Nintendo has reportedly issued a DMCA takedown notice to the developers behind Lockpick, a popular Switch homebrew tool. It’s believed that the legal action may be linked to the leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. That’s not because Lockpick is in anyway connected to the leak. It appears that Nintendo’s goal […]
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Amazon blocks older versions of its Kindle for PC app from downloading newly published Kindle eBooks
When you buy a Kindle eBook from Amazon you can read it on a Kindle device or Amazon Fire tablet. But Amazon also offers iOS, Android, PC, and Mac apps that let you download books to read on a phone, tablet, or computer. Earlier this month some users discovered that Amazon had made a significant […]
Amazon Kindles now support EPUB books (sort of), but MOBI and AZW support is ending in 2022
Amazon may be put its own eBook store front and center in the software that runs on the company’s Kindle eReaders, but you can also use a Kindle device or Amazon’s Kindle apps to read text documents, eBooks, or other files from other sources. The Kindle Personal Documents service lets you send TXT, HTML, DOC, […]
Lilbits: AYA Neo Next, Handbrake 1.5, Razer’s misleading face mask marketing, and printer DRM
Shortly after announcing the AYA Neo Next handheld gaming PC that would be powered by Ryzen 5000U series processors, the folks at AYA clarified that most models would ship with AMD’s recently introduced Ryzen 7 5825U chips rather than the older Ryzen 7 5800U… even though review units that have already been sent out have […]
Apparently some people did buy eBooks from Microsoft (and are getting refunds now that the books are unreadable)
There are a lot of nice things about eBooks — you can store hundreds on an eReader or smartphone, making them easy to travel with. You can adjust the font size. Maybe you can even have your device read them aloud to you. But if you pay for eBooks from Amazon, NOOK, Kobo, or most […]
Periodic reminder that you DRM means you don’t really own eBooks, movies, or other content (Microsoft’s eBook store is shutting down)
A few years ago Microsoft built support for reading eBooks into its Edge web browser, and began selling eBooks through the Microsoft Store. Today the company stopped selling eBooks. It’s canceled pre-orders. And it’ll start issuing refunds for any books you might have purchased. While that last bit sounds downright consumer-friendly, this next bit doesn’t: any […]
US Copyright Office says it’s legal to hack DRM to fix your own devices*
So there’s good news and not-so-good news on the “right to repair” front. As Motherboard reports, the good news is that the US Copyright Office just proposed new rules that would make it legal for anyone to circumvent DRM or otherwise hack or jailbreak their own devices in order to repair them or install software […]
How to read EPUB books with a Kindle
Amazon’s Kindle line of devices are some of the most popular E Ink gadgets for reading eBooks, and for good reason. They’re relatively inexpensive, have good displays, offer long battery life, and make reading books from Amazon’s Kindle store super easy. But what about books you didn’t buy from Amazon? Kindles can support books that […]
Linux users can now stream Netflix in Firefox
You used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops if you wanted to watch Netflix on a computer running Linux. But for the last few years all you’ve needed to do is install Google’s Chrome web browser. Now you don’t even need to that. Netflix has announced that you can now use the […]
Shelfie Shuts down Jan 31st, takes your DRM-laden eBooks with it
Shelfie is an app that lets you snap a picture of books you already own and get eBook versions of some titles for free (and others for low prices). Or at least, that used to be what Shelfie did. Because on January 31st, the service is shutting down. Update: Shelfie says eBook company Kobo had […]