A Million Books Available for Download

One million books will be available for download this month after REDgroup Retail announced a deal with global e-reading business Kobo Inc.

Source

The deal means customers can purchase and download e-books and e-content from Angus & Robertson and Borders in Australia and Whitcoulls in New Zealand.

The content, which includes books, magazines and newspapers, will be suitable to read on smartphones.

REDgroup Retail Group Managing Director David Fenlon said the agreement with Kobo would position the business at the forefront of the growing e-book market.

Pretty soon libraries will be something they talk about in history class. This to me, is just one step further in the direction of an eventual society that obtains all it's knowledge from a Hard Drive as opposed to a printed book. Not only that, but this story originates in Australia. With the ongoing debate of internet censorship, how long before they, or TPTB are censoring what is able to be read all together.

Makes you think!

I am rather curious of the titles that will be available, over 2 million. Another curious portion of the article...

"However, we have nothing specific to announce regarding its availability in Australia at this time."

Hmm, wonder why?

Maybe im just an old person trapped in a young persons body, but for some reason i can't read "books" from a screen...weird that i can read pages of information on a screen(which is basically what a book is) but when it comes to an actual book i can hardly read 10 pages without having to just buy it from amazon. Those kindle ebook readers and things similar don't help either. Maybe im just weird in that regard but if there are more people like me i don't think books and libraries will be finished just yet..

[edit on 19-5-2010 by Solomons]

Originally posted by UberL33t
With the ongoing debate of internet censorship, how long before they, or TPTB are censoring what is able to be read all together.

Makes you think!

I'm sure they won't be smashing up the printing presses any time soon.

Governments like censorship but it never works for long, unfortunately for them, it's really hard to stop people thinking and sharing ideas. I'ld go into more detail but Oprah's back from commercial.

reply to post by UberL33t


There is another site as well www.gutenberg.org...

This site contains a ton of books (not two million) but some very obscure ones that are great for research. It covers just about any book or text that is beyond the royalty phase. Some really old and cool books, especially old texts.

Not formatted and no photos, but the files are quite small, being only text and easy and quick to download

reply to post by Solomons


Well that's refreshing to hear, I just hope that others will share your sentiments on the matter. Skip ahead three generations, will people still see the actual book as efficient. Let's hope people don't become that reliant upon technology. However, the way it's going.....