

IPad Makes Space in Japan's Tiny Homes by Removing Bookshelves - wmeredith
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-03/ipad-makes-space-in-japan-s-tiny-homes-by-removing-bookshelves.html

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allwein
They charge 100 yen for doing a book conversion. That's only about $1.25 US. I
would kill for a service like this. I'm preparing to move in about a month,
and I've got some 500 books that I need to move. I would love to just digitize
the majority of these and get rid of the physical volumes.

This actually sounds like a fantastic service that the publishers could offer
if they were progressive enough. They would prepare a digital copy of the
books they offer (if they don't have them already). Then customers could ship
them their physical volumes for destruction along with a nominal fee ($1-$2)
in return for the digital version.

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stcredzero
_This actually sounds like a fantastic service that the publishers could offer
if they were progressive enough._

How about a startup? Of all people in a position to implement the physical
side of this: Half Price Books. They could scan the UPC barcodes and see what
books are in a catalog, then offer to give the customer an eBook for a nominal
fee. So they would be receiving money instead of paying it out. This would be
a way of publishers to be able to make money off of IP with sales that have
already dropped off. The publishers would still have to cooperate.

~~~
Groxx
A startup would have to battle the legal system the publishers have helped
create / abuse. Anyone know what, if anything, might stand in the way of such
a setup?

~~~
throw02082011
Lots of things I'd assume. Without doing any research, here's a twist (still
likely not legally wise):

The startup scans your books.You pay a monthly fee for storage of your books
at their facility, which is a free-to-use library. You remain the owner of the
book and take the scans with you.

There are probably some (many) issues here, such as first sale rights, but
it's not crazy.Adding additional businesses could help (coffee-library-book
scanning) offset the expense but it's probably easier to try and change the
law - someone would be angry enough to make your life miserable.

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zerokyuu
> “The home-made e-book market will continue to exist as long as the copyright
> situation isn’t dealt with and people cannot find books they want in
> electronic format"

Sorry this is a bit unrelated, but out of curiosity, are there any legal ways
to buy Japanese books in an electronic format? I have been trying to start
reading books in Japanese but I don't know enough kanji to make it enjoyable.

I actually came up with my own way around this.. I bought a physical copy of
the book, opened it to a random page, did a quoted search ("たとえば") on google
for a full, unique sentence and found some plain text copies. I wrote a script
to quickly format this in html and used rikaikun/chan to make reading easier
(just put the mouse over words I don't know and it looks them up). The problem
is that this limits me to reading in a browser on a computer (with chrome or
firefox installed).

I've actually been interested in doing some sort of app like this (probably
for free). Then adding the functionality to add words I don't know to a word
bank that I can practice on my own later. If anyone is interested, please let
me know. The biggest thing stopping me is that I don't see any way to get
legal content for this (and the fact I do not have a lot of spare time). Does
anyone know if some Japanese books/stories are in the public domain?

~~~
jfoley
You might look in to the 青空文庫 <http://www.aozora.gr.jp/>

~~~
zerokyuu
Wow, this looks really great. Sounds like there is currently a 50 year limit
on copyright. I found a bunch of works I haven't read by Akutagawa Ryunosuke
that are public domain.

Thank you so much!

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moskie
This was essentially my justification for buying a Kindle: it's about the
price of a new bookcase.

~~~
Groxx
I have 3 full bookcases in my house right now, all of which I bought, new, for
under $25 each. And one I got for $5 at a rummage sale. When the Kindle goes
to $25 (and opens up the SDK), I'll be ready with my money in-hand. Until
then, I'm waiting until they lose some of the _insane_ vendor lock-in.

~~~
vacri
Insane vendor lock-in that can be readily and legally circumvented with
Calibre, a free and open-source piece of conversion software that runs on the
three major consumer OSs?

~~~
rkudeshi
You can remove Kindle DRM with Calibre? News to me.

(Also, it still doesn't address the principle of the matter: digital music has
gone DRM-free, it's time for eBooks to do the same.)

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vacri
Are you aware that there are a great many places to purchase DRM-free ebooks
at places other than Amazon? And that programs like Calibre can format-shift
these to kindle-readable formats?

You're not vendor-locked with the Kindle with these tools. Your /brain/ might
be vendor-locked though, if you think that a Kindle will only ever read stuff
bought from Amazon. I bought a Kindle for a friend, and torrented hundreds of
ebooks for her. She hasn't paid a cent to DRM formats. When she wants a new
book, she can purchase an ebook from somewhere other than Amazon if she wants
to avoid DRM, and use Calibre to convert to .mobi format, which the Kindle
happily reads.

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rkudeshi
But that's my point exactly: I don't want to torrent books, I want to purchase
them legally.

Also, do any DRM-free stores have nearly the selection of Amazon/B&N/iBooks?
From what I understand, the DRM-free stores only have independent/self-
published books.

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stcredzero
The comments about the reality of urban housing in Japan has made a lot of
things in Japanese media make a lot more sense. In particular, the soundscapes
make more sense. I understand why the sound of trains passing seems to much
more prevalent in Japanese media: so many people live in small flimsily built
urban apartments with little acoustic insulation. In the states, there's more
of a mix due to older buildings. (Even more so for Europe.)

~~~
Groxx
And there are more trains. Loads of Japanese media take place in the areas
around rail lines, because people actually have experience with them. In the
USA? Hah! Only a few cities have any, and only a few of those are any good.

For myself, I've lived near a train track my whole life, in well-built, older
buildings. Well, 1/2 block away. The train goes by and everyone just pauses
conversation until it passes, because it drowns out everything. Because trains
_do that_. It's hard to move hundreds or thousands of tons quietly.

~~~
swift
Makes me wonder: would mag-lev make this situation any better? I've never been
near a mag-lev train or heard it pass in real life. Anyone with any experience
with them care to comment on how loud they are?

~~~
Groxx
Probably pretty loud, for high speeds:

> _In January and February 2008 hundreds of residents demonstrated in downtown
> Shanghai against the line being built too close to their homes, citing
> concerns about sickness due to exposure to the strong magnetic field, noise,
> pollution and devaluation of property near to the lines._
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_%28transport%29#China>

Though for slower ones:

> _The only low-speed maglev (100 km/h) currently operational, the Japanese
> Linimo HSST, cost approximately US$100 million/km to build.[40] Besides
> offering improved operation and maintenance costs over other transit
> systems, these low-speed maglevs provide ultra-high levels of operational
> reliability and introduce little noise and zero air pollution into dense
> urban settings._
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_%28transport%29#Economic...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_%28transport%29#Economics)

[citation needed], but good news.

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stcredzero
The first bit indicates: Chinese are not smarter than anyone else.

~~~
Groxx
Oh absolutely. But that does imply the same will occur everywhere, with
special focus on the "noise" and "devaluation of property". And whether _you_
believe in the "strong magnetic field" fear or not is irrelevant if you're
trying to sell your house near the tracks to someone who _does_.

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capedape
I saw this article yesterday and searched out this site:
<http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/> with the idea of making one to digitize
a few of my bookcases.

Too much going on right now to take that on, so I'm curious, does anyone know
of a service around the bay area that will do this without charging fees near
the original price of the book?

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kazuya
I wonder, it's not because of no rooms but simply because Japanese people have
more books?

<http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=343>

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edward
Also handy if you end up moving to another continent. I moved from England to
San Francisco. I had a lot of books before the move, I sold some, left some
with my parents and shipped the rest.

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jayp08
It makes practical sense given the dearth of living space in japan.

~~~
hexis
It could also make a difference on the margin anytime someone moved from one
place to another. It's generally cheaper to live in a smaller place, so if you
can live in less space, you can trade up to a more desirable location.

