Gigi loves book and she has a Cybook gen3. Following our precedent post, here is the second part of the previous review by Gigi from eBooks About Everything.
"All in all – this has been a good experience and I am a happy customer. Sure there are a few changes and/or improvements I would like to see, but they are relatively minor and do not impact my overall satisfaction. Good job, Bookeen! "
If you look for another point of view, another review on Mobileread by Barcey who have made a comparison between a Cybook and a PDA.
"Buy it you won't regret it. You know you want it."
And also another review on Mobileread too by Bob_ninja with many pictures and many test on different kind of ebook files.
"In summary this device met all my expectations and exceeded others. I would gladly recommend it to others. I am looking forward to software updates to clean up the minor issues I found."
Regards,
Bookeen team
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76 comments:
It seems that you need a firmware update to solve the problems that people are having with the device. Is that coming soon? Will people be able to download it, or are they stuck once they've purchased a reader?
Hi,
Sorry fro cross-posting, but my comment was buried below 40 other comments on the wrong post i think. My apologies.
I am a happy new bookeen owner. The quality of the display is amazing. Reading html and mobipocket ebooks is absolutely great!
However, I could not find a PDF file that was comfortable to read. The viewer just has 3 zoom settings: fit page, fit height, and fit width. All the PDF ebooks that i tried were unreadable with fit page and fit height. With fit width you end up with a headache.
Mangas on PDF are unreadable too. bad.
Please please, this device is absolutely amazing, can you do something about this, maybe allow different levels of zooming in the viewer?
Yes...I know I WANT ONE!!
Dear Luis,
We will add new levels of zooming in next software release.
Please note that if you combine a landscape mode + fit width option you obtain the highest zoom factor.
Best regards,
Michael (for Bookeen)
Amazon Kindle is out!
You have to reduce the price of the Bookeen Generation 3 if you want that somebody buy it!!!!!!
Check http://ebooksabout.blogspot.com/
2007/11/amazon-kindle-has-arrived.html to see why no one will buy Kindle.
Any thoughts on using a lightwedge (www.lightwedge.com) with the Bookeen?
Thanks,
Michael
p.s. The latest mobipocket update did solve my mobipocket syncing issues. Thanks.
Can cybook search? Like, can I search a book for a quote? I'm not sure what the input would be like since there's no touch screen or keyboard, but it seems kind of silly to have un-searchable digital text. Maybe a button-navigated keyboard or something? How's it work? or does it?
While reading can I look a word up (quickly and easily) in a dictionary?
I emailed these questions to them and never got a response. Does anyone have any concerns with customer support? Has anyone else bought one of these and for any reason needed any kind of support and got it?
I see a comment on here about "seems you need a firmware upgrade.... issues people are having." I really want one of these but I don't want to buy some half-functional hack that they're scrambling to fix, releasing broken code for, and not answering questions about. What's the deal? Is everything OK with these things?
I emailed a couple of questions to the jinke/hanlin people and they emailed me back minutes later. I feel more inclined to think they would help if I had any problems with their device.
Bookeen Michael:
The PDF review has confused me... when zoomed in can you scroll the page when reading a PDF? I know that using landscape mode/fit width will show part of a normal letter sized page and display an arrow icon to indicate there is more. Can you use the keypad then to scroll to the other part of the page? Nothing in the reviews or the cybook user guide indicates anywhere that I can and if you can't scroll at all when using a zoom level it basically renders the PDF reader meaningless. I am looking into Cybooks basically because I want to read PDF manuals in the field.
Is the website down ? www.bookeen.com ?
In USA it costs 350$, in Europe 350€. 1,5 times more! It's not OK!
Why can't I display PDFs of digitized books from Google Book or articles from JSTOR on the Cybook Gen 3? They show up blank.
I Can't get the newest Mobipocket Desktop to recognize my Cybook. Anyone have any ideas?
Last anonymous, have you got the latest version (= 6.1) of the Mobipocket Reader? Apparently, version 6.0 doesn't recognize the Cybook, but that's supposed to have been fixed in 6.1
Are you guys thinking about multiple bookmarks and highlighting (text marking)?
And you could make another post about mobipocket reader 6.1 release (advantages).
I have the same question as nairbv: does the Cybook offer a search feature, like to search for a given word somewhere in the text?
No search feature. Even with a firmware upgrade, operating a virtual keyboard will be cumbersome, because the display is not snappy enough for that, unless they can push the response time of the screen.
Amazon's response to this problem is a real keyboard, but it's quite ugly and it destroys the simple design.
If you need search badly, don't buy this version. IMHO
Is the Cybook ever going to be able to display PDFs downloaded from Google Books?
The Cybook already supports .pdf files.
I'm talking about PDFs from Google Book, JSTOR, and other such sites. These are digitized books and journal articles. For some reason, the Cybook handles them differently than other PDFs (like ones generated by saving a word processor document as a PDF).
Hi, does Cybook supports Cyrillic fonts? "FB2"-Formatting?
No offense intended, but: where is your forums? It's kinda pathetic to see people post support requests on a blog (and an externally hosted and managed blog as well).
Never mind "where's your support forum", where's the website?? http://www.bookeen.com isn't responding at the moment...
Unfortunately, bookeen.com seems to be down?!?
Wow... the bookeen.com website sure has been down for a long time... It's a shame because I would have liked to order it.
http://www.bookeen.com is back.
I am having some major issues with the cybook locking every few times I try to read a PDF doc I converted using the reader! Once the reader goes through the PDF it seams to be a lot better than copying the PDF directly to the cybook via the Drive mapping. Although this is an interim solution, it is a pretty bad one, since the reader messes up the embedded graphics in the PDF document. This on top of the fact that I am having issues with the reader recognizing the SD card on occasion. There seamed to be a hint of a new firmware update, please release even if beta, because right now, this is an expensive piece of junk (not even a paper weight, since its too light for that!). I would like to be a happy user with this product, but right now I am willing to go back to the Sony, because it actually worked!
Is anybody else having troubles getting a shipment from Bookeen? I emailed them because I never received info after the promised shipment date of December 5th passed and they haven't answered me, they did edit my order page and removed the shipment date from the info there. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good to me.
ottawa411, same here.
Although I'm going to hope it means it shipped, and not that it means they don't know when it's going to.
Might be a bit too optimistic, but I can dream...
Has anyone actually had any responses from these guys? I have a unit that just locks up and no email response from them what so ever! Right now this is the biggest waste of money on my part!
Bookeen wrote:
Dear Sir,
Brand new production batches have actually left the factory and are on their
way to our shipping department. Shipments will restart next Monday on a
first-come, first-served basis.
You will receive a tracking number confirmation by email as soon as your
package is handled by FedEx.
With our best regards,
Bookeen Support Team
Icehand, thanks for that update.
It would be nice if Bookeen responded to emails sent to shop and contact email addresses, but some news is better than none...
Hi,
I also blind reviewed (compared the features and reviews) the Cybook Gen3 on my private movie + gadget blog and recommended it instead its rivals. Unfortunately the price - especially here in Easter Europe - is absolutely unaffordable, we can only hope prices will drop in the next few years.
By the way, as I can see, nobody reviewed it in Hungary yet - I work at the game secion of the leading online tech mag here if you need a review.
I have a few questions too:
Will you release the SDK in the future as your numerous rivals did? As a programmer I like to program my machines (PSP, NDS etc.) and so far this is the e-book reader I plan to buy in the distant future. It would be useful if we could add new formats or even games like Sudoku.
Does the machine support Eastern-European fonts?
Will you sell the machine in Eastern-European (especially Hungarian) shops too?
Don't you need an English-Hungarian translator to localize the interface?
Best regards,
Médiageci
Here's the email I received from Bookeen yesterday. I'm guessing may others got the same message.
With luck, mine should ship next week!
<QUOTED MESSAGE>
Dear Customer,
Here is the status about orders which did not ship yet.
1) Cybook shipments will restart next Monday (December 10).
Orders ship on a first-come, first-served basis.
In other words, people who ordered late October will have their package flying in the corresponding planes Monday night.
2) We expect to ship all orders issued in November over next week.
December orders will follow and we will have more information about more recent orders by the end of next week.
In all cases, as indicated, you will receive your package before Christmas.
3) International shipments are handled by our partner FedEx in international priority mode.
You will receive a tracking confirmation email as soon as your package is handled by FedEx.
FedEx will provide you with a delivery date and you will be able to follow your package(s) in real time.
4) On our web site, in the order list section, there was a December 5 fixed date mention.
This test hard-coded value should not have appeared on the retail site and has been removed yesterday.
The red warning header indicating the estimated shipping date is of course only valid for new orders and does not concern your past order(s).
5) For your information, in normal times, we do ship within 1-2 business days upon order.
The bank transactional system is fully automated and confirms payment authorizations overnight.
6) We are receiving an increasingly huge number of requests.
It is currently not possible to answer everyone with a personalized message; hence this generic message.
Thank you for your patience; we hope the Cybook groundbreaking reading experience will be beyond your expectations.
With our best regards,
Bookeen Support Team
</QUOTED MESSAGE>
I would like to purchase one, but after reading some of these comments I think I will wait. I like to download free books from my local library. Will this unit be able to work with this?? They have mobipocket ebooks.
Well, all I can say to all the negative comments is that I have been using my Bookeen now for some four weeks, It is excellent, their support service was excellent. The shipping was fast and efficient (to Australia). From what I can see a lot of people expect it to do more than it is supposed to. It is a bookreader, you buy a book and read it, the other stuff is ancilliary. I also have a Sony PRS 500 about three months old, apart from the DRM issues with trying to buy books from USA (impossible) The Bookeen is better in some regards and the Sony in others. But on the whole I prefer the Bookeen. The cost is not so great for any ebook if you compare it to buying a whole lot of hard copy books. It pays for itself in no time. Dont let the negative comments put anyone off it is a relly great buy
I am very disappointed with the Cybook Gen3. Its definitely a very small, lightweight device and the screen refresh times are incredible.
HOWEVER..
Its not at all ergonomic. The button controls require a tremendous amount o f pressure to turn pages. In around half an hour your thumbs and fingers are exhausted. In around a couple of months, I am certain that all the users will suffer from thumb problems similar to "blackberry thumb" and "gamers thumb".
I hope Bookeen releases an update allowing us to remap controls. That might make up for the cybooks faulty button controls at least a little bit.
The product overall is ok, but the support is insufficient, i would say almost inexistent.
I have a problem with my bookeen, the screen has stopped working, and they will not return my emails.
I have ordered a second device, but i think that I will cancel it. It's really enraging how incompetence like this can bring down a great product.
To all who are complaing, they got your money so whats the problem?
Troll
My bookeen just arrived.
These are VERY early impressions:
- The weight is just amazingly low.
- The page turn feels very slow right now, but I'm sure I'll adjust.
- When I connected it to my laptop, it was NOT recognized as an external driver. However, I was able to load my books onto the SD card using my SD card reader.
- Navigating the library is very slow, due to the page turn speed, and the display of covers. I hope once I dig in, I'll find ways around that.
- There REALLY needs to be a PRINTED manual in the box. My bookeen did come with the user's guide preloaded, but the UI is not at all intuitive, and I'm really not sure what the side buttons do.
- The screen is AWESOME.
That's it for now :)
Mike
Ok - the 2nd button from the top on the side is the "menu" button, and it's the one that lets you choose the "20 books per page" view.
That view renders the covers, though, so it's slow. Really, this needs a view that has just title and author, or even just title. Or at least an option to skip covers.
I'll 2nd what Disgruntled said: the buttons are VERY stiff. Also, it's really aggravating that the middle button is used just for menus and library selections, and not for its natural page-turning role. To turn pages, one needs to use the directions, and they're not easily pushed, especially not in the leather holder.
I'm still happy w/ this device, but I'd be ecstatic if the UI had been thought out a wee bit better...
After a bit more experience, I must say: WOW, that screen's just awesome.
The buttons are still stiff, and, as a left-hander, I'm annoyed that I can't Mobipocket books read "upside down", which would put the control at a (more) convenient top left position. I don't understand why the orientation can be changed for PDF's but not for the library or mobipocket books?
And it's still INCREDIBLY ANNOYING that the center button can't be made "turn page forward".
But, overall, I like it.
I received my Cybook with the original batch and I love the unit. It makes reading much more enjoyable and convenient. I do have a question on battery life, and three suggestions.
1) Am I correct that the battery is drained if I leave the unit 'on'? I know that it has auto-off settings, but I thought the e-ink screen wouldn't drain the unit if the screen was left on. I assume that the processing is running in the background - expecting a page forward signal - and that this drains power (albiet slowly).
2) I've state this before, but you need a better way of navigating titles. Possibly a screen without any book covers so you can fit more titles on the screen in a two column format. Or tabs across the top that divide the books into A-F;G-M;N-S;T-Z.
3) You need a better way to navigate through books. A few times I have lost my place in a book. Finding the correct spot is very tedious and slow. It would help if I could skip ahead nn pages, or if I could use the left/right keys to move through the progress bar. Here is one neat search algorithm: let me place two bookmarks: one on a page I've read, and one on an unread page. The search would find the middle page and ask me if it was read or unread. Based on my answer it would split the middle of the remainder and ask me again. It continues until my page is found.
4) I would like a lightwedge that fits into the leather cover. This means that it would have t be the correct size to fit the cover, but that any batter packs or wiring would need to be offset so that they didn't interfere with either the screen or the cover.
Thanks for listening.
Michael
I've just received my Cybook, and so far it really lives up to my expectations. There are, however, some points of criticism to be made. You are currently unable to create your own folder structure, which makes it practically impossible to manage a large collection of books. And the pageometer, while roughly indicating where you are in a particular book, doesn't display the actual page number when reading mobipocket files. I hope these problems will be fixed in a firmware upgrade.
The customer support is lousy, the shipping date was changed three times, a part of my order did not arrive, the Cybook is completely useless for PDFs (I tried all my camera manuals, airplane checlists and other technical documents - forget it!) , the main button is very stiff and un-ergonomic. the scree ins great. 350US$ vs. 350 Euros feels like a rip-off, especially when you consiedr that it is a french product. I cancelled an order for Sony's PR-505, now I regret that.
Alexis, Munich
Anonymous posting on Dec 18 saying, "I've just received my Cybook...", what date was your order placed? It will be nice to know so I can get an idea for when mine might show up.
I agree with anonymous, you better hope that you won't have to deal with their customer support. Their attitude oscillates between ignoring you and being just rude.
I hope that this is due to the fact that they are overwhelmed by the success of the product.
Don't despair though, anonymous, they are planning for better zooming functions in pdf files in the future firmware upgrade.
Ok, so here's the deal, the device is incredibly light, very easy to carry around in a bag. I bought this for my wife, so she could read russian ebooks, and she's not dropping it. She's not the geek type and she's loving it.
The delivery of the device is very fast, once they ship it.
Now the bad part. The bookeen customer support sucks ass. We have the misfortune to have a broken screen now, and they have been very unhelpful about the issue. I don't know how this is going to turn out yet, but chances are that we will be paying for repairs.
They say (from a series of pictures that i sent them) that the screen was broken due to physical strain, and that is not the case.
We are going to send the device back for them to examine, but fixing the screen, if they decide to maintain their position, is going to cost 120€.
Whenever i tried to discuss with them alternative explanations, they just go silent and don't aknowledge my emails.
So that's the deal. We're still going to fix the device, not only because we don't want to lose our investment, but frankly because it is so damn useful. But i wish these people working at customer support would get fired, or anyone responsible for this attitude.
PS: I don't believe that the device is bad, just think that i had bad luck with my device. I bought a second device as a present for my brother.
Hi again,
A followup, for what it's worth, i just received an answer from the bookeen customer support. They confirm that they are stretched very thin and that any inconvenience is due to that factor only. I tend to believe them, again, FWIW.
After a week using my Cybook is frozen. It stopped at the 'three dots screen' just before the Library screen will show up. After reset I just can restart the device, with the same result. I can't shut the device off.
Has anybody any idea's for a solution of this technical problem?
Thanks in Advance!
About the freeze: I remember seeing a blog post somewhere from somebody who had a freezing issue because of an unsupported document they loaded onto the cybook.
If you've been loading your books onto the memory card, have you tried restarting it with the memory card removed?
I don't have any other ideas, offhand, and I don't want to suggest anything that could cause problems. But this seems like a safe thing to try...
So far, cross my fingers and knock on wood, mine's still working fine. All my earlier grumbles still hold, so I won't repeat them, but it's still a joy to read on.
Just solved the problem myself ! I took the card out and reset and restarted the Cybook. It started up fine! Than connected the Cybook to the PC and inserted the card again. In the Music folder were a lot of corrupted files, even I did not put any music on my Cybook yet! So I rightclicked in MyComputer on the card and had it scanned for problems. Windows did remove the folders Music and Pictures. I made new folders with the same name after that, disconnected my device and used the reset button. Now it started up fine again.
I am a happy reading man again...
Excellent!
Those corrupted files are scary, though, I wonder how that happened...
I wish bookeen had a support forum and a bugtracker :(
After a week of use,I've got a cybook that is now nonfunctional, it froze at the cybook gen 3 ie....boot screen and has been like that
Nothing works.....I've not added any fonts or books and was browsing a preloaded feedbook when it happened.
I've emailed bookeen twice with no luck...
What do you say bookeen?
Look at this poll
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=130982#post130982
So when will they stop beta testing the product so people can start buying it?
You can already buy the product.
I've recently received my Cybook 3 and love the screen, and have no problems with the pre-loaded stuff.
However, I've been having problems both downloading new content and using PDF content that I already have. As Cybook's site states, I shouldn't have to do any conversion for PDFs to work; however, trying any of my PDF's that are already on my machine and working cause the reader to try to start... I get the 3 dots and the logo, then it goes back to the library page. When I run it through the mobibook converter, it works but the reformatting makes the file essentially unreadable, even stripping out text in tables entirely. I'm also a little frustrated at Bookeen's site as it's taken me hours to find any semblance of help on this blog.
To be honest, if this wasn't a Christmas present I would have returned it for the lack of customer support. I'm hoping that Bookeen uses some of the money that I paid to hire a competant tech support staff and web developer that can put some semblance of customer support into their website -- and get a firmware update out SOON!
They do have decent support. For their legs on that private jet.
I have my Bookeen and love it. I got it for Christmas and I am starting my third book already. The display is great the flash refresh does not bother me at all. could use a few more buttons on other corners for turning pages only, I added fonts but no show? PDF is too small but if you import the pdf through the Mobireader they are good, need to add DRMpdf support and if you can get M$ to cooperate with the lit support that would be awesome making your reader the most versatile on the market, a major reason why I wished for the Bookeen to start with.
great reading :-)
I've ordered (and payed) the Cybook almost a month ago. Till now received nothing, not even an e-mail with explanations or some other feedback on ny order.
I got the black cover.
It's fantastic. The screen is HUGE, the contrast is great and readable! I love it! The navigation is very easy. It has synced with mobireader without any problems. Booting is really quick! Moving the file is so easy as cybook acts as an USB disk.
I already put several fonts on it though I had to delete the cache file manualy.
The "eastern-europe" characters work when a html file is processed through mobipocket creator as UTF-8.
My only complaint is about line spacing and margins in mobi files. And some dictionaries doesn't work yet.
Nice product, received my cybook a week ago.
But I really think you guys need a good support department. All the unanswered complaints will give you a negative image...
The product is very nice! I enjoy it every day.
I buy a Cybook Gen 3 8 days ago, and today when i switch on my cybook a checkerboard screen appears, and now always hang on. Nothing happen when I boot. I'm very, very very, afraid with booken. 365 € to the trash in a few days????????? And docs, support, response, etc from booken is much poor what my english
And of course if bookeen request my hardware for check, I pay (with high cost from the original 365€)the transport to Bookeen.
A final question. What is the real price of the cybook for me??????
PDFCropper is the application, designed to solve the problem with preparing for reading normal sized (A4-like) pdf's on relative small (Sony Reader PRS500/PRS505, iRex Illiad etc.) devices.
The problem is that pdf is not reformat able by nature. Yes, there is reflow mode in Acrobat Reader, but at first Acrobat Reader is not available for most e-book readers (especially for e-ink devices),
and second even with reflow function reading of complex content (technical books, magazines etc.) is not comfortable. Bad formatted pdf's and wide white spaces make the situation even worse.
The only way how this problem can be solved (at least based on my experience) to cut original pages into smaller pages with removing white spaces.
This is exactly what program do. But comparing with similar software PDFCropper is much more flexible, that allows to prepare books with much better quality in a very short time.
Currently PDFCropper can produce text and image pdf's. Later additional output formats (lrf, lrs, wolf etc.) will be added.
PDFCropper web-site currently is under construction. But it is already available for downloading:
PDFCropper v1.0 RC4 links:
http://rapidshare.com/files/80778554/PDFCropper1_0RC4Setup.exe.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/518c4f/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RX5KXFPVor
Trial version of PDFCropper is fully functional, but output pages are shuffled and include watermark (which by the way displays registration code that you need for obtaining license).
There are no yet tutorial or help available. But I prepared "How To" demo-video:
http://rapidshare.com/files/79717770/PDFCropper_-_How_To.swf.html
And you can download and value an example of prepared (cropped) pdf:
This is original one - http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/download/langspec-3.0.pdf
These are links to cropped one:
http://rapidshare.com/files/80267677/The_Java_Language_Specification.pdf.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/bc2cb0/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FCJJYHHB
And these are links to the one cropped as image pages (only some pages are there, due large file size):
http://rapidshare.com/files/80268186/The_Java_Language_Specification__image_pages_.pdf.html
or
http://www.filefactory.com/file/e7a856/
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KKE7C1V3
Also, anyone interesting in software, can send me example pdf, and I will send back resulted pdf prepared via application.
You can ask any questions about using or installing software (and details about purchasing the license) via e-mail:
vstefanyuk@gmail.com
P.S. Application is implemented by using Java. You have to have installed Java environment version 1.5 or higher.
Also Ghostscript has to be installed. In case if it is not, application will propose you to download.
This blog is now 2 months old without a response from Bookeen. Support seems to be nil. I am thinking of buying this unit but wary of non-support.
Hi,
I think they regret ever having opened this blog, providing a semi-legitimate forum for people that are not happy with their support.
This is some sad advice from someone who has bought the device, and who had to deal with their (un)support.
If you are adventurous, by all means buy it, it's a great device, a winner if you look at the specs. But this product bears the stigmata of so many other products that were great but that were not successful due to under funding, or flat-out incompetence, or they are just out there to make a quick buck froma product they know is going to fail in the long run. So if you want a great device and want to risk being completely alone if you are in trouble (eg. failures), go ahead.
I'm crossing my fingers for never having to deal with their support again. If this company does not turn around its customer support, they're done.
And that starts with an official forum and support site.
Got the Cybook just before Christmas (the ordered cover never has shown up yet) and I am having problems with it already. After about ten or 20 page turns the Cybook just freezes and I need to restart it. Then it will not go back to the page I was reading, but back to the library. I tried resetting, took out the battery and put it back in, deleted the books and
reloaded them. Nothing seems to help.
The battery is at 85%, no SD card and only 2 small books on it. Today I started getting thin, white, horizontal lines across the display. I shut the unit down and those lines have not come back, yet! I sent an email to Bookeen Support over two weeks ago, but I have not heard anything from them. Does anybody have any ideas on what to do?
If you are having issues with your Cybook, you should email them at "support@bookeen.com." I have gotten good response using that email
I disagree justy.....I've used that and they are very very poor at responding
Due to the price diference in US$ and Euros, and the apparent lack of support. I have now decided to buy Hanlin V3, or lBook.
Thank you Bookeen, for making almost cheaper to buy your product from the Americas instead of "local" Europe.
Guys, update the blog for crying out loud!!!
My Cybook arrived today and (so far?) works very nicely - I had to wait a month for it though, with no communication from Bookeen. The display is easy to read and it was recognised by Vista. The only minor device complaints I have are that the buttons need to be pressed fairly hard to register, and the USB cable can appear to be in without actually being connected. Apart from the awful customer service side, I'm very happy.
Hello, I have just bought a Cybook and I have a problem; After use it for a few minutes (more or less 20 minutes), the device block itself and any button works. I have to press the reset button to make it work again, and the point where I was reading is lost.
I am not sure if I need a new software or I should return the product for another one.
The Bookeen support service answered:
-------------------------------
Sir,
We invite you to reformat the Cybook. Right click on the Cybook Gen3 driver while this one is being connected to a computer.
Best regards,
Bookeen Support Team
----------------------------
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