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."
outsourcing cheaper: News at 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
"(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)."
Third world labourers wage bills significantly lower than those in developed countries: your company will save money by closing down local presses and giving people output from developing countries.
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Kindle 2 got your tongue? (Score:1, Interesting)
Here are some objections Ive heard raised about the Kindle, and my opinions:
* Its not open; that is, you cant program it. The Kindle is not a computer. Its an appliance. I cant reprogram my digital watch either. This just does not bother me.
* eInk cant be backlit, so its hard to read in dim light or the dark. Thats true, although its also true of ordinary books. It would be nice if they could improve this somehow.
* Its hard to share a copy of a book, other than by sharing the reader. Actually you can move a book to the SD card, and move that to another Kindle. Its not hard.
* Pictures do not render well. Thats true. Whats more, at least one book we read was supposed to have a map that would have helped the reader understand the book, and the map was entirely missing.
* You might lose your Kindle, and its not cheap to replace, although you do get all your data (books, your own annotations) back from Amazon. Thats true, just as it is of my notebook computer. This complaint really has to do with the whole concept of ebooks versus print books, not the Kindle specifically.
I am not a real Kindle expert; I dont read the blogs or anything. Theres a great deal more information available at Amazon and many web sites. One good one is Top 25 Kindle Tips.
I have not tried the Sony reader or any other book reader. There are rumors about a second-generation Kindle coming out, but I dont know anything about it.
Summary: It sucks ass. Big time.
Future in e-bboks. (Score:1, Interesting)
There is a fear in the publishing industry that authors could cut them out and sell directly to the readers. E-books should not be price above the cost of a paperback. I would pay $5.00 for a fiction e-book and 1 or 2 dollars for a short story.
Profit is almost $5.00 per reader for the author as opposed to $0.80 on a $7.99 paperback.
Textbooks and technical books could still charge about $10 or $20 a book
1.) Write a book
2.) Convert it to PDF
3.) ???
4.) Profit
Re:outsourcing cheaper: News at 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh noes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh noes (Score:3, Interesting)
How will we start beach bonfires?
Or, indeed, our charcoal grill chimney starters [wikipedia.org]?
Fortunately, the end of newspapers arrived almost a decade ago at our house. The workaround I use for the chimney starter is that I hold a propane plumbing torch under it for a minute or so. It's actually more reliable than the paper was anyway.
Now if only I could come up with something like a "charcoal starter stand" that would hold the chimney starter over a natural gas flame for a minute (plumbed from the house gas lines), that would be really convenient.
Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2 (Score:3, Interesting)
You somehow forgot to mention that it requires a freaking booklight to read in the dark.
The most absurd facet of the thing if you ask me.
I still prefer my Nokia N810 [wikipedia.org] device with software ebook reader FBReader [fbreader.org]. I can set the display to red text on a black background and reap the following benefits:
For a $360 device that uses electronic paper I'm flabbergasted that you still need to buy a freaking book light for it.
*Note: Prior to learning to use red on black (still using white on black text) I noticed that after I turned the reader off and laid down to sleep that I could still see an afterimage of a bunch of little lines organized in a rectangle with my eyes closed. This problem evaporated with red on black.
Re:purell (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the thing: you're assuming all trees cut down and processed into paper are grown on land owned by paper manufacturers and mills. You're also assuming that replanting always occurs.
What actually happens is a little different. Let's say I'm a company, and I happen to--for some reason--own a forest. Perhaps I use it for experiments, perhaps for milling. I replant because I have an incentive to keep processing wood or using the forest.
I go bankrupt or get bought.
Now these "friendly" fellows called Asset Strippers come in. They do just as their name implies...and strip my assets. This means removing every conceivable resource from the land, and then selling it for as much money as possible.
The truth is that there hasn't been any money in cutting down forests as a sustainable business for about 10-15 years. So a lot of forestry these days is a consequence of asset stripping, rather than any normal business practice. If the bottom dropped out on timber for paper use, you'd probably see clearcutting from asset strippers cease because the cost of the logging would be greater than the profit to be reaped.
Boom! Problem solved and explained.
Re:Future in e-bboks. (Score:2, Interesting)
Good. Publishers have been cheating authors for years [onyxneon.com].
Re:hrmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife's Kindle showed up yesterday. I was blown away by the display. At one time, it looks like a fake image plastered on top of the case AND like an actual printed page. Watching it redraw the screen is the only time you realize that this isn't a static picture. There's absolutely no flicker in the foreground or background.
She read hers for a couple of hours last night and only put it down when she nearly fell asleep. I think it's easier on the eyes than any other electronic device I've seen.
As to the price tags, yes, new books are typically $9.99, but they have a large back catalog. My wife found several short stories for $0.45 each, and some other, older novels in the $4-5 range.
[disclaimer]I'm not an Amazon fanboy...[/disclaimer]
Re:purell (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, forest ecosystems rely on destruction every few years to clear out the ground clutter and dead trees. This used to be accomplished by fire, but then we started putting these fires out. Then, we logged them, so everything was in a balance.. but in the mid 90's or so, we stopped logging because of environmental reasons in the west, and over the last few years, we have had HUGE fires on the west coast. Logging or fire was the only way to kill the western pine beetle. With no logging, and putting out the fires combined, HUGE sections of the forest are dying. Near where I used to live in Oregon, there was a stand of dead trees that was measured in hundreds of square miles from the beetle. within the next few years, its going to be an insane forest fire.
Re:While good in one way (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, in fact technology will get to a point where we will need to become a lot more socialist in our care for people.
Lets talk about robots.
Lets say I make a robot that can run the grill and fry stations at a fast food joint.
Lets say the cost 25G a piece.
I would displace nearly all worker who worked those stations. that approx 125,000 workers at Mcdonalds alone.
Using modern methods of manufacturing, I wouldn't needs half that number to build and maintain those robots.
If the robots had the capabilities of the robots in iRobot*(minus the kill all humans feature) it would displace every person who has physical work.
Society will change to a more socialist form, either guided or after a mass breakdown.
SO what do we do?
Perhaps tax robot work to pay for education?
What about non essentials like TV? Bear in mind that TV can help mass riots and disturbances from happening.
What do I do? would there be enough money to support street performance?
We will get to this point in technology, and it wouldn't hurt to have some sort of ideas to think about now.
*I haven't seen it I am inferring from the commercials.
Re:Don't want one (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out www.scribd.com then :)