Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

There are quite a few Kindle related surprises coming up in the next few months – features that Amazon might be working on and two potentially dangerous eReader rivals.

Time for some wild speculation .

Lab 126 job openings giving away secrets?

There are some juicy job opening descriptions at Lab 126 (the Amazon subsidiary responsible for the Kindle).

• Some are mildly interesting such as a Program Manager position responsible for nothing except developing Kindle Accessories – ‘bring to market innovative Accessory products’.

However, two positions are extremely interesting.

Fast and Flexible Windowing Environment?

First we have an opening for a Graphics Software Engineer to work on ‘an innovative graphical user interface and user input interaction’ - 

We are developing and integrating a very fast and flexible windowing environment to enable innovative graphical user interface and user input interaction with the device.

In this role, you will work on the window management system, develop applications in this windowing environment, as well as modify open source modules to work in this environment.

How exactly do you implement a Fast and Flexible Windowing Environment on eInk?

New Applications and better PDF Support?

Next, we have a Software Engineer role that involves these two bits -

Role includes: Creating new and editing current Reader application features.

Requirements include:

PDF specification knowledge.

PDF Layout and/or rendering engine development experience.

That certainly sounds like someone who’ll be tasked with improving Kindle PDF support. Please do note that it might be 3-6 months to fill the position and another 6 months to add better support.

Ex-Amazon Employee ready to launch Infibeam Pi eReader in India

Not sure how the Press outside India have missed the delicious back-story to this one (courtesy Economic Times in India) -

1. A former employee of Amazon, Vishal Mehta, leaves for home after working at Amazon for 5 years.  
2. A few years later and he has a store which derives a lot of inspiration from Amazon (you’ll get it once you navigate around the site).
3. He’s also started selling a re-branded Hanlin as the Infibeam Pi eReader and has 100,000 ebooks available for it.
4. The Infibeam Pi is much cheaper (10,000 INR) than what the Kindle with import duties costs in India (18,000 INR approximately).
5. It even ships on 22nd February 2010 – exactly a year after the Kindle 2 started shipping. It’s like he’s deliberately poking fun at Amazon.
6. Stealing Amazon’s smile logo and design – that’s either a stroke of genius or a legal disaster.

There are some impressive features – support for most Indian languages (including Sanskrit which is used almost as much as Latin), SD card support, screen rotation, Sudoku, PDF, ePub, and a 1 year warranty.

Who would’ve thought the first credible threat to Kindle in India would be an ex-Amazon employee.

Delta to launch 13.1″ Color eReader based on BridgeStone QR-LPD technology in Q2, 2010

Yes, that’s Q2, 2010. Yes, it’s a 13.1″ color screen.

Taiwan’s Delta Electronics have two eReaders set to launch at the end of Q2 -

1. 13.1″ color touchscreen eReader with technology from Japan’s Bridgestone.
2. 8.1″ monochrome touchscreen eReader also based on BridgeStone technology.

ComputerWorld confirms that it’s not a Nook-style LCD screen – it’s a bonafide color ePaper screen. They have a nice little write-up -

The launch of Delta’s products will move Bridgestone’s technology center stage in the battle over e-paper technology …

Hui Lee, director of the e-Paper business program at Delta, said her company is still open to finding partners to market both the 13.1-inch and 8.1-inch devices.

If a company wants to brand the e-readers and take them to market, Delta will manufacture them.

Delta add some details -

1. They will launch by themselves in Taiwan if they can’t find a marketing partner.
2. If an international partner wants WiFi or 3G they can add that capability.
3. The devices will be partnered with newspaper subscriptions.
4. They claim a 21″ model is already out – that’s news to me.

The big advantages of Bridgestone’s ePaper are -

1. Color. 
2. Fast refresh speed. 
3. Note-taking capability.

Reg Hardware has a field day over the fact that the screen is from BridgeStone, a tire maker, and the manufacturer is Delta Electronics, a power brick manufacturer.

Actually, the QR-LPD screen technology is pretty and impressive - BridgeStone and Delta might end up having the last laugh.

2010 increasingly looks like it’ll be the Year of the Color eReader

Here are the candidates -

1. Good old eInk – the most reliable of the bunch. 
2. Bridgestone with QR-LPD. They’re second because the tire maker jokes are getting tiring. 
3. Mirasol.
4. Pixel Qi with its not quite ePaper, not quite LCD screens.
5. Liquavista.

Add on any other color ePaper technologies if they’re slated for 2010.

One way or the other we’ll have a color eReader by holiday season. Perhaps then we can have LCD compatible, multi-processor equipped humans leave us alone – Color would make eReaders cool, would it not.

Filed under: kindle 3 Tagged: | color kindle, kindle 3