Prior to yesterday’s announcement of the iPad Mini, there was a great deal of speculation as to its form, its capabilities, its existence and its price. Commentators saw the rumoured tablet to be a direct competitor to the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7, indicating that they believed Apple was concerned about losing market share in that market. The price was rumoured to be around the same level as those competitors, so that the differences which would make people want to buy an iPad over an Android tablet would be the quality of the hardware and the app marketplace. Continue reading “Sheltering under an umbrella”
Prices of electronic books
A quick browse of Amazon shows that many books available through the Kindle are priced around the same level as the physical product. The cost of provision of these electronic books is much lower, however: printing costs, distribution costs, and even the margins to retails are either non-existent or significantly reduced. Why, then, is there this equivalence in pricing? Continue reading “Prices of electronic books”
Piracy and the lack of a stick
The issue of piracy on the Internet has particularly high visibility, with Wikipedia, Reddit and WordPress blacking out their sites in response to the US government’s plans for legislation to ban links to pirated material. The key issue is that the government’s plans aren’t attacking the pirates directly, but are instead attacking anyone who runs a site which may carry or link to copyright material. A similar issue exists in the UK, with the last government’s pressing through of the Digital Economy Act 2010; under a strict interpretation of the act, ISPs could be forced to block access to Google if it were shown to link to pirated material. Continue reading “Piracy and the lack of a stick”