RSSAmazon expected to preview large-format Kindle
By Angela Gunn | Published May 5, 2009, 9:59 AM
Just three months after rolling out Kindle 2.0, Amazon's hosting an event in New York on Wednesday, during which it's expected to preview another upgrade -- one with a bigger screen, PDF support, and annotation capability. The unit will be tested this fall at various universities.
An assortment of magazine and newspaper publishers are also invited to the event, hinting that a change in the relationship between those content providers and Kindle's no-ads-no-pricing-control philosophy may be at hand.
Most early commenters say that a large-format Kindle is probably better news for universities than for the publishing industry. Om Malik summed up the problem tartly: "How does that expression go? Ah yes -- a drowning man will clutch at a straw."
To date, Amazon's offered subscriptions to nearly 60 magazines and newspapers via the Kindle, but both the relatively small monochrome screen and Amazon's insistence on setting prices have been sticking points for the content providers. It may be that the continuing squeeze on the industry's pocketbook, has caused, as they would have said in the Nixon-era White House, their hearts and minds to follow.
Owen Thomas, currently taking a victory lap before departing Valleywag, was more direct. "Like the libertarian wingnuts who would rather flee to science-fiction cities on the sea, escape to outer space, or cosset themselves in an online fantasy...than live in reality, the addled lords of print like [Hearst executive Phil] Bronstein would rather dream of a technological rescue than face the hard work of survival."
And what about textbooks? Anyone who's majored in a discipline with bulky or otherwise difficult source material has dreamed of a device that would condense, say, 3,500 years of philosophy into something one could carry, with notes, in one slim backpack. (The books are bad enough, but getting the papyrus in there safely can be a bear.) Amazon's chosen an interesting cross-section of universities for its pilot program, too: Reed College, Case Western Reserve University, Pace, Princeton, Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State.
But taking textbooks digital could lead to another burden for students: a financial one. It's thought that the students involved with the pilot program will have the cost of the devices subsidized by their schools, but every student knows that textbooks are not only cripplingly heavy but cripplingly expensive. It's unclear what incentive if any textbook publishers would have to drop prices for electronic versions of their wares. And with Amazon's notorious digital-rights management controls in place, it seems unlikely that students would retain the right to sell back textbooks at the end of the term -- a nontrivial consideration for the cash-strapped.
One analyst suspects that Amazon may get more than it bargained for if students find it worth their way to circumvent the Kindle's DRM. Mike McGuire, a media analyst at Gartner, told BusinessWeek late Monday that he suspects that there will be "some fairly significant DRM issues" on campus as motivated and tech-savvy. Amazon dodged the content-restriction bullet with music, offering restriction-free MP3s, but things could be very different when hundreds of dollars are at stake at the end of the term. And Amazon hasn't been shy about cutting off access to content on the Kindle when one's account on the site is canceled. Could "Amazon ate my textbook" become the new "the dog ate my homework?"
Finally, blogger and e-book veteran Stephen Arnold raises a point about the Kindles we've known so far: They're neither backpack-friendly nor cheap. Engadget has the scant details available on what it claims will be called the Amazon Kindle DX -- compressed keyboard chiclets and a 9.7" screen. (And the site has photos, which we've excerpted above with thanks.)
Nice, but as Arnold notes there are other design issues to consider: screen contrast, the interface, and above all, the durability problem. Arnold is on "his second or third" Kindle, and he's found that "these devices are not sufficiently sturdy to deal amicably with airport security checks." The average dorm room is at least as tumultuous an environment over time as five minutes at a TSA checkpoint; whatever Amazon's showing off Wednesday, textbook publishers, students, and the parents who fund them will be wise to look at much more than a newly larger screen.
The Kindle's screen is much like paper. Gone is the subtle flicker of video screens. That makes reading long blocks of text on the Kindle less tiring. Although one may not be aware of it, the flickering of video takes its toll as eye fatigue and some low-level feeling of distraction after an hour or so. Still, if a netbook could be switched to a mode that emmulated the Kindle screen, the netbook, for its broader utility, would be a much better buy.
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|actually, i've had a change of heart.
i suppose my main complaint was the "rush to market" affect, where a non multi-functional, non multi-tasking unit was being marketed when there was still much room for improvement.
but due to the fact that i support self publishers and amazon's effort to help them too, i think the kindle is a valuable tool.
though there is a large format on the horizon and with emphasis on college text books, i don't think the kindle is ready for this project.
perhaps, if 150.00 text books can be acquired and downloaded to the kindle for 15.00 bucks instead, then it might be a good tool for college students and professors.
unfortunately, there will be a problem when a college student downloads several thousands of dollars in text book data if their kindle gets stolen afterwards.
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|Eh, I think that the Kindle and notebooks will merge, given the size of computing power we're approaching. Something like MS's tablet PC will be the result.
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|The Kindle offers so little functionality compared to a netbook nearly half the price. Compare it to the OLPC which has a similar size screen that can work in both battery saving reflective monochrome mode similar to the kindles screen, but it also has a color mode, a camera and enough horsepower to run a regular web browser, video and standard computer applications, as well as being nearly sturdy enough to play frisbee with.
The kindle's 3 advantages are Amazon's backing, battery life, and the wireless bookstore. When the competitors inevitably come Amazon will have to make some huge changes to keep in the running, and just limiting the platforms that kindle books will run on won't cut it.
Students will not give up selling their textbooks easily, and as the free open-source textbook projects expand and improve and the schools look for ways to cut costs the textbook companies will find themselves squeezed into charging less or getting out of the business.
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|What about the number of dots per inch readability/eyestrain question?
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|Starting to look interesting to me. As one of those anachronistic types who still gets the hard-copy of the paper, I guess I'm not who they need to win back, but I do anticipate switching to digital someday.
Magazines are a different story from the newspaper for me; the device will need to be durable, ultra portable, and have long lasting batteries. I think OLEDs will be required for that.
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|Unfortunately, this is still a niche product.
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|Heh, if priced right, and made decently tough, this could cause me to lose my saving throw vs. shiny. Especially if the ability to make annotations can be mixed with pda type apps.
But fortunately for my credit cards, none of the e-ink readers i have looked at have those capabilities yet.
Maybe i am atavistic, but i like the bigger form factors.
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|Hehehe, Save VS shiny? TOO funny D&D eh? ;)
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|I have one and possibly two mobile phones to upgrade in the next few months; don't even hand me the dice on this. Though again, the DRM is enough to keep me away. I'd love to have the convenience of a good e-reader, but that's more than outweighed by the potential inconvenience of some yutz in Amazon's accounting department deciding to disable my collection. (Though once the college kids get in there and smash the DRM... um... what were we talking about?)
And there's the whole single-purpose device question. Focused functionality makes some devices better, but I go back and forth on whether e-readers are among those devices. I'd be curious to hear from some current Kindle users about how that works out for them, wouldn't you?
But yeah, big is good. You're not going to ever find me reading a book on my phone screen.
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|as expected.
time to toss out that expensive clunker for a better one.
most assuredly, we might expect to see colorized versions in the future as well since impersonal gray becomes uninteresting at some point in time.
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|As expected, but I'm not sure the folks who laid out $ for the 2.0 were expecting it quite this soon! That's gotta sting. Agreed re color; that's a big deal for magazine publishers in particular, who haven't worked in black and white for years and feel strongly that they need color to get their content across. Of course, these are very, very dangerous times for publishers to be fussing about that sort of thing. If they wait for inexpensive, durable, highly portable, full-color displays (OLED, anyone?) they might still be waiting while we shovel the dirt over 'em.
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|oh yeah, color displays would be nice too. :)
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actually, i'm just kidding. it was a deliberate play on words.
the other side of the rainbow coin, is that its hard to tell them apart, if there is a his and hers on the coffee table.
perhaps, before colorizing the display, it would be easier to make the units in different colors to match their black berries, mobile phones or wardrobe.
it is almost a gaurantee that the people who simply have too much money to spend and not enough things to buy,
would buy a kindle ala prada or hermes.
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