Archive through October 06, 2009
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: New Product Lines Development: GENERAL PROJECTS: Electronic book readers: Older posts archive: Archive through October 06, 2009
By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 09:49 pm: Edit

I think the key to having a successful eBook publisher is having an eBook reader that is a closed system. Like the Kindle where the eBooks do not get transfered to normal computer.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 08:54 am: Edit

I've looked at the Sony E-Book reader. I love the concept of the device and SVC's idea of putting the rulebooks in such a format. The biggest issue is integrating the rule books.

The E-Reader is much lighter and the capacity would easily hold all of the F&E and SFB rule books. However, my three ring binders with page protectors mean that I have all the rules integrated in order by rule number and the master errata files printed out and inserted into my rule books at the front so I know that I have them.

The only major reason I don't have a reader besides cost is content availablity. When we had a Sony representitive in store where I work for the E-Reader available, I checked out their website for content and found limited content and a search engine that was no where near as good as that for an audio book company that my wife likes and purchases prodcuts from. I informed the Sony representitive of my discontent with the content and ability to search the content they had available.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 28, 2009 - 12:16 pm: Edit

I would presume that any E-book content would be that of the Master Rule Book series, which is fully integrated (as far as each volume is concerned).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 03:49 pm: Edit

We will be doing Kindle Books by next year. Leanna bought a Kindle DX and is in charge of the project. She does not read the BBS so if you have any thoughts, suggestions, warnings, insights, or other information for her, please email her at Sales@StarFleetGame.com as she is willing to consider your input.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 04:30 pm: Edit

I know your customers have always wanted it, but the Kindle DX is $489. That's going to limit your market quite a bit. Will ADB sell enough Kindle books to offer a reasonable return on investment?

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 05:28 pm: Edit

Question - what books are planned?

Are we talking JUST the Master Rulebook? (In which case - uhhh...no thanks. I may be a technology junkie, but I also have no problem with ink-and-paper...and I already own this one at much less than $300)

If it's Master Rulebook, Master Scenario book (IE., all published scenarios to date), G3 and G3A Annexes, and Master R-Sections...

...well...

...I'd still prefer those in print. But may consider the Kindle option if ALL of that was available at launch of this product line.

Quote:

I know your customers have always wanted it, but the Kindle DX is $489. That's going to limit your market quite a bit. Will ADB sell enough Kindle books to offer a reasonable return on investment?



Let's not blow things out of proportion. Amazon has a Kindle for $299. Still high, but not THAT high.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 05:41 pm: Edit

even at $300.00 it is out of my current price range. I would definitely be looking at one for the Federation & Empire Warbook. I will have to do some more research on them to determine how I would use it.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Cool.

Guess some work needs to be done on the Master Scenario Book.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 06:04 pm: Edit

kindles on eBay start at $175

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 07:39 pm: Edit

I would also assume that prices will come down in the coming months and years.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 03, 2009 - 09:56 pm: Edit

Dang, if the rules are searchable that would be super duper.

ADB might be able to release more fiction in Kindle too. I'm ALL for that.

Then there is the PD line that might work for Kindle, I don't know.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, October 04, 2009 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Thanks for the input. I don't know the answer to most of your questions because (1) we just started looking into this and (2) I am not the one doing the looking.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 04, 2009 - 09:11 pm: Edit

A question for later (when answerable): Will the content be Kindle readable only?

By Dave Bank (Dirk) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 08:23 am: Edit

Personally, I wouldn't buy a Kindle for $17.50, let alone $175.00.

Why? Because it puts someone else in control of my library shelves. Witness Amazon's recent "unselling" of (quite appropriately) _1984_ via Kindle. (See News Article)

"Memory hole", anyone?

"Book? What book? I don't see any book about a neo-fascist government...."

Using a Kindle is tantamount to giving Amazon a key to your home so that if, for any reason, they decide they shouldn't have sold you a specific book, they can come into your home (or your Kindle) and remove it from your bookshelf. And BTW, if your Amazon account under which you purchase your Kindle's books becomes disabled, for any reason (even if not your fault), guess what quits working?

Thanks, but give me PDF or forget it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 09:38 am: Edit

One of the articles I read implied that a Kindle DX cannot zoom on a PDF. The DX might be large enough to allow someone to view an SSD without zooming, but the smaller Kindles would all be too small to read an SSD. If the Kindle cannot show a readable SSD it kinda makes me worry that the technology is not quite ready to meet ADB's needs.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 11:13 am: Edit

SVC, you said that Kindle told you that their file format cannot be hacked, as a potential ebook publisher, what else would you think they'd say?

The addition of the word "yet" to that sentence would make their statement true. ;(

By Ken Coleman (Eeyore) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Quote:

The addition of the word "yet" to that sentence would make their statement true. ;(



I posted on this thread with a similar thought almost a year ago now, but after thinking about it a bit I don't think it's quite as dire as that. Most of these kinds of DRM systems work a lot like public-key cryptography systems. These are actually pretty well established to be "unbreakable" (no one has broken the idea for 30+ years) as long as none of the following happens:

1. There's a mathematical breakthrough. In public-key crypto (and probably Kindle DRM), the necessary breakthrough would be the ability to do prime factorization much faster than the fastest algorithm currently available. Ultra-fast prime factorization is what the box in the movie Sneakers could do, if you've seen it.

2. The private keys get out, although there's usually a decent mitigation called key revocation that can fix this after the fact to some extent. The most likely scenario here is probably a disgruntled Amazon employee leaking the keys, but normally only a few people have access to them within a company. I would guess Amazon has good safeguards considering the reputation hit they would take if they were leaked.

3. Amazon has implemented the system badly and there's some terrible bug that renders the system breakable without #1 or #2 coming into play. As with #2, Amazon has a huge self-interest to get it right since no publisher will trust them if they get it wrong.

Anyways, that's my semi-educated take. I do work in computer security, although not in crypto or DRM system design/implementation so I'm hardly an expert. :)

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 02:50 pm: Edit

I've made this comment before. But Kindle files can be read on Macs and PCs and they ARE being shared on the net via file sharing. There's no way you'll be able to stop them from being pirated...
regards
Stacy

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 03:00 pm: Edit

Thanks for the input. I don't know the answer to most of your questions because (1) we just started looking into this and (2) I am not the one doing the looking.

By Ken Coleman (Eeyore) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Quote:

I've made this comment before. But Kindle files can be read on Macs and PCs and they ARE being shared on the net via file sharing. There's no way you'll be able to stop them from being pirated...



There are Kindle files available on the net, but my understanding is that those began their lives as unprotected content. Essentially someone took an unprotected PDF (or other text file), built a Kindle-compatible version of it, then shared it with other Kindle users. Based on what I can find with google searches, Kindle DRM has not been cracked, meaning you can not take content purchased through Amazon from one Kindle to another.

By Gregg Knapp (Gk1) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 07:25 pm: Edit

if someone wants it they will crack it. there is nothing perfect. it's just a back and forth war. protection is put out and then that is cracked and then a new protection has to be put in place and then that is broken also. There is little interest in cracking Kindle books. If you want a searchable rule book make one for you to use. I'm sure some have and your right it saves time finding things.

By Dave Bank (Dirk) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Kindle is "unbreakable" the same way that CSS (Content Scrambling System, the encryption for DVDs) was "unbreakable". When it gets broken, though, it'll probably be through some "back door" that Amazon themselves put in and thought no one else would ever find. PHBs never seem to learn that "security through obscurity" is not "security" at all.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 11:14 pm: Edit

The problem is that PHBs never seem to learn, full stop. Not learning about "security through obscurity" is but one of many examples.

Strong cryptography done correctly should work for as long as ADB would need it to work to avoid fiscal loss (i.e. before the next edition of the product comes out in 5-10 years). The faults in various secure hashes (public ones that have been looked over by professionals, mind you, not the proprietary ones which seem unlikely to be better) that surface from time to time seem to be putting a second front on how long things remain unbreakable- either a fault will be found reducing the key strength of the encryption substantially, or Moore's Law increases hardware speed enough to make brute force cracking of a sound encryption key feasible.

[One of the reasons behind 30 to 90 day password change requirements is that things like DES or 3DES encryption which have been used for password hashes for decades are now down in the low 6 figures for brute force hardware to do the cracking in a reasonable period of time.]

By Gregg Knapp (Gk1) on Tuesday, October 06, 2009 - 12:00 am: Edit

Really I don't think anything from ADB is going to even interest any of the groups that have the ability to break the protection. Even if broken the people on this board I'm sure would still buy it or have bought so much from ADB it will not matter. I would be happy to see this new product.
The things about SFb is that in a group of players really only 1 person needs to buy the product for everyone to play. It's not like everyone needs there own copy.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, October 06, 2009 - 12:58 am: Edit

Considering the cost of the Kindle, the cost of the e-book should be trivial. Why copy it when you can own it legally for a few bucks?

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