Quick aside. More of a confession actually. Whenever I play with my “the future is almost here” technology I get very ranty. Whether this is a good thing is open for discussion.
Frequently Calibre, the open source digital book library management software, updates and steadily improves both its interface and how many times it crashes when poked with an impatient stick wielding jerk (ie: me). These advancements predicate playing around with its features and implementing them on my ebook readers.
The newest feature I’m using but has been in Calibre for a while now is the news fetching feature. Wherein it goes to websites, parses out the content and creates an ebook-readable format you can then upload. The default list is multinational and not merely in English and if that isn’t enough you can add your own sites too.
When the Kindle came out and had push news, I didn’t really see it as important. Maybe it was the impending demise of the dead tree news, their lethargy and incompetence. But playing around with the news feed function in Calibre has led me to see the potential utility of RSS style access to (good) content. I didn’t need wireless functionality when I bought my first (and *ahem* my second) e-reader, but sadly my next one will have such functionality.
Damn you technology.
