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There's a less invasive way to do that though by storing the latest location for each device. You don't need to store each and every page turn for the page sync

by rtkwe 7y ago

There's a less invasive way to do that though by storing the latest location for each device. You don't need to store each and every page turn for the page sync feature.

jbob2000 7y ago
Then the next news article will read "Amazon stores the locations of where you are in your ebooks!". You can't have your cake and eat it too, amazon needs to store something to make this feature work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  - Karunamon 7y ago
    It's the same thing with the locations, since your "page" is entirely dependent on your screen size and font setting. The end of a given page could reference no less than 40 different positions in the book (8 possible font sizes, 5 different screen sizes on all available kindles).
    - Godel_unicode 7y ago
      Isn't it much more than that given iOS split screen support? I thought Kindle text was addressed by word break?
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      It's way more than that because the page breaks will also change based on screen size including apps on other devices. We aren't seeing the full data here so I bet one of the columns here is currentLocation using the word break location (which I've heard is how Loc XXX is calculated for kindle books) instead of a page number.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  “Amazon stores the locations of where you are in your ebooks!” is not newsworthy.
bduerst 7y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that how whispersync works now?
tqi 7y ago
How is "tapped on page 11" different from "is on page 12"?
- alpaca128 7y ago
  90k rows of "tapped on page X" is definitely different from "is on page 12 in book Y" with exactly one entry per book.
  - tqi 7y ago
    "Is on page 12 in book Y" at what time? If you send an update every time position changes, then there is no difference.
    - sbarre 7y ago
      Not OP, and I realize you are being obtuse and difficult on purpose, but that line can have a timestamp, a device ID, and any other number of properties.
      - tqi 7y ago
        I'm really not being difficult. If you've logged the data there is no difference - for one, most of these db systems are write only. Even the ones that aren't probably have a transaction logs. Plus it will be recorded in countless other places along the way.
        sbarre 7y ago
        Then perhaps you simply missed the point that was being made, which was that it's _possible_ to provide the features that Amazon promotes _without_ logging that much information on an ongoing and permanent basis.
        Godel_unicode 7y ago
        Slightly off topic: how do you know the DB is write only?? I've been looking for talks about the Kindle back end and haven't found any. I'd love to read about it, it appears to have solved some interesting problems!
alkibiades 7y ago
so how is that implemented? wouldn’t you just record the current page each time it changes? which is essentially the same as loggingh page turn?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  You could just store the last location for each device which is much less useful for datamining. Any time series of events contains much more information about habits than just most recent X.
Kuiper 7y ago
This is apparently how older Kindle models worked, which has made them an attack vector for fraud on Kindle Unlimited: >KDP [Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon's self-publishing platform] pays authors for both paid downloads as well as for pages read and it doesn’t sense reading speed, just the highest number of pages reached. ... >The way that the book-stuffing con works is that scammers stuff lots of extra content into an ebook before uploading it to Kindle Unlimited, and then trick readers into jumping to the end of the book. >Thanks to a flaw in the Kindle platform, namely that the platform knows your location in a book but not how many pages you have actually read, the scammers can get paid for a user having “read” a book in Kindle Unlimited by getting the user to jump to the last page. ... >Interestingly, the flip-to-end scam doesn’t quite work on newer Kindles but still works on older, non-updated Kindles which makes it still a lucrative scam. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/notorious-kindle-unlimited-abuser-has-been-booted-from-the-bookstore/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/notorious-kindle-unlimited...
jordache 7y ago
How is recording a tap invasive?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  It's just another accumulation of data unnecessarily just having the last page I read for each device doesn't tell you much but having a history of all of that gives Amazon information about my habits and combined with info about the book maybe mood etc.

by rtkwe 7y ago

There's a less invasive way to do that though by storing the latest location for each device. You don't need to store each and every page turn for the page sync feature.

jbob2000 7y ago

Then the next news article will read "Amazon stores the locations of where you are in your ebooks!". You can't have your cake and eat it too, amazon needs to store something to make this feature work.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
- Karunamon 7y ago
  It's the same thing with the locations, since your "page" is entirely dependent on your screen size and font setting. The end of a given page could reference no less than 40 different positions in the book (8 possible font sizes, 5 different screen sizes on all available kindles).
  - Godel_unicode 7y ago
    Isn't it much more than that given iOS split screen support? I thought Kindle text was addressed by word break?
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    It's way more than that because the page breaks will also change based on screen size including apps on other devices. We aren't seeing the full data here so I bet one of the columns here is currentLocation using the word break location (which I've heard is how Loc XXX is calculated for kindle books) instead of a page number.
wizzwizz4 7y ago
“Amazon stores the locations of where you are in your ebooks!” is not newsworthy.

bduerst 7y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that how whispersync works now?

tqi 7y ago

How is "tapped on page 11" different from "is on page 12"?

alpaca128 7y ago
90k rows of "tapped on page X" is definitely different from "is on page 12 in book Y" with exactly one entry per book.
- tqi 7y ago
  "Is on page 12 in book Y" at what time? If you send an update every time position changes, then there is no difference.
  - sbarre 7y ago
    Not OP, and I realize you are being obtuse and difficult on purpose, but that line can have a timestamp, a device ID, and any other number of properties.
    - tqi 7y ago
      I'm really not being difficult. If you've logged the data there is no difference - for one, most of these db systems are write only. Even the ones that aren't probably have a transaction logs. Plus it will be recorded in countless other places along the way.
      - sbarre 7y ago
        Then perhaps you simply missed the point that was being made, which was that it's _possible_ to provide the features that Amazon promotes _without_ logging that much information on an ongoing and permanent basis.
      - Godel_unicode 7y ago
        Slightly off topic: how do you know the DB is write only?? I've been looking for talks about the Kindle back end and haven't found any. I'd love to read about it, it appears to have solved some interesting problems!

alkibiades 7y ago

so how is that implemented? wouldn’t you just record the current page each time it changes? which is essentially the same as loggingh page turn?

rtkwe 7y ago
You could just store the last location for each device which is much less useful for datamining. Any time series of events contains much more information about habits than just most recent X.

Kuiper 7y ago

This is apparently how older Kindle models worked, which has made them an attack vector for fraud on Kindle Unlimited: >KDP [Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon's self-publishing platform] pays authors for both paid downloads as well as for pages read and it doesn’t sense reading speed, just the highest number of pages reached. ... >The way that the book-stuffing con works is that scammers stuff lots of extra content into an ebook before uploading it to Kindle Unlimited, and then trick readers into jumping to the end of the book. >Thanks to a flaw in the Kindle platform, namely that the platform knows your location in a book but not how many pages you have actually read, the scammers can get paid for a user having “read” a book in Kindle Unlimited by getting the user to jump to the last page. ... >Interestingly, the flip-to-end scam doesn’t quite work on newer Kindles but still works on older, non-updated Kindles which makes it still a lucrative scam. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/notorious-kindle-unlimited-abuser-has-been-booted-from-the-bookstore/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/notorious-kindle-unlimited...

jordache 7y ago

How is recording a tap invasive?

rtkwe 7y ago
It's just another accumulation of data unnecessarily just having the last page I read for each device doesn't tell you much but having a history of all of that gives Amazon information about my habits and combined with info about the book maybe mood etc.