3 ms·

While I'm surprised at the granularity, this seems like it would be needed at some point to generate read times and such. Kindle tells you how much time is left

While I'm surprised at the granularity, this seems like it would be needed at some point to generate read times and such. Kindle tells you how much time is left in a book and this is either a WAG or something based on data.

sigwinch28 7y ago
Yes, this information would be needed at some point to generate read times. But why does it need to be calculated on Amazon's servers? AFAIK Kindles are running a linux kernel with a lot of busybox, and calculating a running average doesn't appear (to me) to be a particularly difficult calculation. Perhaps it can be argued that this calculation uses battery, but so does sending all of this telemetry to el Amazon. What I'm saying here is that I think that we shouldn't concede privacy in return for convenient little UI widgets, especially when the computing power is available, cheaply, locally.
- freepor 7y ago
  I think your Kindle use case is single device but mine is across 4 devices so doing anything fully locally doesn’t really work. Unless each device would need to be trained.
  - sigwinch28 7y ago
    I hadn't considered multiple devices, but don't we also have to factor in possible different text sizes on these devices, too? Also, slightly OT: has Amazon ever said whether that reading time is calculated locally or on their servers?
    - alpaca128 7y ago
      > don't we also have to factor in possible different text sizes on these devices, too? The kindle tracks progress via the actual amount of text read instead of pages, so the screen and text size should be irrelevant. It can still be switched to display the page number, but that is also independent of the amount of text on the screen(meaning it doesn't necessarily increase with every swipe to the next "page").
      - sigwinch28 7y ago
        >The kindle tracks progress via the actual amount of text read instead of pages This doesn't seem to me like what the tweet is describing, wherein the kindle is registering every tap instead of distinct "x words/chars progress made". If they were capturing and storing "X words in fiction read in n seconds", I could understand it, but they're not: they're registering every tap. I'd be interested to see how this matches up with "userChangedTextSizeToBlah" data if this is how they're calculating reading speed.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

sigwinch28 7y ago

Yes, this information would be needed at some point to generate read times. But why does it need to be calculated on Amazon's servers? AFAIK Kindles are running a linux kernel with a lot of busybox, and calculating a running average doesn't appear (to me) to be a particularly difficult calculation. Perhaps it can be argued that this calculation uses battery, but so does sending all of this telemetry to el Amazon. What I'm saying here is that I think that we shouldn't concede privacy in return for convenient little UI widgets, especially when the computing power is available, cheaply, locally.

freepor 7y ago
I think your Kindle use case is single device but mine is across 4 devices so doing anything fully locally doesn’t really work. Unless each device would need to be trained.
- sigwinch28 7y ago
  I hadn't considered multiple devices, but don't we also have to factor in possible different text sizes on these devices, too? Also, slightly OT: has Amazon ever said whether that reading time is calculated locally or on their servers?
  - alpaca128 7y ago
    > don't we also have to factor in possible different text sizes on these devices, too? The kindle tracks progress via the actual amount of text read instead of pages, so the screen and text size should be irrelevant. It can still be switched to display the page number, but that is also independent of the amount of text on the screen(meaning it doesn't necessarily increase with every swipe to the next "page").
    - sigwinch28 7y ago
      >The kindle tracks progress via the actual amount of text read instead of pages This doesn't seem to me like what the tweet is describing, wherein the kindle is registering every tap instead of distinct "x words/chars progress made". If they were capturing and storing "X words in fiction read in n seconds", I could understand it, but they're not: they're registering every tap. I'd be interested to see how this matches up with "userChangedTextSizeToBlah" data if this is how they're calculating reading speed.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]