Gizmodo: E-book

Review Addendum: Using Amazon Kindle on Vacation

Brian Lam — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:06:20 EDT

Although Wilson tested the Kindle in bed, on the toilet, I had the chance to use it on vacation and found myself reading a great deal more than I usually do. Unlike regular books, which cause me to fall asleep pretty readily after less than 50 pages, I'd finish about 300 pages in a stretch, with no eyestrain in dark rooms or in the sun. I suppose it felt a lot more like reading on a computer or handheld. Bezos set out to build something better to read than a book, and by vacationing standards, I think he's easily met that goal on his first try. That's my quirky experience, at least, being the type of person who hates stockpiling physical media of any sort. Of course, I found lots of other things I liked and disliked about specific to using a Kindle on vacation.

-Although I carried a dozen books with me with zero back strain or bag overflow
-Can't share a kindle with your travel partner; Unlike a regular book, you can't just hand it over without handing off your next book, too.
-If you're flying abroad, downloading books = impossible after take off unless you're lugging a laptop and want to manually sync.
-If you're waiting for your plane, you can do some great book shopping, at usually very aggressive discounts, while boarding.
-I happened to be on a beach and my hands got really really dry from all the salt and sun. Turning pages usually is as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard, but not so with the kindle.
-One handed reading, is easier on my side since I can turn pages with a click.
-Font sizes are relatively big (even at their smallest size) and so the rating of page life is drastically less effective; a page in a book could be 2 pages on the kindle. Bring your charger.
-kindle does not soak up water on a wet bathing suit.
-Kindle reading in the pool on a float is freaking scary.

As I said, I read a great deal more than I usually do on this trip and faster. How much of that was me being on vacation versus me being on the Kindle? To be honest, I haven't read very much since I've come back home. I blame the computer and internet's endless bounty of shorts, but my experience using the Kindle on vacation stands — if you're going to go on vacation a few times a year and plan on reading on the flight and during the downtime, you can probably consider the Kindle a wise thing to own. Maybe once the new ones come out, the old ones will be on sale for a song. [Photo from NYDiscovery]

Kindle Rumors Say Next Version Coming Fall Will Be Thinner, Cheaper, Much More Stylish

Jason Chen — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:45:00 EDT

The $100 discount on the Kindles may be Amazon's way of clearing out the first-gen to make room for the now all-but-certain second-gen this fall. Business Week says that Amazon's hired a guy from frog design for the next version, which will have a better screen, thinner body, fewer UI annoyances and (obviously) be better looking. The price point is supposedly somewhere around the $249-$299 range, which might be right near the sweet spot that mainstreamers will start to pick one up as an impulse buy. That is, if mainstreamers ever really read anything. Students, on the other hand, would be a gigantic market for a Kindle Education Edition. [Business Week]

Kindle's Bright Idea: College Textbooks

Jason Chen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Here's one really smart idea that will convert a few Kindle-haters: textbooks. Princeton University Press join Oxford, Yale and the UC in putting some of their titles into e-book form, allowing students to bypass the used book store and directly download their textbooks onto their Kindles. You'll save a few bucks for the digital version, plus shipping costs and shipping time. And if you figure out a way to hack it, that's like, free textbooks dude. Whoa. We see this extended to concerned parents of elementary school kids who've been complaining about how many textbooks they have to lug from home to school and back. Then again, maybe that's why your kids are so fat. [Yahoo Buzz via CSMonitor]

Moleskine Sketchbook Turned into iPod touch Case/Reader

AddyDugdale — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:15:00 EDT

Wired's Man in Barcelona, Charlie Sorrel, has made a rather wonderful e-book reader using his iPod Touch and a Moleskine sketchbook. The version you see here is Mark One, and he's already working on Mark Two, as the flap he created after the touch kept falling out of the notebook isn't really practical enough. Sorrel claims he did this to look cool and hip in Barna's bars and cafes and thus get the girls, so I'm looking forward to the follow-up post detailing his successes and failures. How-to video is below.

[Wired]

LIVRE, a Compromise on the E-book

Mark Wilson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:31:44 EST

While those who are born into a world of e-books won't miss much, there are a few generations of paper-readers who might still need some convincing. The LIVRE, a concept for a more tactile friendly e-book, first looks like a chunky version of Sony's Reader. But the design is actually fairly inspired.

Our favorite feature is that which we thought the most ludicrous upon first glance—that bulky case. But there's a method to the madness. The case is constructed of flexible silicon, an attempt to re-create the soft feel of a book and offer some tactile enjoyment to the sterile feel of e-books.

Also of note, the concept calls for multitouch page flicking. Of course, it's a cheap idea to throw into the design since, trust us, if e-paper/e-ink technology had anywhere near the response time to make touch controls feasible, Amazon and Sony would be on the trend in a heartbeat. [LIVRE via engadget]

Eee PC Has A Kindle Mode?

Christopher Mascari — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:21:40 EST

Got a desire for the sold out Amazon Kindle? If you do your probably out of luck on actually getting one anytime soon. The next best thing might actually be an Eee PC in "Kindle" mode. By using FBReader in fullscreen and portrait mode, an Eeeph forum member turned his Eee into a Kindle imitator. Since FBReader is a free e-book reader for Unix and Windows computers this little Kindle tweak shouldn't be too hard to get you a multi-function e-reader out of the popular Eee PC. [Eeeph via EeeUser]

Amazon Kindle Gets Third-Party Support From Fictionwise

Jason Chen — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:00:25 EST

Amazon's Kindle e-Book device gets its first third-party content provider support in the form of Fictionwise, which adds over 15k books to Amazon's already extensive library. Unlike first-party books, you can't directly download the books via the Kindle. You have to first download them onto your computer and sync via USB, or email them to yourself and pay the 10-cent fee. Quite a pain in the ass. Unless of course you can purchase this book, then it's totally worth it. [Fictionwise via Electronista]

Amazon Kindle Gutted, Splayed, Violated

Jason Chen — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:40:05 EST

Readers who enjoy the Amazon Kindle e-Book reader's concept for letting you consume literature in electronic form—but won't purchase one until they see what's inside—will love this post. RapidRepair's taken apart the Kindle bit by bit, showing you exactly what's inside. Unless you're a hardware engineer, seeing the internals probably don't add much to your enjoyment of anything, but it does saves yourself from having to void the warranty on your own. [RapidRepair via TheRawFeed]

Why Giz Isn't on Kindle's RSS Feeder, and How to Get Around That

Brian Lam — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:08:22 EST

Say you bought a Kindle. If you were to search for Gizmodo in Amazon's Kindle RSS store, you'd notice we're not there. That's not because we don't like it (although I'm not saying we do like it, either). The reasons are strictly business related, which Gaby Darbyshire, Gizmodo's business dev smart person, explained to me in brief.

One main point is that if Amazon was sued for something we wrote, even by some nut job figuring Amazon would settle quickly, we'd have to take the blame. (I make no guarantees to SFW content, per our usual programming.) The bigger issue is that you can still read Gizmodo using Kindle's browser for $0. And you guys are too smart to pay $2 for something you can get for free a few clicks away on the same device. I don't think the RSS store is useless, but I think the business model needs a bit of tweaking. And of course, if it ever makes sense for Gizmodo to be on the RSS feeder and we make it happen, I'll let you know right away.

UPDATE: Ryan Block of Engadget has voiced similar sentiments on his personal blog.

Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader Launch (Live)

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:30:08 EST

Jeff Bezos is about to launch the Kindle e-book reader at a hotel in NYC, and we're in there blogging live. Here's a gallery of Bezos plowing through device features. Jump for the play-by-play.

10:23 - Bookmarks last page read automatically. If you want to clear memory space, you delete them off of your Kindle and in 60 seconds you can get them back again. (So, 60-second downloads.) "Disappears so you can enter the author's world." The End.

10:18 - Look at the store: your recommendations, national bestseller list. Buy something: scroll with your select wheel, select title, pull up detail page. What you would expect with Amazon.com - cover art, editorial reviews. Print list price $35, Kindle price is $9.99. Click on Buy. Says "thank you for your purchase...you can continue shopping while you are downloading." GREAT FEATURE: "Purchsed by accident? Cancel this order"

10:15 - Feature run through: font size change; "select" wheel; add highlight, annotation — all saved on server side so you never lose your annotations; dictionary - looks up every word in the line, then you can select each word.

10:05-10:13 - VIDEO: The publishing world rallies around Kindle. Toni Morrison, Neil Gaiman and other luminaries say that they love Amazon and the Kindle. Mostly promotional, but we have captured it in case there's anything exciting buried in there.

10:03 - There's a dictionary resident on every Kindle, the 8-lb. Oxford American Dictionary on the 10-oz. Kindle. "With Kindle it's so friction-free to look up a word, I find my deduction of what that word might mean hasn't been that accurate." Wikipedia is the "best encyclopedia in the world;" you can access Wikipedia from the device.

10:00 - Personal documents - Every Kindle has an e-mail address. Attach docs and e-mail them to your device. It's that simple.

9:57 - 90,000 books - 101 of 112 NYT bestsellers - 9.99 - if you want to do things taht physical books can't do, why not deliver newspapers. They are delivered while you sleep. WSJ, NYT, Washington Post, and local newspapers too. Local newspapers on Kindle become national newspapers. Time, Fortune, Atlantic Monthly, Slate. And over 300 of the most popular blogs. This is not RSS - it's pushed to you. Subscribe to the ones you want.

9:55 - "EV-DO, fastest wireless technology, it's broadband. Highly deployed. Use it while you move around. Everybody knows when you use wireless cell networks, there's gotta be a data plan, multiyear contract, monthly bill — we didn't like that either. We built Amazon Whispernet on top of Sprint's EV-DO network. No data plan, no multiyear contract, no monthly bill — we pay for all of that behind the scenes so you can just read."

9:52 - "With a PC - you are loading software, shopping from your PC - once you bought and downloaded a book, you use USB cable to sync to device. We didn't think that was a very good solution. There would be no PC, no software to install. Instead of shopping from your PC, you shop from your device. Store is on your device."

9:50 Soft rubber back, full-length page turning, comfortable to hold, paper-like display, electronic ink. Recharging is bad, so long battery life. No backlight. (like Sony, Bezos says this is a good thing.)

9:47 - "I have nerd credentials." (And a big crush on his elementary school teacher Mrs. McInerny.) But can you improve on something as well suited to its task as the book?
1. It has to fade away for the reader, like a book does, "so you can enter the author's world."
2. We can never outbook the book. We have to take modern technologies and do new things that the book can't do.

9:45 - Bezos says why books are the last remaining analog product: The format (glue and paper) fades away, "and what remains are the author's worlds, the author's words. I'm a reader."

9:40 - Bezos on the codex: "Gutenberg would still recognize a modern-day book."

Though we've already posted the rumors and the news, there's still a lot to know about this mystery disruptor. The dudes behind me think it might have the most impact on publishing since the internet, so stay tuned. [Amazon Kindle Store]

HP e-Book Reader Design Fakes Turning Pages

Jason Chen — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:30:57 EDT

Although there've been lots of eBooks the past year, none of them have had this HP concept that was demoed at the HP Mobility Summit. Instead of pressing a button to turn the page (which you can presumably still do) there are touch strips on the top, bottom, and sides of the ebook that you can slide to virtually turn the page.

We're not entirely sure how the act of swiping makes reading more enjoyable on an ebook, but hey, whatever makes people adopt technology faster. On a similar note, who's reserved the last Harry Potter book? Doesn't he show his wand in this one or something? – Jason Chen

HP to present 'ebook reader' featuring intuitive interface [AVING]

LG.Philips LCD Teases World With A4 Color Electronic Paper

Addy Dugdale — Mon, 14 May 2007 05:25:42 EDT

LG.Philips LCD keeps teasing the world with dream display products that will not reach the mass market until sometime in the next decade.

This is their all-new, world-first A4 electronic paper, a 4,096-color flexible 14.1-inch page made using "metal foil and plastic substrates rather than glass." They only use power when the image changes and since they are reflective like real paper, they can be seen perfectly from any angle. Even under direct sunlight.

For even better viewing, figure 1 here shows that you have to hold it up on high like a Holy Hand Grenade and wear stripped gloves. Something that might prove somehow unpractical while reading your electronic New York Times in the loo. – Jesus Diaz

LG.Philips LCD claims first flexible color A4-size e-paper [Digitimes]

Amazon Kindle eReader Gets More Details: Pricing, Time Frame, Features

Jason Chen — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:00:46 EDT

Details have been scarce on the Amazon Kindle eReader since we first saw it last September, but some publishers have actually gotten to play with it now that we're nearing the spring release date. First, the price is going to be above $400. Seeing as the Sony reader is fetching somewhere around $300 to $350, that's not a good place to start.

However, the Kindle is actually a step up in terms of functionality from Sony's reader.

It has a screen display that's just as good, and will be using Mobipocket to supply titles. The release date is spring, which is pretty darn soon.

What's more, the Kindle will have online functionality from its EV-DO connection to buy eBooks directly from Amazon. Despite the device not looking that great from the shots we've seen before, the features do seem to place this as quite a nice alternative to Sony's offering. – Jason Chen

Amazon Kindle this spring for above $400 [Mobileread]

Best Way to Read NYT for Free Starts Slamming Your Wallet March 27

Matt Buchanan — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:22:50 EDT

If you've paid attention to my sources for posts, you'd probably notice I'm fairly heavy on the NYT—I more or less read it every day, usually with the NYT Reader. Up until March 27, on top of being the best way to read it, it's also been a free way to do so.

While $15 a month is a bargain, especially compared to home delivery at $40 a month, I'm cheap enough that even a reading experience superior to both the print and (free) web editions (to say nothing of the lame PDF version) isn't worth it. Moreover, Times Select is now free to students (not that I cared, I just stopped reading everything behind it) so there's even less incentive to pay.

There's 9 days left to check it out—if you read the NYT, you won't go back to any other way. At least until you have to pay for it. – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [NYT]

LG FM37, FM33 and DMB T50: Portable Media With European Flair (?)

Gizloco — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:46:23 EST

The decidedly derivative portable media player market can embrace with open arms the latest entries from LG, the FM37 (tops out at 4GB, $320), FM33 (4GB, $255) and DMB T50 (2GB, $265). As expected, the players are, to use a tired phrase, more evolution than revolution: all models are flash-based and have just barely watchable-sized screens (2.4-in. on the FM37, 1.77-in. on the FM33 and 2.4-in. on the DMB T50). What is a little more rare, however, is the e-book support found in the FM37. (Who could stand to read The Alchemist on such a small screen is a discussion that belongs elsewhere.) After all, books are as much a medium as terrible sounding MP3s and repeatedly transcoded video.

If Google's machine translation is to be trusted, LG designed these players to have a certain European flair. I guess a standard LCD and shiny black plastic count as "flair" these days. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page (in Korean) [LG via CrunchGear]

Fujitsu Demos its e-Book Reader That Weighs Only 177g (0.39 pounds)

Jason Chen — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:00:27 EDT

Holy negligible weight, Batman! This Fujitsu e-Book reader weighs so on this side of nothing, it's hardly heavier than an actual piece of paper. Hell, it's lighter than most paperback books.

Hopefully structural integrity was sacrificed too much in making this e-Book reader so light. Because even though e-Books have the word "book" in it, they don't take well to being folded in half. – Jason Chen

CEATEC - Fujitsu Electronic Paper e-book reader [Akihabara News - Thanks Barny!]

LG Cyon E-Book Reading Phone, Because Reading books on a 2-inch Screen Rocks!

Travis Hudson — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:08:09 EDT

So this phone from LG is designed for people with visual disabilities, but as I think about it more, trying to read a book on a cellphone would likely cause visual disabilities—you know, stabbing yourself in the eye with a spoon. The phone can display text e-books and also play back audiobooks. They are stored on the expansion MicroSD card. It has all of the other usual kicks like Bluetooth and it even has a walkie-talkie. A walkie-talkie? What are they, 10 years old? – Travis Hudson

The LG e-book reader phone for visually impaired people [Akihabara]

Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader Packs EVDO

Brian Lam — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:26:38 EDT

Friends at Engadget turned up an Amazon E-book reader to go head to head with Sony's own reader. The fellas slashed their way through the FCC's site, and revealed that the device has a six-inch, 800 by 600 pixel display, 256MB of RAM, a keyboard, scroll wheel, mini USB port. There's also a headphone jack, which we guess is for audiobooks. The real find? EV-DO cellular data, probably there for downloading titles through the ether. Like all saucy and unofficial unveilings, this one opens up a bigger question: What service is Amazon going to announce to deliver these heaven sent e-books? Another image, after the jump.

–Brian Lam

Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader [Via Engadget]

Toshiba Dual-Screen UMPC PDA E-Book Doohickey

Travis Hudson — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 16:22:27 EDT

It's hard to describe what exactly this device is, but it obviously falls into a lot of categories. First and foremost, it has two screens, at least one of which is a touchscreen meant to replace the keyboard. Not much other information is know. It runs Windows CE, has a slot for SD and is pretty portable. This thing could either flop or be the next big thing, but I'm predicting a flop.

Oh, and Toshiba—Nintendo called. They want their idea back. – Travis Hudson

PDA with e-book conceptual design [AVING]

LG Phillips E-book: Flexible Means Flexibility

Mark Wilson — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 12:01:19 EDT

LG Phillips just announced their 14.1-inch WXGA flexible E-book at IMID 2006 (International Meeting on Information Display).

Besides 14.1 inches taking the crown as the largest E-paper display yet, it's completely flexible (though, maybe sticking the prototypes in hard cases isn't the best way to highlight this feature). The 300ms response time is still pretty far from displaying video, but any content needing a constant refresh will nullify the main power benefits of e-paper anyway. We're just one step closer to the Holy Grail of electronic displays: crumpling them up throwing them in the trash like basketballs. – Mark Wilson

LG Announcement [via mobilmag]

DIY PowerBook e-Book Reader

Travis Hudson — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:20:26 EDT

Sony Reader, Schmony Reader. Who needs one of those devices when you can turn your Powerbook into an e-Book reader. Sure, even reading this text could be considered reading an e-Book, but does your laptop or desktop machine look like an actual book? No, so stfu!

Simply rotate that PDF to display vertically, and flip the Powerbook up on its side. Not it really is a PowerBook. Oho! Hit the link for a completely unnecessary video. Simple and basic, but you know some people—like me—would never think of an idea like this. – Travis Hudson

Vertical PowerBook as ebook reader [Via MAKE]

Sony Reader Gets Delayed Again

Travis Hudson — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:53:29 EDT

Back in January we were practically peeing ourselves with joy about the Sony Reader that was going to revolutionize the book world. Half a year later, the interest is starting to dwindle thanks to the numerous release delays. At CES we were promised a Spring release. Much like my ex-girlfriends, those promises got broken pretty quickly and the Reader was delayed to early summer. Well early summer seems to be here and the reader has now been delayed until the late summer which is usually rounded up to an end of the year delay. Lets just hope your grandkids have a chance to use it. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Sony via Zatz]

Live From CES: The Sony Reader

Noah R — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:33:02 EST

Who needs Blu-ray? This is the Sony reader that uses the display technology from E-Ink I've been hearing so much about. To give you an idea of just how good this display looks... I walked up to the counter, looked at the text on the screen and asked, "So when will you have working units to play with?" The reply: "This is a working reader." I mistakenly though the text on the screen was some kind of plastic overlay—that's how ink-like it looked. Then the PR rep increased the text size, searched through the table of contents and showed me some Manga comics. It is the first e-reader that seemed like I could sit down and spend hours on without experiencing eye strain. Part of the reason it works is that it does not have a backlight, so forget about reading in the dark. There is also zero flicker, as far as I could see. It's small and lightweight too (.5 inches thick and smaller than a hardcover book). The reader accepts both Memory Stick and SD flash memory cards. It's got a USB plug, and could be used to download and read websites, JPEGs or PDF docs. The battery life, as they are selling it, is equivalent to "7,500 page turns, avid readers can devour a dozen bestsellers plus War and Peace without ever having to recharge."

The books will be available through the Connect Store, and there is some Connect software for managing your books (so far this is the only drawback). Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin-Putnam, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Book Group are all on board with titles, along with Manga publisher Tokyopop. Sony is promising to deliver this reader by Spring.

Sony Librie e-book Hacks

Travis Hudson — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 10:11:22 EDT

Sony has taken some stabs at giving e-books more popularity with the Librie e-book reader that was only released in Japan. The Librie uses some uber technologies to make reading the e-book as natural as possible. The main issue plaguing the e-book world is the issues of piracy. Sony has been trying to fight piracy with the Digital Rights Management (DRM). For example the e-books they sell self-destruct after 60 days.

What s the point of having a nice Sony Librie if you have to actually buy the books? Well hackz0rs of the world united to rewrite the firmware used in the Sony Librie to work around DRM protection on e-books and allowed those downloaded books to be read. Suck on THAT, Gutenberg.

Related
Have e-books turned a page?

HOW TO make DRM-free ebooks for the Sony Librie e-ink ebook reader [MAKE:]