Amazon wants a physical presence in Canada

Quill & Quire's Stuart Woods reports, with help from Scott MacDonald, that Amazon's seeking government approval to establish physical operations in Canada.

According to documents, Amazon’s application to “establish a new Canadian business” – filed on Jan. 27 – is currently under review to see if it complies with the Investment Canada Act.  The new business would be called Amazon Fulfillment Services Canada Inc.

The article explains that if Amazon were to be given the go-ahead to open a Canadian warehouse or home office, it could mean the end of its distribution partnership with SCI Logistics.  It could also be a sign that Amazon plans to expand its offerings of non-book products in Canada.

Certainly it would be helpful for Canadians to be able to get some books that are not available to them via the U.S. Amazon site.

Apparently, members of the publishing community were the first to learn about the Privy Council review.

An unnamed industry source feels that an expanded Canadian presence for Amazon wouldn’t be a bad thing if it improved the company’s services for Canadian publishers.  In particular, the source said, a Canadian office might lead to more stringent enforcement of territorial rights on Amazon.ca: “If opening their own business in Canada means they’re going to tidy up their website, which is very frustrating for a lot of us now, that would be great.”
  I'm not sure that a more stringent enforcement of territorial rights is a great thing for customers though the publishers like restrictions that benefit them, of course.

When Amazon.ca was launched in 2002, there were objections from many in the bookselling community.
  Woods writes: "At the time, the Department of Canadian Heritage ruled that the Investment Canada Act did not apply to Amazon.ca because the company was not establishing a physical presence in Canada."

Inside the Kindle 2 - what is its "true cost"?

Businessweek's Arik_Hesseldahl reports on what was uncovered during the disassembling of a Kindle 2.

Points from the article for those curious about the details.
1. Research firm iSuppli tears one apart to determine the cost of its components.
    Getting straight to the point, they estimate the cost of building at $185.49, or 52% of its retail price.
2. Hesseldahl makes an assessment of its unique identification and branding in a short time:

"...Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle has come to personify the e-reader in much the same way Apple's (AAPL) iPod brand of music player is often used generically to mean an MP3 player."

3. iSuppli identifies the suppliers and estimates the the cost of the components, to arrive at a rough estimate of the profit margin for each unit.
3. They believe the most costly component is its display (surprise!) made by E Ink.
4. The display is integrated into the final module by Taiwan's Prime View International (PVI).
    (This leads to the question of quality control issues -- E Ink's? or PVI's ?)
5. iSuppli's supervising analyst, Andrew Rasseiler, estimates the cost of the E Ink display at $60 "or about 42% of the cost of materials"
6. "The screen uses tiny, round microcapsules that change to black, white, or gray to represent text or images as needed."  When the unit was disassembled, the last image remained on the screen, as no power is needed to keep it there, requiring less battery power/drain.
7. Novatel Wireless makes the basic wireless module that costs $39.50.
8. Since the Kindle 1 had wireless components right on the motherboard instead of in a separate module as the Kindle 2 has, that was a more complicated and costly design, Rassweiler says.
9. Inside the wireless module are Qualcomm chips, which cost $13.18.
10. The main applications chip is from Freescale Semiconductor (spun off from Motorola) at a cost of $8.64.
11. Other:  memory chips, Samsung;  power mgmt chips, TI;   and 3 other companies provided some parts.

So we've a total estimated cost of materials.  Then there is of course the additional cost of its main feature, wireless access and the pre-paid use of Sprint's EV-DO cell phone network which usually costs cell phone users at least $30/month for limited use, with tiered levels (above) available.  At this point, Kindle users can access the entire Net 24/7, even if it is far from ideal in execution.

Add the cost of assembling, sw/hw development, distribution, management, customer support, etc.  Jeff Bezos has mentioned a few times that the profit margin is low on the unit, which is likely a reason they don't distribute it through stores, but they appear to have some faith in its more addictive powers, allowing customers to use it for 30 days and to return it if just uninterested in keeping it.  I've not heard of anyone having problems getting the refunds.

ADDED 4/27/09: Earlier photos of the inside of the Kindle 2 - page 1, page 2.  Note a commenter's note that what some thought was a spot for an SD card is instead a SIM connecter, with less pins than an SD connector.

Amazon is considering K2 screen contrast issue

Which inner gray box has a lighter gray?  Why does one seem lighter?

  Posted 3/24/09 at 3:57pm   (Updated 4/9/09, at the bottom)
  I called Customer Service a couple of times to ask what Amazon is saying to us these days about the screen/font issue with the Kindle 2, in that some customers have felt that the thinner new font, used with a lighter weight than is used for the Kindle 1, is not as easy on their eyes.

  Some customers are driving a petition for a gray screen that is a lighter gray because their Kindle 1's have a somewhat lighter gray and a darker basic font.  For others, the differences are slight, and I find I can read full-width webpages because of the new fineness of the fonts when it's decreased. It's that sharp.

  But the relative lightness of the thinner K2 basic font, along with a somewhat darker gray perceived by a percentage of users moved to write to forums and to comment-areas of review columns, raises an issue (readibility) which is important and Amazon had earlier been a bit tone deaf to the concerns.

 The complaints are from people who prefer high contrast and who want to keep their Kindle 2's but want them to be as easy on their eyes as was the Kindle 1.  There have been odd choices by Amazon, such as changing the HOME item-listing from a dark medium-size font of the K1 to the wispy non-bolded thinner font weight of the K2.  Some people prefer to read output from medium-point pens to that from fine-point pens. And vice versa.

That's what Amazon seems to be taking into consideration.  I was told they do take customer feedback seriously and are working on a way to modify the darkness/lightness of the screen but that it's important to find something that will work for most of it customers.  As we've seen, many magazine reviewers have mentioned the 'sharper' and 'crisper' lettering.  Customers who read for longer stretches of time in different lighting situations may have quite different responses.

  I'm somewhere in between. I often wish for the more defined K1 weight for the font but I don't think about it much when I don't have the K1 nearby. But I do notice I used to be able to read for hours without noticing any eye strain whatsoever (new to me).

However, it was good to see they ARE working on a solution that can work for more customers, though it may take a while.  This is better than the silence we'd heard or the idea that there was no real issue there.  So, I'm encouraged.

UPDATE - 4/9 - 4/12/09 At the Amazon forums, Ted-san (Ted Inoue) describes running private tests using the native Kindle 2 fonts, comparing the display of a tweaked set he made against that of the native font set.  It involves using a more bolded font as the basic one and making normally "bolded" fonts even more bolded to keep the differences.  He proposes that users have the option of choosing between 'normal' and 'enhanced' display while reading, so that those who like the current fonts setup as-is are not affected.

The perspicacious :-) and meticulous Inoue has reorganized his test reports, and his full set shows what the relative lack of contrast can look like for some users on some Kindle units and what effect modifications in font properties can have.  (However, my own Kindle 2 has far more contrast than shown and is very sharp too, but units in the same home have been reported to show noticeable variances in contrast ratio.)  Also, he has found an even better example (Michael Bach's) of an optical-illusion having to do with the perception of lightness and darkness of objects with constant luminance, their brightness values perceived as changing when seen against the luminance values of surrounding objects (simultaneous contrast).

 As for a fix, my own wish is simpler: that they just provide a darker-effect basic font similar to what they did for the Kindle 1 and that the e-Ink folks have a better quality control process over the relative lightness/darkness of the screen's gray.  Luckily, I have no problems with my Kindle 2 and I find mine a real joy to use (constantly), but my eyes are still more comfortable with the Kindle 1 font and I'm mindful that some other customers have a tougher time of it with the current-font to gray-background contrast ratio.  For balance, it appears most customers are quite happy with the current state, but enough aren't so that Amazon should do something, and I was told they were working on this very carefully, as mentioned, keeping in mind all customers need to be happy with the results.

UPDATE - 4/17/09 (late update) - On April 13, Wired's Gadget Lab posted an article about the screen font/background problem experienced by many K2 users.  By Priya Ganapati, it's an unusually accurate and thorough summary of the issues -- citing Ted Inoue's extensively detailed work on the anti-aliasing factor plus information from this blog and via a phone discussion).  It also references a busy Amazon forum thread that is a heavy request for darker fonts.  The story was picked up by most of the online computer and gadget sites, some listed at Inoue's "Kindle Optimizer" pages.

UPDATE - 4/26/09: Ted Inoue offered Amazon Customer Service representatives results of private tests with font replacements that would help the screen contrast issue for those having it.  It's a simple fix for those who want it or need it (there is a reason Amazon is doing easy Kindle 2 replacements) and the people who've been unhappy with their K2s are ecstatic over the change the fonts make.  Crunchgear writes today about the problems and the test results.