"The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can't pick two friends, not even serially, so once you've loaned one book to one friend, that's it...It is 'Sopie's Choice'," he told the Times.

Ah, but to lend once is better than never, right Jeff? As the BusinessInsider speculates, this could be Bezos positioning for multiple Kindle lending options in the future.

Smart positioning, if true, but to compare the Nook's one-friend-only sharing feature to an utterly depressing Nazi concentration camp book-turned-movie? Surely, we can find something more depressing to compare that book to, yes? How about we compare it to what happens to Amazon's bottom line when it sells an eBook?

Update: It needs to be noted that the interviewer suggested Sophie's Choice as a comparison, and then Bezos ran with it. Also of note, Bezos claimed that 48 Kindle versions sell for every 100 physical version of the same book. That's impressive, even if they're losing something like $2 per eBook. [NYT Magazine via BusinessInsider via Silicon Alley Insider's Twitter]

Don't worry! He's still the richest man on the planet, but he's less richer than everybody else than last year. Other losers on this year's Forbes 400 include Paul Allen, who lost $4.5 billion, Michael Dell, who lost $2.8 billion, and Steve Ballmer, who lost $1.7 billion.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos, unlike all the other tech mavens on the list who lost money, actually made $100 million this year, bringing his value up to $8.8 billion. Good for him! I'm sure that made a fucking difference. [Forbes via Fortune]

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

[Amazon]

I am certain this gave Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos one hell of a tingle when he saw the report, but in spite of the repeated mentions of Amazon and Kindle, I'm pretty sure he had very little to do with it himself. Here's why:

The DLC—'scuse me, NDLC—estimates the up-front cost of materials to be around $200, but could fall to $80 by 2012. Since the government now spends about $109 per student on text books, the initial investment seems in line. However, I don't think they're looking at the appropriate model. The Kindle 2's teardown revealed that it costs around $185, but that includes $60 for the 6" screen. Don't these fat cats in Washington know that textbooks only work on the $489 DX (and even then just barely)? Even at cost, I guarantee you're looking at a lot more than $200 per kid for one with a 10" screen.

And don't even get me started on the subject of smashed Kindle screens.

Doing the math here, my numbers are a lot higher than the DLC's, and furthermore my estimates on E-Ink's future price drop are way more pessimistic. Especially since the jury (meaning us) is still out on the longevity of E-Ink as an ideal screen technology, and only volume will really drive down the price. Wait a few years, see what happens with LCD, with laptops and netbooks, with iPhones and other smartphone platforms, and then, just maybe, you'll be able to select a decent product to subsidize 56 million times over.

Oh, and dudes, don't go creating terms like eTextbook—we already have lingo for this stuff, and you sound like you just arrived in a time machine from 1996. [DLC via New York Times]

As you can see from the diagram above, there's nothing terribly complex about the proposed system: banner ads sit atop and beside select pages, and can be catered to suit the page's content, the book's subject matter, or simply the reader's assume demographic. It's a bit like, you know, how the entire internet works, except in a book, so it gets a patent I guess?

A second, similar filing describes pretty much the same deal, this time for on-demand printed books.

Given how simple the patent is, and how eager Amazon seems to make a little extra scratch from their reader, the real question about the possibility of ebook ads is how they'd fit into the Kindle ecosystem. On this, the patent offers a few clues:

Including advertising and/or related content with on-demand printed content may prove advantageous to a consumer. For example, a lower price may be offered to a consumer regarding a request for on-demand printed content if the consumer is willing to accept advertising in the printed content

This is a "for example" section in a patent application, which is about as far away from binding as you can get. But it's interesting to think: an ebook advertising rollout—at least, a simple one, with static, predetermined ads—would be as simple as adding new listings to the Kindle Store. [Register]

Speaking at a conference this week, Bezos laid out his vision for the Kindle brand in full. Core to his plan is that the Kindle hardware and Kindle book divisions have an, uhh, open relationship:

The device team has the job of making the most remarkable purpose-built reading device in the world. We are going to give the device team competition. We will make Kindle books, at the same $9.99 price points, available on the iPhone, and other mobile devices and other computing devices.

An open-access Kindle bookstore would pose a threat to the reader's market share, so either Bezos has something mysterious up his sleeve, or he's come to terms with the fact that the Kindle—and indeed every dedicated e-reader—is essentially a stopgap device, awkwardly carrying out its single, simple task until something more versatile comes along.

When that happens, whichever company runs the de facto ebook store will stand to make tremendous amounts of money, and if Bezos' comments are anything to go by, he's planning for Amazon to assume that role. For now, though, it's all talk: Kindle iPhone app aside, the only way to read Amazon's ebooks is to plunking down some serious cash on one of the Kindle flavors. These "mobile devices and other computing devices" sound promising: let's see them. [NYT]

Bezos also noted, as we had kind of expected, that Amazon will never reveal specific sales numbers for the Kindle, which is kind of disappointing but also kind of nonchalant and cool. We knew that color e-ink isn't nearly ready for primetime, so it's no big surprise that Amazon knows it. Looks like we're stuck with black-and-white for a few more years at least. [AFP]

The larger screen isn't just cosmetic. It helps Amazon add functionality without having to justify the screen's inherent slowness. Today, we heard this a lot: "No panning, no zooming, no scrolling." The E-Ink screen isn't fast enough to support those actions smoothly, but now, at 9.7", it doesn't necessarily need to.

This opens the door for the long overdue PDF support, which is now native—teachers and colleagues can distribute reports the way they best know how, and it will look good on an easy-to read screen. Not only that, but they can distribute ridiculously unoptimized PDFs, because the Kindle now has 3.3GB of storage (though no more SD slot). Amazon's Jeff Bezos says you can store 1,500 books, but the way I see it, medical professionals and engineers will store a few hundred PDFs. The $489 price is easy to justify in certain specialized fields. (It's also going to allow easier access to pirated books, which may not be good for the book-publishing industry, but is certainly good for Kindle sales.)

The relationship with newspaper publishers is shaky at best. I can't see how an industry that's hemorrhaging money can subsidize a newfangled tech product in order to lure people (who exactly?) back to subscribing for something they are forced to publish for free online anyway. The early alliance is even more tenuous when you realize that special pricing is only offered to would-be subscribers outside of the reach of home delivery. (At least, it is for now.)

And as for maintaining the look and feel of an ink-stained broadsheet—or even a tabloid—a 9.7" screen doesn't do much to get closer to that than the current 6" screen.

The rest of Bezos' big bullet points—fast 3G network, 275,000 books and counting, $10 or less for bestsellers, no monthy fees—were all there more or less in the beginning, and are things that in no way distinguish the Kindle DX from the Kindle that came out in 2007.

So what does Amazon still need to work on?

An Alliance with Text Book Publishers UPDATED Forget NYT Bestsellers. The real way to move Kindles is to sell them to every college kid with the software equivalent of 200 backbreaking pounds of textbook. Bezos teased this in his speech, even named names but he didn't do it with enough conviction to convince me a deal was in the works anywhere close to being hammered out. Believe me, when the Prentice Halls and Houghton Mifflins of the world come around to offering reasonably priced Kindle editions of their high school and university top sellers, you're gonna hear about it.

iPhone App Updates The iPhone Kindle app was a good start, but we haven't heard much about it since the beginning. It lacked the ability to shop, it had no search or dictionary. Many people still feel that the ebook trend will only take off when the smartphones (all of 'em)—plus netbooks and tablets—get with the Amazon book retail juggernaut and make sweet sweet DRM-infected love. Only then will demand for specialized easy-on-the-eyes devices like Kindle be super obvious to Ma and Pa.

Keep Improving the Screen, and Investigate LCD The New York Times started printing its front page in color in like 1997 or 1998, if I'm not mistaken. That's over a decade of color for even the stodgiest of print pubs. (USA Today launched with color a decade before.) Pushing the E-Ink stuff is fine, but if you're going to charge uberdollars, let's see some color E-Ink. Not like they have larger customers than Amazon lined up. And while we're on the subject, how about checking in with Mary Lou Jepsen and the ultralowpowered, super awesome LCD screens she says she's working on? Blam wants touchscreens and backlighting, but that can backfire. I'd settle for something that's fast enough to allow for true "leafing" through a book.

Upgrade Old Kindles, Or Make New Ones Upgradeable Simply put, don't screw your loyal constituents. That's something Steve Jobs is known to do from time to time, but even Apple knows that you have to give a little something something to the people who paid top dollar for last year's product. PDF support would be a nice one, if only for that whole "No panning, no zooming, no scrolling" limitation. Seems the feature in the new device is a flaw in the old.

At the end, I have to applaud Amazon's continued investment and exploration of ebook readers, and if I sound impatient, it's only because I have the compressed hindsight of other product evolutions (MP3 players, movie discs, etc.) to compare this with. Two years isn't a long time to revolutionize an entire industry, and this will take much longer than that, but we want to make sure that progress is being made, and that Bezos isn't squandering Amazon's natural advantage in this field. [Kindle DX on Gizmodo]

There are improvements that make the Kindle 2 marginally better for readers, like faster page turning, smaller better page-turn buttons, longer battery life and the ability to charge via USB. None of the rest of the tweaks affect the actual business of reading directly or indirectly, and even these upgrades probably won't turn Kindle 1 owners an envious shade of green:

• 20% faster page turning: It nice because flipping ahead several E-Ink pages can be annoying—but it's not what's needed to make a real difference. You still can't leaf through a Kindle book like a real book, and that won't happen until the page refresh is 100 times (maybe 1000 times) as fast.

• Smaller inward-press page-turn buttons: The original's big right-hand page-turn button was annoying, but you just learned quickly how to pick up the device without touching it. This is definitely an improvement—especially with its MacBook-like click tension—but not a forward leap.

• Longer battery life: It already ran for a week or more with 3G turned off, but now it can go two weeks—my guess is, there's a point in there where people simply find time to charge their Kindle.

• Charging via USB: The best Kindle 2 benefit has been largely overlooked. Now that you can charge while connected to your computer, or charge using any old mini-USB cable or charger, you aren't likely to run down the battery unwittingly, or live at the mercy of Amazon's proprietary power brick.

Let's look at the other improvements, and see why they don't matter at all for actual reading:

• Better screen detail: This might be nice for looking at pretty pictures, but words are perfectly readable on the first-gen Kindle. Update: Our buddy Josh Quittner at Time mentioned that the real travesty is that E-Ink hasn't gotten more white, for higher-contrast reading. And where's the font support, so that your favorite magazines and newspapers actually look like they're supposed to?

• Thinner body: The first Kindle was already thinner than any book I take to bed, even the original mass-media paperback of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. It was also very light, so not a problem.

• Seven times more memory: Even that kid in Magnolia could've packed all his books into the first Kindle's 256MB of storage. This memory upgrade—2GB, or 1,500 books—only helps people who are using Kindle for multimedia stuff, and who does that? The memory bump is probably based on market availability: The 2GB chip was probably cheapest one offered by the manufacturer. Update: Commenter Noobs-R-Us reminded me that the thing is also missing the freakin' SD reader, so the 2GB is all you get, take it or leave it.

• Text-to-speech reading: I admit that, if the interface navigation can also be read aloud, this will be a great boon for blind people, but until voice synthesizers start to sound like Peter O'Toole, consumers won't take this over Audible when they're heading out on a road trip.

Here's what either didn't get fixed, or in fact got worse:

• File conversion: There's still no native PDF support, in fact PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP are all available only through a conversion process, one that costs money. Update: Commenter Gilbert points out there is a cumbersome but totally free way to send docs to Amazon and get them converted and emailed back—it seems the 10-cent charge is for transmitting to your Kindle directly.

• Screen size is the same: I'd rather have a bigger screen (like the insanely expensive iRex 1000S) than a "better" screen.

• Lack of rubber backing: Since the back is now slick aluminum and plastic, there's a greater chance of the thing slipping off the sink and into the toilet. What, you don't read in the bathroom?

• No more sparkle cursor: Instead of a weird but fast independent cursor to the right of the display, you now highlight stuff directly on the screen, which is slower.

The Beez says that the "Kindle vision" is "Every book ever printed in any language, available in under 60 seconds." That sounds fun but buying books will never be the plot of some Nicholas Cage movie. The selection was already good and getting better all the time, and the first Kindle had the same fast book delivery. This should not be the vision. The vision should be making Kindle even more book-like.

Before they address the needs of some hypothetical super weakling who has the aesthetic sense of Jon Ive, the cerebral voracity of Rain Man and the vision of Mr. Magoo, Amazon must address the needs of very real readers who read only a few books and magazines at a time, who like to download classic non-copyrighted lit and work-related documents for free, and who like to leaf through pages randomly. This last thing is important, though it may be insurmountable: Airport-friendly page turners don't really require non-linear random-access reading, but everything smart from Harry Potter to Infinite Jest does, and that's one concern that the Kindle, or any ebook reader, still does not address well. [Kindle 2 on Gizmodo]

These next gods will, like their predecessors, be people whose professional and private lives, and even personal appearance, are of equal importance to hordes of obsessed nerds. They're people whose creativity and willpower are presumed to steer the course of personal technology, with legions of engineers and programmers and designers and manufacturing experts carrying out their vision. The key is putting themselves out for all the public to behold, with the hopes of becoming revered by apostles who buy anything they unveil. Seeing as we're running low on golden calves, let's check out the current options:

APPLE
Tim Cook
People say Cook is the man who makes the beautiful products turn into a beautiful pile of money, and he actually took over Apple when Jobs was recovering from his first surgery. A southern gentleman, avid cyclist, iron-fisted boss, mysterious loner, emotionless decider—man, Cook is so easy to reduce to two-word stereotypical descriptors, he's bound for godhood. Even his name comes packaged in a suave but unforgettable two syllables. The catch of course is that he can't ascend the mighty throne of Apple until the big cheese retires or bows out due to health. Cook's trod the boards at Stevenotes before, but now he's holding back—or being held back—perhaps because if he becomes big boss, he'll need a fresh start. All eyes not on Steve are on this guy. Can he fill the shoes left open and be the forceful visionary that Jobs is?
Chance of Godhood? 75% with a few variables we'd rather not think about

Phil Schiller
Schiller has helped sell Apple products since forever, but the general impression is that he's best used as a right-hand man, a Boy Wonder to the real Batman. The mullet/beer gut combo probably doesn't do wonders for his public image, either, though "death diving" from 30 feet up like he did back in '99 isn't a bad way to entertain the fanboys. It's easy to forget that Phil used to be involved in product development, including notebooks, and some even credit him for the addition of the iPod's clickwheel. We also hear that the man can kick some ass behind the scenes. He might have what it takes to be the next product don of Apple, but the current hierarchy won't make it easy for him.
Chance of Godhood? 35% assuming the Apple board is thinking like we're thinking

MICROSOFT
Steve Ballmer
The Monkey Man act may work to get attention, to rally your troops and put fear in your enemies, but it's too easy to make fun of in Photoshop. This kind of attention has taken Ballmer pretty far along the road to godhood, but the public doesn't often see the quieter, shrewder Ballmer that we know exists. The key is this: He is not a code nerd, but a Harvard-educated marketing-and-sales guy. Being able to climb inside the mind of the Average Joe, typically oriented around useful features instead of sheer software power, is what Microsoft needs to limit bloat in product design. If Windows 7 is a success, we'll see the Bruce Banner in this Hulk, but if it's not, it'll be "BALLMER SMASH!!!!" and the end of Microsoft.
Chance of Godhood? 85% assuming Windows 7 erases the terrible memory of Vista

Robbie Bach
Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices boss has Xbox, Zune, Media Center and a lot of other potentially tasty toys in his workshop, and he's rumored to be the man who would replace Ballmer. What's most important here? His group accounts for most of the Microsoft products that don't suck. Word is, though, that the limited profitability of his group, today, limits the amount of respect he gets internally. We say the rest of the company should stop and see what he's doing right. He certainly understands the art of the keynote, strutting around and working the crowd with the shoulders-forward energy of a college football coach. He may be too good at sticking to the script, though. His cautious replies may be good for stockholders, but you can't inspire the masses without a little bit o' crazy.
Chance of Godhood? 70%, higher if he is heard matter-of-factly admitting that Windows Mobile sucks

SONY
Sir Howard Stringer
Usually you get the "sir" appended to your name after you live a wild and crazy life in the public eye, but this guy is only more and more in the spotlight each year. When he talks he brings delightful controversy and charisma, but he doesn't do enough with big crowds. How come no gloaty Blu-ray victory dance party? Chilling with Charlie Rose isn't a direct path to divinity, but showing up with Tom Hanks at CES is a start. Still, Sony needs to regain gadget clout, not remind the world that it's a piracy-fearing movie maker. One thing he has done is give the Japanese firm a leader who isn't afraid to lay off when the company is bloated with employees not pulling their weight, unlike traditional Japanese CEOs. And he encourages Japanese employees to work abroad to increase their understanding of the customers of the world. But he's also been working hard to unify the company's software and hardware development not only in each division, but across product groups. Only Apple and Microsoft have done this successfully, but Sony is actually making progress here, behind the scenes.
Chance of Godhood? 45% because it might just be too late for the guy—or for Sony

GOOGLE
Larry Page/Sergey Brin
Never mind that Google keeps more products in beta than it launches or that these two are tech titans already on the web. Their first foray into hardware was received lukewarmly. But Google is here to stay, and no matter what CEO Eric Schmidt does, these two dudes' faces will be the ones people think of. The last 60 years of tech are full of dynamic duos—Woz and Jobs, Hewlett and Packard, etc.—but unless you've got the timing of Martin and Lewis, it's hard to pull off a tandem keynote. It definitely doesn't help when you show up late wearing rollerblades. We just hope that the company can give their Android division the support it needs to compete with the companies full time in the gadget game, because Android is not only disruptive, but it's the ammo that the phone makers need to compete with the all-in-one giants from Redmond and Cupertino.
Chance of Godhood? 60%, could go up if they release more products, or undergo the operation Damon and Kinnear had in Stuck On You

ASUS
Jonney Shih
Netbook-revolutionary Asus is probably the company (companEee?) doing the most with Apple's old mantra, "think different." Their stuff coming out of Taiwan is radical and fun, and Jonney Shih, little known in these parts, is the sole capitano up top. He's not afraid to rock the microphone, but he keeps doing it at other people's events. Asus also makes a lot of notebooks for competitors, and has hardware expertise to spare. But in terms of software, they're still limited by a strong dependence on Windows for their notebooks. As for their weak brand presence in the mainstream: Dude, you got some cash, time to throw bigger parties of your own, and not just ones timed with CES. And take another page from Apple: Learn how to keep products secret until they're finished and shipping.
Chance of Godhood? 40%, more if he finds a good barber and a dealer of fine turtlenecks and presentation sweaters

HTC
Cher Wang
The phone maker who first teamed with Google and launched the T-Mobile G1 is chaired by, yep, a lady! Named Cher! Cher actually got her start selling computer parts for a computer company, and helped found HTC to realize the vision of the true handheld computer. Even if the HTC brand is only a few years old to consumers, HTC has been making phones for other companies for a while: One in every six phones sold in the US this year were from her factories. They'll grow stronger now that Android is here and Windows Mobile is (hopefully) in a period of major improvement, but their branding and design is still a bit on the chunky side. From the looks of her official corporate portrait, she could probably use a queer eye or two—I know I sound like a dick here, but sadly society does judge women more harshly than men on personal appearance. My guess is that as someone who emphasizes being a "devout Christian" in her bio, she'd probably frown on the whole "tech god" thing anyway.
Chance of Godhood? 30% since Cher's probably too busy to take our advice anyway—she also runs the chipmaker VIA

PALM
Ed Colligan
Colligan's generally stormy course at Palm's helm finally reached some smooth waters: He just unveiled Pre, a fresh, attractive take on the smartphone, bolstered by healthy chunks of DNA from Apple and other new smartphone platforms via the talent they aggressively poached. He's proven he has what it takes to make big aggressive changes with this handset, and get the right talent in place, just like Steve Jobs would. And Colligan isn't afraid to make bold brash statements, a requirement of godhood. But can he go all the way? Currently, his problem is with presenting—he's not all that memorable, which might actually be good if you're the guy who introduced the world to the Palm Foleo.
Chance of Godhood? 15% cuz did I mention he believed, not long ago, that Foleo would "redefine how people work"?

Jon Rubinstein
The "executive chairman" to Colligan's "president and CEO," it's hard to tell if Rubinstein is sitting on the throne or next to it. He has our vote. The man in charge of bringing about Palm's would-be salvation, the Pre, previously at Apple led development of the frickin' iPod (maybe you've heard of it), and has actually out Apple'd Apple with the UI in this new handset. And Rubinstein's team is one of the only in the world that is capable of revolutionizing cellphone operating systems. He keeps it cool on stage, reminding us a little of Nintendo's amiable US boss, Reggie Fils-Aime. And his more than passing resemblance to Jeff Goldblum is a plus, too. One limitation in Palm that both Rubinstein and Colligan have to face: Palm will never build an end to end personal tech environment the way Apple and Microsoft can, even if they are on par in terms of making interfaces from the future.
Chance of Godhood? 55%, but sky's the limit if he can shoo Colligan away

AMAZON
Jeff Bezos
Bezos already was a god—a dotcom god. Many of those other former household names are now mercifully forgotten, but Bezos still shows up on magazine covers. He recently heralded in the eradication of DRM from online music retailers to the applause of paying music customers. But what really surprised us, and earned him a place on this list was that he had such a grand vision of what the ebook should be—the replacement of the book—and the funding and drive to make it happen. But he should do more live appearances to drum up more mainstream excitement over software initiatives like the DRM-free MP3 store and video on demand. And he needs to keep Kindles in stock long enough for people to buy them. Most importantly, he's finally learning that tech gods are only as good as their next products. Just because Bezos understands books on a deep level doesn't mean he'll ever be able to do any other type of gadget besides E-Ink tablets. That's ultimately limiting when it comes to building next-generation personal tech ecosystems. In the meantime, where's my Kindle 2?
Chance of Godhood? 30% if he does more bragging in person, though that braying laugh of his could be a liability

DEKA/SEGWAY
Dean Kamen
Back in 2001, the rumor mill leading up to the launch of the Segway rivaled any Apple buzz. Before the product was even seen, people wrote about it being civilization-changing, and as important as the internet. Kamen's been on a roll (get it?) since then, not just developing the police Segway, the golf Segway and some kind of Segway footstool, but also perfecting a water purifying technology and a truly robotic prosthetic arm, all while greening up his own private island. He's did it all with few mainstream public appearances: Showing up at All Things D with a video of the robot arm—not the real thing—was a misstep in our minds, but appearing on Colbert with a working water purifier was definitely a sign of publicity (and worship) to come. If he can invent something for the gadget lovers of the world that is as bright and thoughtful and life changing as his humanitarian tech, he'd become the Jobs that Jobs wishes he was.
Chance of Godhood? A tragic 45%, seriously, this guy is Q, MacGyver and Hank Scorpio rolled into one—why isn't he a god already?

FACEBOOK
Mark Zuckerberg
The sad fact is that our whole world is shifting over from hardware to software. Sure, Kamens are still needed to make sure there's progress in mechanical devices, but our toys are less and less mechanical. Facebook is probably the best example of an internet platform that has stolen thunder from the gadget world. Trouble with Facebook is that it's big and amorphous, and the charming Zuckerberg needs a second act to propel him into the heavens. Still, he's like 13, with his whole life and a lot of money ahead. He'll think of something. But to be a Gadget God, he'll have to always depend on the hardware of others. At least until we have browsers in our brains with which we can access our social networks with.
Chance of Godhood? 95% even if it doesn't happen in my lifetime

These are all strong candidates, but the assumption is that there will, in fact, be new gadget gods. Maybe, like the ancient gods themselves, our new era doesn't have as much use for them. Maybe it's not just the transition to software, but the shift from bright ideas to massive team efforts. Or maybe Jobs and Gates are the kinds of guys that only come along once a century, and we're gonna have to wait a little longer for something that divine.

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