Why Kindle 2's Screen Took 12 Years and $150 Million 524
waderoush writes "Critics are eating up everything about Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reader except its $359 price tag. But if you think that's expensive, take a look behind the Kindle at E Ink, the Cambridge, MA, company that has spent $150 million since 1997 developing the electronic paper display that is the Kindle's coolest feature. In the company's first interview since the Kindle 2 came out, E Ink CEO Russ Wilcox says it took far longer than expected to make the microcapsule-based e-paper film not only legible, but durable and manufacturable. Now that the Kindle 2 is finally getting readers to take e-books seriously, however, Wilcox says he sees a profitable future in which many book, magazine, and newspaper publishers will turn to e-paper, if only to save money on printing and delivery. (Silicon Alley Insider recently calculated that the New York Times could save more than $300 million a year by shutting down its presses and buying every subscriber a Kindle). 'What we've got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year,' Wilcox says."
While good in one way (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:While good in one way (Score:2, Insightful)
the summary doesn't seem to indicate that while saving tons on cars per year, you'll be costing businesses down the line money, lost jobs (think feed, blacksmithing, carriage repairs), etc.... So while it may save one type of business, it may put others on the street.
Costs or Price? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their costs may drop but are we going to see a reduction in price? If the Music industry is any indication we'll pay more for the 'ability' to use the Kindle.
Vinyl records were large, required manufacturing and shipping. MP3s only require bandwidth and a server. (Which isn't free, but much cheaper, and scales up much better). With the whole TTS issue I'm guessing that the Printing industry is going to copy the Music industry (and Video industry)...
Saving or just another Lock In (Score:3, Insightful)
> What we've got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year,' Wilcox says."
Really?
What happened to the 80 billion worth of printers, loggers, paper mills, transport, and fish-wrappers? Did they all go on Welfare so we can ship their jobs overseas to the Kindle manufacturing countries?
News print is a renewable resource. Is the Plastic in Kindle?
You can look around the ads (or read them as you see fit) in newsprint.
Will you be able to do that on the Kindle when corporate sponsors for media grab control of the device and make you stare at an advertisement for 6 seconds prior to viewing the content of a story?
Kindle might be great for books, but remember, its principal reason for being is to enforce DRM, to keep the book you bought on ONE device, to prevent sharing, or even transfer.
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.
DRM for books :( (Score:2, Insightful)
They've already tried to put DRM on these things, what makes you think they'll stop? This is just another attempt at turning book ownership into the same thing music ownership has become :(
Re:While good in one way (Score:5, Insightful)
the summary doesn't seem to indicate that while saving tons on printing press per year, you'll be costing businesses down the line money, lost jobs (think ink, delivery, machinery engineers), etc.... So while it may save one type of business, it may put others on the street.
Like pretty much any other invention in the history of humanity, it may cost someone his (before, profitable) business model, but ultimately it benefits everyone on a much larger scale. This goes for telephone, automobile, airplane, TV, Internet...
hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I've not yet had a chance to check one of these out. As I understand it, the look and feel of reading the eink display is just like reading bright white paper fresh from the laser printer. I've never had problems reading text on computer screens for long stretches but many people say it causes eye strain for them.
I'm curious as to how this technology scales. It boggles the mind to think it took that much time and money to develop but now that they have it, how cheap can they make it? Could they get the readers down to a more reasonable cost? And what about the books? I have no problem paying a buck or two for a rental like getting a movie out of a DVD kiosk -- I only have the dvd for a limited time, would have to pay again if I wanted it later, and have nothing to physically show for it. I feel more possessive when talking about books, especially books with DRM. DRM, unless you hack it, means your purchase is as impermanent as a rental and renting a book for $9.99 is a pretty damn expensive proposition.
This also brings us back to the issue of resale. There are so many books available on Amazon for what essentially boils down to shipping and handling. I can find even recent books for 75% off the cover price. If physical books are no longer printed or printed in far smaller runs, this means that the secondary market collapses. I can't borrow a book from a friend after they read it. I can't sell the book to a bookstore when I'm done. If my friend wants a copy, he's paying $9.99 the same as I did.
I don't know how this is all going to shake down but it'll certainly be an interesting fight.
Re:While good in one way (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:While good in one way (Score:5, Insightful)
Shall I send you a buggy whip, sir?
The math is simple. Say your subscription to the NY Times costs $1 per day, $365 per year. That's a Kindle. Even if you replace them every two years, and pay retail for them (which are both unlikely) you're still coming out on top if you give them away.
I'm sorry, but we shouldn't support a business model if it's grossly inefficient, not in this day and age.
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone able to translate that into number of trees saved?
Once again, these trees are not from clear-cut tropical forests made into farmland for subsistence farming. These trees are most likely in areas managed by forestry companies who plant at least as many trees as they cut.
There are regulations in western countries and the forestry companies would be putting themselves out of business if they cut down all the trees.
Don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but as cool as I think the concept of e-Ink really is, I can't get past the fact that native Kindle books are tied to your Amazon account. The Kindle represents an attack on the first sale doctrine, and I refuse to support it to the tune of $400 plus the price of crippled books.
Re:While good in one way (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, the summary doesn't do a very good job because the cost savings probably aren't really there. At $360 a pop you are talking probably over a year before you save anything as only a portion of each papers sale could be put towards the endeavor. On top of that you have to somehow come up with the money to buy all these things. Reality means a massive loan (Which who would loan the Times a dime on such a crazy idea in this day?). A loan means interest, there goes your cost savings.
Now if you assumed everyone already had a kindle and just had to change delivery that's another story. Not too likely though, especially for the Times which sells all over the world.
Daily Show appearance (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeff Bezos also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a couple days ago. Jon gave him a hard time about how you have to pay $359 just for the device and another $10 per book (some of which are DRM'ed). Mr. Bezos didn't have a good response.
What I think he should have pointed out is that The Daily Show interviews many authors and it would really be nice to hear about a new book, download it, and start reading it in minutes rather than wait a few days for it to arrive in the mail.
Re:Saving or just another Lock In (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Saving or just another Lock In (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a good point about DRM and closed systems.
However, your first point about loggers and paper mills is lost on me. Is is my moral duty to buy paper books so a logger can keep his current job? Was Henry Ford a bad person because he destroyed the demand for blacksmiths in the United States?
Re:While good in one way (Score:3, Insightful)
It was always on a pre-order basis. ;-)
Does that mean that, if you order one, you'll eventually get one? Just not right away?
Either way, if there were enough buyers, I'm sure Amazon would ramp up production. When there are shortages like this, it's often because they don't want to ramp up production too much and then end up with a surplus they can't sell.
Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2 (Score:2, Insightful)
We already have something far better than a Kindle.
It is called a Netbook with a web browser.
Not only that, my browser is totally open and I do not have to buy a $354 unit again when I want to read my books, or print them out. My books do not magically evaporate because I did not pay a license fee to read them on some crappy black and white device.
Kindle. It bites.
Kindle 2! It bites more!
Stupid idea.
Dumb.
Oh, and the web has ALREADY saved far more trees than you can possibly imagine. Way before the Kindle got here, newspapers were starting to go out of business, computer manufacturers were delivering documentation on CD in PDF form.
Way too much hype around this stupid device.
-Hack
Re:Saving or just another Lock In (Score:3, Insightful)
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.
Kindles do have some features that your netbook probably doesn't. For one, it's very light, thin, and doesn't require you to open it like a clamshell device. Second, it has electronic ink, which lowers power consumption and supposedly is much easier on the eyes. Also, I've read that you get free wireless internet (via cell phone networks) to download books and such wherever you are.
Now I don't know whether Kindles will ultimately do very well, but they aren't the same sort of device as a netbook.
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this right: because there's currently a plan associated with gathering a resource, it is wrong to economize the use of that resource? And that companies deserve protection from becoming obsolete?
No, he's saying that because there's currently a plan associated with gathering a resource that's directly proportional to it's replacement that economizing use will not "save trees". If demand goes down fewer trees will be cut and hence fewer will be planted. The trees saved are those that would never have been planted. Trust me that those that find vast percentages of their land not profitable due to increased supply will still chop down the trees and perhaps do something more economically viable with the land.
Buggy-whips and Whale-bone are simply not in demand. Leather for the whips diverted to other things and whale bones are as well.
Re:purell (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:purell (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only does it save trees but the chemistry involved in making paper is horrible.
I thought that producing electronic device were very costly and relatively dangerous: capacitor, batteries. To be fair, we will need an estimation on the cost of producing those device and their expected life time.
Can someone provide an estimation ? (I have no ideas of the real cost).
Re:Saving or just another Lock In (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not comparable. Your average netbook has a battery life measured in hours. The Kindle's battery lasts over 30 hours. In addition, people report that the display is much more comfortable to read for long periods.
And of course, the kindle is smaller and lighter, and includes free 3G internet access.
Different tools for different jobs.
Re: Broken Window Fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window [wikipedia.org]
Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Netbooks have a fraction of the battery life, are heavier, are bigger, and are harder to read for long periods of time.
Try to spend 12 hours on the beach reading from a netbook, and from a Kindle. You'll see the difference.
Re:Saving or just another Lock In (Score:3, Insightful)
So after stating that they are not comparable, you proceed to compare them??
You make far too much of mere temporal technical issues. Display technology, battery run time, and form factors change all the time. The netbook does so much more than a kindle.
Re:Sold (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
Trees can be replaced easily. Forest ecosystems can't. If we use fewer trees, we can let some tree farms begin the slow, slow process of returning to being actual forests.
A tree farm is NOT a forest.
not sure this would be a net improvement (Score:3, Insightful)
The number of trees saved will probably be around zero, since newsprint's wood source is almost exclusively tree farms. If demand for wood from tree farms decreased, they'd probably be cut down and turned to some other use, like farms of the non-tree variety.
The other environmental effects are trickier to sort out. Paper, as you point out, uses lots of nasty chemicals. But then so does manufacturing electronics, and mining the various metals that go into electronics manufacturing. Disposing of electronics, even when they're recycled (usually in China) is a rather nasty business, too.
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does it save trees but the chemistry involved in making paper is horrible. Even with new process'
The process for making plastic, circuit boards, and e-paper in the kindle is cleaner how?
Re:Daily Show appearance (Score:3, Insightful)
Additionally, from interviews that I see on the Daily Show, John Stewart can sometimes be a bit overbearing so being able to get some of the points you would like to as the interviewee may not happen. Additionally, it is after all a comedy show, so John will always take the chance to crack jokes. (Jokes he probably should have avoided, because Jeff's laugh was kind of scary). I think it would have been neat if he could have demoed the unit a bit more too, but all in all, I thought the interview was pretty good.
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
I drive past a tree farm on a regular basis. If it were shut down, it wouldn't return to forest. It would return to semi-desert scrubland. The only reason there's a tree farm there is because it's just up the hill from the fourth-largest river in the United States. Most places where trees are farmed for paper are like this: take a chunk of cheap land with good irrigation, plant a bunch of fast-growing trees, and harvest them every 15 years or so.
Trees farmed for lumber are different: since they grow slowly and need to be larger to produce worthwhile products, they're usually grown in places where trees would naturally grow.
Re:purell (Score:3, Insightful)
You're speaking with someone who lit a tire on Earth Day just because it pissed off the hippies in the neighborhood.
What an iconoclast you are. Do you also piss in people's beer at the pub just because they don't like it?
Your parents must be so proud of their contribution to the gene pool.
Re:Am I the only one who likes newspapers? (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife an I like flipping through the Sunday paper over pancakes, handing sections back and forth, pointing out stories to each other, she likes cutting coupons, flipping through the sales circulars. I just don't think all that works as well in E-form.
To me, #1 is a show stopper. Getting expensive stuff dirty when I could have used something expendable for the same purpose is silly.
Re:why would that happen? (Score:1, Insightful)
In a sane world, if it were important to you, you would go do something about it instead of trying to get government to do it for you.
Re:While good in one way (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he's right. "lost jobs" due to technology upgrades are not costs. To be sure, they are not good for the people who lose the jobs, but society as a whole benefits: those people are now freed to do something else, increasing the net wealth available to everyone.
It doesn't map perfectly to the broken window fallacy, but it is certainly well related.
If you always count "lost jobs" as costs, you'll never get beyond Mennonite colony levels of lifestyles. Come to think of it, you'll never get UP TO that level.
Without the tractor to replace field workers, we couldn't afford to dedicate the manpower to medicine or developing plasma TVs. Your cushy office job couldn't exist without backbreaking laboring jobs being lost to productivity gains.
Re:purell (Score:3, Insightful)
Why wouldn't a drop in the paper market cause more wood suppliers to go backrupt, and have their forests stripped?
Re:purell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:purell (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not pissed off, but I am shocked that someone would brag about such idiocy. What what could be more pathetic than engaging in destructive behavior just because other people don't like it?
Re:From Questionable Content: (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad to see I'm not the only one who reads QC.