Users of Amazon’s Kindle (in the US for now, but surely to be widened) now have access to a new “recaps” feature. Kindle Recaps is designed for people who like book series. As the title suggests, it allows readers to refresh their memories about what happened earlier in the series while they are reading the latest installment.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
From Amazon’s own recap of the offering, readers will be able to explore the backgrounds of characters and recall plot and subplot arcs that brought events to where they are. It seems a bit like my experience of immersing myself in any new film world by watching while I have the IMDb and Wikipedia pages open at the same time.
Human Moderation and Generative AI
Kindle Recaps is, according to Amazon, created by mixing the skills of human moderators and generative AI. Which is where, no doubt, eyebrows will be raised—not least because people may wonder if the AI involved produces something better than those generic recaps of reviews. Nothing in the press release suggests a policy on whether authors or rights holders will have been asked for permission. I am guessing that this will be seen as part of the general “business use” rights that one signs over when uploading work to a site, but someone smarter and more legally aware than me may wish to comment on that.
Available Only for Purchased or Borrowed Titles
What is at least encouraging is that readers will only have access to recaps from titles they have already purchased or borrowed. So you can’t just buy the final installment in a series and catch up on everything else for free. To access the feature immediately, Kindle users need to download the latest version of the software, though an “over-the-air” update will be coming shortly, and iOS users will also get the update in the near future.
Elsewhere around the tech platforms, TikTok is finally back in the news. A question mark still hangs over the app’s future in the US, but last week a further seventy-five-day extension was issued before the scheduled ban comes into effect.
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