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Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Plans To Add an Ebook Store To Windows 10 (mspoweruser.com) 68

Posted by msmash from the for-bookworms dept.
Microsoft may have plans to give Windows 10 users the ability to purchase ebooks directly from the Windows Store. According to a report on MSPowerUser, Windows 10 Creators Update will feature a new book store interface that will support the purchase and viewing of books in the Microsoft Edge browser. The report claims that this feature will be coming to both Windows 10 Mobile and other Windows 10 variants on PCs and tablets. It's worth mentioning that Microsoft made EPUB support a feature of Microsoft Edge as part of its Windows 10 Creators Update Insider test builds last year.
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Microsoft Plans To Add an Ebook Store To Windows 10 More

Microsoft Plans To Add an Ebook Store To Windows 10

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  • Years late, millions short (Score:5, Funny)

    by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @09:45AM (#53688981)

    Yet another soon-to-be short-lived MS attempt to be 5th or 6th to market with someone else's idea.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Somewhere, deep within Microsoft, there are people whose job security rests on their coming up with yet another way to have Microsoft extend its control over everything you can do on your computer. Want to bet that the DRM on the e-books you buy will depend on there being an active network connection so that the reader can connect to a Microsoft license server to check whether you're allowed to open the book? And that the DRM will be cracked within 48 hours of its implementation?

      • You also forgot: You'll have to upgrade to a Kaby Lake based CPU and have a video card and monitor that support hdcp 2.2, and when windows 11 comes out you'll have to upgrade or else it will quit working.

        • New error message: "You cannot view this ebook on your display because it does not support HDCP 3.7. Please connect a display that supports HDCP 3.7 or later and no other displays to your computer and try again."

  • Did you know (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @09:52AM (#53689025)

    that there is a Kindle for PC that lets you read wBooks purchased from Amazon

    or soesn't it work on Win 10

    BTW I can also read books from the Kindle store on my phone and Fire Tablets

    • That's what I do: I don't want to buy books that are only good as long as I have a certain platform

      • Re:Did you know (Score:4, Informative)

        by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @11:41AM (#53689597) Homepage

        Many libraries will also lend out Kindle versions of books. (They automatically expire and then can't be opened when due.) As an author, I love the Kindle platform. I make more money on the sale of a Kindle book than I do on the sale of a paperback. If Microsoft wants to even put a dent in Amazon's eBook empire, they're going to need cross-compatibility and a ton of titles to attract users and good royalty payment structures for authors. If their eBook store doesn't offer authors enough of a cut of sales, we'll all stick with Amazon. If not enough books are available, users won't use the service. If there aren't enough users, authors/publishing companies won't bother releasing their books on Microsoft's platform.

        Side note: I liked that Amazon gave me the choice of whether to include DRM or not. (I didn't include it.) Somehow, I can't see Microsoft's eBook story NOT forcing DRM on all of the eBooks.

    • Microsoft used to have the Reader I think it was called. The books were in the .lit format.

      • Microsoft used to have the Reader I think it was called. The books were in the .lit format.

        ... and they abandoned all people that "purchased" DRM protected e-books from them.

        • MS has a new one in Windows 10. Problem is publishers LOVE DRM and keeping their shit on the cloud to block out competitors. Amazon is one of the worst offenders unfortunately so they won't work on other platforms

    • Yeah it's shit.

      It hasn't been updated since Windows 8. My guess is Amazon and Barnes and Noble are pissed since MS started bundling their own e-book reader program. No it's not compatible with Amazon's either

  • First and most important question (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @10:04AM (#53689107)

    Will we be able to disable/uninstall it?

    • Yes, but it will require installing Linux first.

    • Will we be able to disable/uninstall it?

      No, but it will be able to uninstall ebooks you own. Although, as usual, this innovation has been copied by Microsoft from others, in this case, from Amazon dropping YOUR copies of "1984" down the memory hole [slashdot.org].

      And when a book becomes only partially ungood, the technology will kindly destroy and replace the copy your own, instead of ordering you to cut out a page from your Great Soviet Encyclopedia and mailing a replacement sheet you're supposed to glue in, with random visits to the encyclopedia's subscriber

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @10:15AM (#53689169)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • 2006: Sony releases the Sony Reader for $600 USD.

      I had a six-week contract to QA ebook titles on the Japanese hardware in the Summer 2005. Linux developers were in Japan, ebook conversion to HTML were in India, and my team of ten testers speed read 600 ebook titles for HTML issues in Silicon Valley. The Sony tax for having the Sony brand name prevented the device from being adopted widespread. Sony discontinued the device in 2014.

      Although Sony no longer appears on my resume, I still get contacted by recrui

    • The first Kindle was actually released in 2007. (Source [wikipedia.org])

      Microsoft is almost 10 years late to the party.

    • 2000: Microsoft releases Pocket PC 2000 Phone Edition
      2001: Nokia releases the Symbian based S60 software platform
      2002: Blackberry releases the Blackberry 5810 smart phone
      2007: Apple gets excited about this new Smartphone technology its been hearing so much about

  • they killed lit (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Would NEVER trust MS with any of my media after they killed LIT and all the tens of billions of .lit ebooks out there.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This. I bought a lot of ebooks in Microsoft Reader format back in the day, to read on my Pocket PC/Windows Mobile devices. Of course one day Microsoft decided it was bored with Microsoft Reader, and dropped it. So when that generation of devices became obsolete, your whole library became useless (unless you made the effort to decrypt the ebooks and convert them to another format, which was doable, but obviously a PITA). So now I'm going to buy ebooks that I'm guessing can only be accessed on a device with M

      • Not just that, I've also avoided buying anything from either Apple's or Google's stores. Point is - if I want something, I'd rather have it anywhere I choose. All my books are from Amazon, so that I can read it from either my iPad or my Ellipsis. Years ago, I bought some songs from iTunes, but if I have to do so today, I'd use Vevo. Not that I do: I download music videos from YouTube and have created a library of my own songs that I can seamlessly play on either my Ellipsis or my Lumia. Unfortunately,

        • I buy plenty of books from Google's store. The first thing I do is decrypt them so I can read them in FBReader. Both Google's and Kobo's store use the Adobe DRM, so it's pretty trivial to decrypt.

        • I bought music from Google once. They required that I use their app to play it online. I could download it in MP3 format, but I was only allowed to do so a certain number of times. (Four, IIRC.) Contrast this with Amazon which will sell me the digital music, let me play it online or download it as many times as I like in non-DRMed MP3 format. That's why all of my music purchases (except that one described above) are from Amazon and not Google.

        • Years ago, I bought some songs from iTunes, but if I have to do so today, I'd use Vevo.

          I guess you're not aware that iTunes eliminated DRM on music years ago.

          • Vevo is a lot better when it comes to music videos, which is how I get my music these days: like to watch the original videos

            • Where you shop is certainly your choice to make, but since it's not about proprietary lock-in (the topic of this sub-thread), it's irrelevant to the conversation.

    • Maybe it just needs a new branding initiative to instill trust in the ecosystem. Maybe something like, ReadForSure. That way you know you'll always be able to read your books for sure because they said so this time.

  • Windows is my tool (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @11:02AM (#53689379) Journal

    Windows is my tool. I use it to work. I don't want a damn eBook store or ads on my desktop or a touch interface that I can't touch at my desktop. It's like someone put a f**ing little LCD screen in the head of my hammer that shows me ads while I pound nails.

    • Windows Hammer (tm): "It looks like you're trying to hammer a nail. Would you like me to help?"

    • Windows is my tool. I use it to work. I don't want...

      What is it about Windows that makes you think anything about Windows belongs to you? For all the abuse Microsoft has given you, you decided "well it's not all bad" and kept using their platform of abuse. You belong to Microsoft.

  • MS needs to focus on what they are good at and spend the R&D time to develop the "next great thing". They have been late to so many tech trends over the past decade and need to create their own, instead of trying to skim a few dollars from established markets.
  • Redmond, Start Your Copiers!!! Again...

    True then [youtube.com], true now [9to5mac.com].

  • > Enter bookstore
    You buy a book and begin to read.

    After a while, you feel thirsty.

    What would you like to do?
    > go for a coffee.

    Mmmm, hot coffee.

    You return to your desk with the coffee.

    Your book and all your possessions near it are gone! Searching the floor nearby you find a tiny note written in invisible ink "bookstore updated!"

    Press <N> to jump into the fiery pit.
    Press <S> to jump into the fiery pit.
    Press <E> to jump into the fiery pit.
    Press <W> to jump into the fiery pit.

    What

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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