Kindle DX's Unsung Ways and a Guided Tour

PD World's Melissa J. Perenson lists
'5 Unsung Ways' by which the Kindle DX will
"transform reading."

'But make no mistake: Kindle DX represents far more than merely more of the same. Kindle DX is a game changer for e-book readers, and one that has a chance to transform how we consume content.'

Her listing includes large print books; children's books; English as a 2nd Language; manuals [one of my own favorites]; and self-publishing as the 5 not normally considered.  Her summary:

'The DX is far more than just the larger premium-priced "hardcover" version of the "soft cover" Kindle 2.  Instead, when it comes to the various different types of content the DX can display beautifully the Kindle DX has the potential to re-write the e-book rules -- digitally of course.'

Here's PC World's Guided Tour by Perenson, with some very good photographic examples of how useful this unit will be in many areas.  Two which stood out for me:   1)  the native PDF capability preserves the original visual layout of a document, retaining readability even with a complex layout, and 2)  an example of highlighting in a biology textbook with an illustration with small, precisely placed text that is far more readable than it would be on the 6" screen of the smaller Kindles and often not correctly converted to even make sense.

  Side note:  Wondering how the iRex iLiad and the Kindle DX fared in a comparison, I found a review which said that using the only type of input available (a stylus) means a wait of .5 to 1 second for a response when drawing and that the bootup time is 40 seconds.  Along with other points made in the review, including its *horrendous* technical support, it looks like no competition there at that price.  Here's an Engadget image of the iLiad, which averages about $860 now.

UPDATE:


Princeton University will provide students
with free Kindle DX's
in three of the courses this coming semester.

Murdoch Rebuffs Amazon's terms for Kindle model

Financial Times's Kenneth Li and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson report Murdoch's strong resistance to Amazon's Kindle business model.

Proposing a new revenue stream for newspapers, Amazon apparently wants as much as 70% of any subscription revenues earned through the Kindle, per a statement by James Moroney, the chief executive of the Dallas Morning News during a Senate hearing on the future of Journalism.  Moroney mentioned that Amazon also wants "the right to republish the newspaper’s stories on other portable devices," per the FT writers.

 It's been established (but not mentioned in the FT article) that Amazon offers Kindle book publishers 35% of the List price but can discount their own selling price to $10~ while still paying the publisher 35% based on the publisher's price.
 So, if a publisher sets the List price at at $25 and Amazon sells a book at $10, Amazon pays the publisher almost $9 from the sale and keeps about $1.

Murdoch is quoted as saying that though News Corp could make money from customers' interest in using a mobile device to read the news, "We will not be giving our content rights to the fine people who created the Kindle."

At the same time he said one of his general newspapers will start charging for its content online, within the year.

The New York Times and the Washington Post are backing the Kindle model (though the pricing could vary somewhat for each company).  And the FT adds that "Textbook publishers Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, Cengage Learning and Wiley are also to offer some books on Kindle."

UPDATE 5/8/09: - Financial Times is puzzled by this, since Wall St. Journal and Harper Collins are part of his operation and are already on Kindle.  Is he threatening to withdraw? (Not ultra likely)

Kindle DX and its target audience

So this is not the anticipated 'K3' but the 'DX'?

  Has the lower price than was expected confused the presupposed division of target audiences for Kindle-1&2 users?

  It's still packable and there is less room used by the keyboard.

  These are first reactions on the day the DX was announced.
  Online mags are showing the "first official pictures" of the DX which are all pics from Amazon's own Kindle DX page, which has a large video demo and 'guided tour' of its functioning.

  Re DX vs K2, think K2 enlarged beyond purse-size, with no buttons on the left side (favoring lefthand-users for one-handed use) and less vertical space given the keyboard (long a wish of many).  So what else does it do besides let you see content better or see more of the same while also being heavier to hold when reading books?  The Amazon page has charts showing the differences between the DX and the K2.  

  Unfortunately, they blare that it can read PDFs natively while the K2 cannot, which means they likely don't intend to provide a firmware update that will provide native PDF support for the K2 even if it would be on a smaller screen.  Not an admirable move.
  But for those who like to stockpile and miss their K1 SD cards, it will hold an average 3500 text-based books.

  And there is said to be more RAM (no figure given) which usually means faster processing capability and definitely better ability to handle web-browsing of complex pages while the auto-rotating feature (which is optional) ensures better visual displays of webpages, especially online-newspapers.  While I would not want to replace my K2 as it is always with me and fits well into my purse, no extra carrying care needed, I may sell my K1 finally and ultimately get this for home and special use outside.

  I would not get it for just books.  Nor want to hold something that large for my daily reading of books and my newspaper feeds and subscriptions.

  But even if native PDF support were to be included in the K2 later, it would be, on a 6" in screen, unreadable when the pdfs are image-scans of small text.

  So for me it's not a 'replacement' for the K2, for K2 owners.  An addition maybe, for those with enough spare change.  New buyers may be attracted to it over the K2 though, but they'll need larger carrying cases and it'll be a separate item to remember to carry or pick up unless one uses a briefcase or backpack or quite large purse.
  Those with poor eyesight, who have problems with the smaller e-readers, will also find it an attraction.

  They don't seem that different in size in some photos (though the difference is large enough for those who carry their K2s everywhere with them), but this image and this one as well both show otherwise.

 And then there's THIS! ---)   Whoa!  I've never carried around a book that size but do have them for home-use.

  For those whose primary focus is carrying books or a library of books wherever they go, the segment of that group that carries Kindles in their purses will find this less attractive, but for students and business professionals, it will be quite doable in backpacks and briefcases -- and much better for technical textbook reading as well as business presentations.  I expect professors and business users will find the PDF support and larger screen well worth it to handle papers and presentations.
Peter Glaskowsky, writing for CNet, opines that this unit will not be ideal for textbooks for the natural or formal sciences, and it's the lack of color differentiation that is most key there.

But soon the full 8x10 screens will be (and some already are) offering the ability to write directly on the screen, with touch screen control, and able to show a normal multi-column newspaper layout.  The Kindle DX still displays newspaper articles as contained text (which has been fine for readers like me).

With two units this similar though, offered only 3 months apart -- ironically with the pricing being barely more than a $100 difference and with PDFs natively read in the unit (which means that they should be able to incorporate this as an upgrade to the Kindle 2) -- it can cause some people to hesitate more before deciding what to buy - one of the Kindles or a simpler, less capable and less expensive e-reader by anyone while the market settles down. (Nevuh happens.)  Still, for me, the more options and capabilities offered, the better.  

Since PDFs, even formatted correctly, are not ideal when scaled down to the Kindle-2's 6" screen and therefore no threat to sales of the DX if readable on the K2 also, Amazon should make PDF native support upgrades to the Kindle-2 now or customers will likely wonder at what some could consider bait and switch tactics.  I'm hoping they'll do the right thing.  Or explain why it can't be done.  A competitor can do it, why not Amazon?

In the meantime, many bought the K2 for the small size and 24/7 wireless factors and won't be overexcited about spending yet another $130 for a larger version they can't as easily carry around.  The paperback-size feature has been a large attraction and I'm sure it will continue to be.

 A quick look at the Amazon forums shows less interest (at the moment) in the new model than I'd expected to see from current Kindle-1 and Kindle-2 owners.
 My next purchase of $350 or over will likely be a 10" Netbook - for now, likely the Samsung, but that can change in a matter of days in this world.  The Asus I had been planning on before reading about the Samsung, is now available for $100 + a wireless contract (not WiFi but 24/7 wireless for about $50-$60/month.  So much to consider in this rapidly changing world.

Nevertheless, business professionals and some students will find the $489 a good price when 24/7 wireless is included (for how long for free?) and if textbook publishers are sane about their pricing for Kindle textbooks.  As some have pointed out earlier, textbook publishers have been making customized books for universities under special agreements that still give them a decent margin.  Would those be willing to do a general Kindle version instead and price it appropriately?  In this economy you'd think printing companies would take stock and seek survival rather than grossest margins :-)

But Amazon has done well, where other companies haven't, in this recession and if they do well by all their customers who have already invested money in their Kindles, they'll stay ahead of the game.  An important If.  The Kindle is not like a separate TV purchase, it's more like a cable-TV subscription cable-tv-program receiver unit.  The unit, for the vendor, is about the content that can be sold.  That's something for Amazon to keep in mind.

In the meantime, if I had to make a decision between the two units today, I would still choose the K2, for its size, as I'm one who carries my Kindle everywhere and I love reading on it anywhere I am.  But if not interested in books that much or in just reading news on the run, and very active in sharing paperwork and presentations, and with no Kindle already, I'd spring for this.

UPDATES:
To get an idea of the DX features and functioning, here is a a copy of the Kindle DX User’s Guide 1st Edition in PDF format, readable on any computer.

Here's a good report, with good photos, of Jeff Bezos' announcement/press conference today, by FastCompany's Chris Dannen.

  Gizmodo's Brian Lam reports first reactions to a very brief hands-on experience with it.  This includes Gizmodo's own photos and their video of this.   They mention that it's almost twice as heavy, with somewhat stiff action in the buttons and a response-time that is almost as fast as with the K2 because although the DX has a faster processer, it has much more data to process for a page.  Brian was unhappy with the autorotate's relatively slow processing.

  Wired's Brian X. Chen weighs in with a hands-on assessment and more photos and echos Gizmodo's hands-on re the slow roundtrip for an inadvertent auto-rotate (7 seconds) while finding the 5-way wheel not to his liking on either the K2 or DX (I like its direct navigation though; even if it's sluggish it saves us from the many dialog-screens of the Kindle-1 before getting where we want).  He also finds the web-browsing slow but doesn't say relative to the K2 or to a normal computer's browser.

  Good, varied screen examples by Engadget's Joshua Topolsky during the live event.

  Hmmm, they'd almost have me (if I didn't already have a purseable Kindle2) with the note in their press release that sheet music can be used with this and page-turns done with a press of a button).

  Thinking...if the DX had been first, many would jump at the 'new' 'COMPACT' K2 :-)

Big Screen Kindle announcement Wednesday?

Well, that's what several papers are reporting.  This was more or less announced some months ago about Bezos' conversations with textbook companies and the goal of a larger unit for textbooks and periodicals coming out by Xmas. But the announcement in only April will likely involve more details already (and a possibly earlier release date?).  Maybe to get ahead of Plastic Logic's goal for early 2010?  And before all the newspapers fail?  Hearst has been putting heavy money behind E-Ink (see previous articles).

Huffington Post's Dave Burdick reports that the announcement is likely to be about the big-screen Kindle's "arrival at universities."

While mulling the more lucrative margins of textbook sales, he quotes the New York Times article today:

As early as this week, according to people briefed on the online retailer's plans, Amazon will introduce a larger version of its Kindle wireless device tailored for displaying newspapers, magazines and perhaps textbooks ...

In total, six universities are involved in the project, according to people briefed on the matter. They are Case Western, Pace University, Princeton University, Reed College, Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State University.

Some would hope it also entails some improvements on the Kindle 2 requested, but there's been no mention of that so far.

Also, pricing will be interesting.  Other big-screen units planned and some already available (iRex) but without wireless, search capabilities, and inline-dictionaries (all strengths of Amazon's Kindles) are charging from $600 to $1000+.  Will newspapers subsidize some of the cost for their readers, when they are already losing millions per year?

The announcement timing is intriguing seeing that Apple's June announcement had been getting the headlines in that their hoped-for MediaPad (no hard news on that yet) might be released via Verizon, with a wished-for larger screen and wider range of offerings but only via WiFi vs Amazon's always "On" wireless.

And then there is EFD or Electronic Fluid Display (Electrofluidic Display Technology, involving color) on the horizon but still very much in development including improving the contrast and then getting it integrated into actual devices.  But apparently it could support the Kindle someday.

UPDATE: OTHER RUMORS:
ENGADGET posted some info from the Wall Street Journal as well as the NYTimes and is offering preview photos, though they ask if it will be 9.7" units, so the photos may be iffy.  
The one on the right looks out of proportion, with the current unit 8" and the new one said to be 9.7"...
  SeekingAlpha reminds us that Engadget pointed out the NYTimes is lowering its subscription price from $14 to $10 (that would include Sundays and many have requested this before subscribing - so natural customer resistance has an effect).  They say in order for amazon to keep the price close, for the larger screen, they'd have to cut out something like wireless, but the college communities are filled with wi-fi spots, so wireless is superfluous there.  WiFi feature rather than 24/7 Wireless?  They add Amazon seems to be doing a front-run around the rumored iPod mediapad/tablet, with the spiffed up web browser and larger screen but still with a [smaller] keyboard.
  The Moderate Voice has an interesting set of thoughts.

Instapaper extracts web articles for your Kindle

This is a really effective free utility that picks up the text-body of an article while ignoring the side links and ads all around it and then gets it ready for reading later and for delivery to your Kindle if you want (there's a 'pro' version that lets you do tilt scrolling if using this for an iPod).

 It does best when you use the webpage's option to 'print' an article (easier to determine the text you need) or to choose a 'single page' version if that's offered by the website.

So far, I've received really nicely formatted versions of the articles without any of the stuff to the sides.  But there are times when a page can confuse it, I read.  TIME gave it a Top Ten iPhone App for 2008.  Here are some press reviews.

If you sign up at Instapaper, it'll display a form to add the URL of a page but, much better, gives you the option of just using a "Read Later" bookmarklet that you can move to your browser's Bookmarks toolbar.  When you click the icon, it will automatically pick up the URL of the web-page you're on and then set the article up for reading later and delivery for your Kindle when you're ready for that.

You're given your own Instapaper page, which will hold the article(s) and make a 'digest' of articles in one file, with a choice of least 1 or 5 or whatever number of articles to include in the one digest-file-send (the digest will tend to cost no more than 15c with Amazon's new email-to-Kindle fee) or you can choose to send just what is there, manually, to the Kindle.  You just have to make sure that your Amazon ManagerYourKindle page includes the approval to accept Kindle mail from the special Instapaper From:email address given on their page.

To 'manage' your setup, you click on the "Account" option at the top of the page and choose to send, daily or weekly, a digest of articles that have been saved for reading later, or just manually send one instead.

They don't want you to send Feeds though. For that, they (and I) recommend Kindlefeeder.

It's worth the time to read Creator Marco Arment's Instapaper FAQ and check out his blog for plans and features.

Also see CutePDF for an interesting alternative utility.

Kindle 2's voice reads a personalized script

UPDATE 5/1/09 - Engadget's interview with Tom Glynn - "the Voice of the Kindle 2."

  (Also see later UPDATE on Tom Glynn's latest interview and voice technology.)

Below text originally added 4/27/2009 06:18:00 PM
  On a fun Amazon Kindle-forum thread titled "Tomisms" for odd events in the Kindle voice's (mis)reading of various words (some of these are hilarious), Bufo Calvin, author of Free Books for Your Kindle as well as the heartfelt The Disabled Deserve to Read: The Controversy Over the Amazon Kindle's Voice, offered forum members the personal script he wrote for his Kindle 2's voice to introduce himself.

 I modified, with his permission, that amusing intro for my own Kindle's Tom to use, and you can hear that here if interested in hearing what the K2 voice does with a personal text file.

The Kindle 2's text-to-speech technology is courtesy of Nuance.com and if you heard the mp3 above, you'll recognize Nuance's "Tom" in Nuance's official demo.  Bufo Calvin was the first forum poster to notice the similarities of the Kindle voice to Nuance's.  I don't personally know Bufo, but he's a very alert guy :-).

On an Engadget blog entry about my original posting at Kindleboards which Harvey Chute blogged, there used to be a 2nd page of comments that included some interesting details from a Mike Spa, who commented that he used to work with Tom.

"I use to work with this mystery Tom -- the voice talent.  He's a great guy to work with.  You have *no* idea how awful bad voice talents can be to work with until you have to record 2,000 voice prompts for a automated speech recognition system.  I used to design the user interfaces for those systems.  I have since moved on once I realized how much everyone hates them so."

Mike pointed us to Tom Glynn's page, where there are linked feature articles about Glynn and his work -- in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Washington Post, etc.

Now, that's a kind of voiceover work that I'd never thought of.

For the interested, here are all of Nuance's demo voices for several languages.

UPDATE 4/28/09 - Lynn Mostafa posts on this thread that

"Astonished when Tom read *ASAP* out *as soon as possible* and pronounced *1-(831)-xxx-xxxx* as *area code 831* etc.  The tiny dude inside my Kindle is pretty smart.  Guess that's because he reads so much."

Amazon Customer Fixes Kindle-2 Dim-Font Plight

Ted Inoue's trial replacement fonts (a sort of beta-test, created and run by an Amazon customer) have brought ecstatic responses by other customers who had considered returning their Kindle 2s due to a strongly-perceived problem (backed up by photographs) on some units with too-faint fonts on a somewhat darker background than used with the Kindle 1.
  The strong lure of the Kindle-2 has been shown by the customers petitioning for darker fonts rather than returning their units.

See Inoue's animated image showing the effect of some of the replacement fonts relative to Kindle-2's basic font.  Click on the image at that page to start the animation showing rotation of pages displayed with various fonts from his trial font-set.

UPDATED PARAGRAPH - 5/2/09 - This was pointed to in an earlier blog entry but belongs here too: See See TechCrunch's article that makes Inoue's replacement-font results clear, using his webpage example.  But Inoue later found that it's not due to font-smoothing but to the amount of black that gets rendered on the surface that we see.

 Most of those wanting the font-changes seem to be customers who found their Kindle 1 displays beautiful but have been finding their Kindle-2 units difficult to read and a strain on their eyes.  (Most customers, of course receive units with good displays -- I am one of them but, I've seen photos of clearly substandard ones).

 Inoue and many other customers have seen quite a variation in the various K2 screens (with regard to lightness of gray and darkness of fonts), indicating some quality control problems with e-Ink's 16-shade screen affecting some customers.

 Amazon is aware of the problem and does replace the units until the customer gets one with a display that works for the customer and which doesn't fade in direct sunlight upon page-turns).  I imagine they get replacements from E-Ink in Cambridge.

 Amazon's replacement policy has been very good, though some of their customer service reps don't get that policy message until a customer asks for a supervisor.

 Also, too many customers have received units with fonts that failed in direct sunlight.  I've read that some Sony units have this problem too but that Sony doesn't replace the units, saying to at least one customer that the e-Ink display does not work in direct sunlight.

 Amazon does replace any unsatisfactory units and will, until the customer has a unit that works correctly; they do this because an E-Ink technology feature is that it works just as well in direct sunlight.  And they appear to have better customer service policies than Sony.
 Lightness of fonts may not be directly related to that sunlight exposure failure, but they often co-exist.

 As far as we know, this affects "only" several hundred people visiting the Amazon forums to ask questions, who have signed a petition requesting Amazon institute a simple fix, such as a font with more 'black' ink showing in the characters.  Customer Inoue has been able to do this, and he's provided customers with a variety of font-sets to choose from and they're extremely pleased about the results.

Caveat:   Problem?  Anyone testing these font-replacements must UNinstall them before any periodic Amazon Kindle firmware updates that come, so far, once a month.  But they can re-install them after the Amazon updates.

The history of this has been described in the original entries for 1) Screen Contrast problems for some users who had loved their Kindle 1 displays, which was further reported on by Wired.com) and 2) Ted Inoue's new findings, a few days ago.

  In mid-April, Inoue wrote to Amazon Customer Service Representatives at their official public Amazon forum topic, letting them know of his successful trial results and offering them font-sets to try from his tests making fairly easy font-replacements for the Kindle 2.
  Customer Service representatives on their own forum thread have never responded to Ted.
  It's as if users and this problem for many of them just don't matter to Amazon, which means it apparently doesn't matter to Jeff Bezos (or they would reply in a constructive way).

  The forum thread by users requesting darker fonts on the Kindle 2 now numbers about 800 posts.
  Since the topic-thread participants are very happy with Inoue's replacement fonts, they are now asking that Amazon do something like this, especially since Inoue has shown it can be done quite easily, possibly with options to choose the default set or a darker one.