Kindle Review – Kindle 2 Review, Books

The Kindle 2 is predictably getting a huge amount of coverage. In addition to reviews there are a lot of interesting updates and threads of discussion  -

Russ Wilcox on Kindle 2’s eInk screen technology.

1. The best of the bunch is this fascinating interview with eInk’s CEO and co-founder Russ Wilcox, with some company history -
   

   E Ink was launched in 1997, and has had to raise more than $150 million—mostly from big industry players like Intel, Motorola, Philips, Hearst Interactive Media, and Japan’s TOPPAN Printing—to transform e-paper from a drawing-board concept into a manufacturable product.

   It’s quite amazing to me that eInk took 12 years and $150 million to create the current eInk screens – that’s a lot of committment and hard work.

2. Russ Wilcox is on the future of eInk technology -
   

   … we are starting to introduce displays that are in many different sizes. And you will see flexible displays going to market, at small volumes this year, but 2010 will be a big year for flexible displays. And then at the end of 2010, you will start to see improvements in the ink. We will have a whiter white and a blacker black, and we will start to experiment with color. You will probably see 2011 be the year of color.

   That’s a really interesting update schedule, with 2009 – multiple sizes; 2010 – flexible screens; 2011 – color. I wonder whether Microsoft Research with their eReader prototype and new Microsoft Surface demo screen will have something to show by then.

3. On the potential impact of eInk on publishing and newspapers -
   

   Worldwide, the book industry is an $80 billion industry. If, by distributing electronically, they could save 30 percent on their costs, that would add $25 billion a year to their profitability. The newspaper industry is twice as large, and could probably save 50 percent. What we’ve got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year.

Perhaps publishers can take some time off from trying to sabotage the Kindle 2’s Read To Me feature and hiking eBook prices to think about that.

Kindle 2 Links

1. Tim O’Reilly thinks that if Amazon doesn’t embrace open standards, the Kindle’s lead will end. It is a bold claim and I really don’t agree. Companies and proponents of open standards for ebooks are not really doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and their arguments should be interpreted accordingly. Amazon is going to push the kindle .azw format and the kindle store via every channel it can find - Kindle 2, Kindle 1, Kindle Mobile, etc. Amazon really don’t have a reason to open up the Kindle 2 - if anything, they risk having some company do to them what Microsoft did to IBM.  
2. The Authors’ Guild continues to make a hue and cry about Read To Me. The more interesting story with Read To Me is actually the huge potential for helping blind and low vision people.
3. The discovery of the SIM skeleton socket in the Kindle 2 Take-Apart has set off articles about Kindle 2’s availability in Europe. And rightly so.  
4. Meanwhile, there’s also a petition to have Kindle 2 brought to Canada. 
5. And for UK readers interested in the Kindle 2 - The Daily Mail is talking about launching a Kindle Edition in the US and the UK. Considering Kindle 2 isn’t even available in the UK they’re either jumping the gun or know something we don’t – probably both. Here’s the actual comment –  
   

   James Bromley, M.D. of the Mail’s website Mail Online, said: “We’re in talks with Amazon to launch in the US in the near future and we’re also talking about the UK version. The advantages are quite simply the quality and size of the screen.”