.  Despite the fact that Sprint and Bell Mobility have agreements with each other, Amazon’s Whispernet does not work outside of the 50 US States.

Ever wonder why Canada is a haven for piracy?  Maybe it’s because companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, and Apple - the premiere offerers of digital content - don’t fucking offer their services in Canada.  Remember prohibition?  If there’s a demand for something, it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal, people will obtain it.  And unlike prohibition, under which criminal organizations were still charging money for booze, digital content is free to steal.

I don’t know whether the issues are legal or economic, but once there’s a culture of theft that’s been established for a long time, it’s very difficult to legitimately offer content and expect the people you’ve been shirking in the past to expect to pay for your shit.

Tags: Delivery, Offtopic by Morphix
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Introduction
Apple is certainly has in the last few years really taken off in terms of profitability and general consumer awareness of their products. There have been a number of radical and aggressive moves undertaken by the management, many of which have proved to be successful. Despite the surges in profit and market share in the last few years, and the popular marketing campaigns, Apple has failed to entrench itself as a serious competitor against PCs in terms of market share. Apple’s 2006 Year over Year market share increase of 16%, while massively out-weighing the industry average still only results in an increase from 4.4% to 4.8%, Hardly a major threat to the PC platform.[digg=http://digg.com/gaming_news/Why_Apple_Gaming_Sucks]

I had the fortunate privilege of working for Apple last summer as an intern, and I can tell you the company is just as phenomenal from the inside as they seem to be from the outside. Having never used a mac before working there, I was definitely a fan of the smooth interface and the elimination of the “Death by a thousand paper-cuts” experience that one often finds using Windows (or Linux, for that matter). Despite this, at the end of the summer I couldn’t bring myself to buy a Mac, even though I needed a new computer, and I could leverage employee discounts. The reason was simple. Gaming.

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Tags: Industry, Platform by Morphix
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