3 ms·
I am both skeptical and interested: - Looks like you turn the knob to set your page - This, and your book title, appear to be the only input data to the syste
by philomath_mn 2y ago
I am both skeptical and interested:
- Looks like you turn the knob to set your page
- This, and your book title, appear to be the only input data to the system (no other sensors)
- Does this mean they aim to have a database of the text of every edition of every book, indexed by page?
If they can pull it off I think it could be useful, but I think they will need to compromise on quality if they hit copyright issues.
- msephton 2y agoThey have a database of books but it's limited. This is the Achilles heel that they don't really mention.
- joe5150 2y agoYeah, they're also going to get sued out of existence by publishers if they try this. https://x.com/markhardware/status/1894829887304933626 https://x.com/markhardware/status/1894829887304933626
- msephton 2y agoYeah I responded to that the other day about a recipe app that tried something similar. It allowed people to scan the barcode of recipe books they owned to add the contained recipes into the app. They were busted.
- philomath_mn 2y agoWonder how Readwise is managing what they do -- really hope they don't get shut down.
- msephton 2y agoNo idea. But here's an article on the recipe book barcode scanner app (2016): https://www.superbcrew.com/scan-recipes-allows-you-to-turn-barcodes-into-recipes/ https://www.superbcrew.com/scan-recipes-allows-you-to-turn-b...
- joe5150 2y agoI'm not familiar with Readwise but it appears they only store highlights? Publishers probably don't like that but don't care enough to do anything about it, whereas "uploading copies of books to the services to do AI stuff with them" is the subject of many ongoing lawsuits right now, so they'll be very interested if this takes off.
- philomath_mn 2y agoRight, I just don't know where the dividing line would be. What % of a book is acceptable?
- animal_spirits 2y agoIf that's the case, what does this metal plate do that my phone can't? It is just a knob that sends a number to my phone? Why can't I just use my phone? This feels like the humane pin again.
- msephton 2y agoWell, it's a bookmark ...I guess. One that can be used to select a book from a list and set a page number. But, yeah. I just don't see the need for it.