Slashdot Mirror
Why Kindle 2's Screen Took 12 Years and $150 Million
waderoush writes "Critics are eating up everything about Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reader except its $359 price tag. But if you think that's expensive, take a look behind the Kindle at E Ink, the Cambridge, MA, company that has spent $150 million since 1997 developing the electronic paper display that is the Kindle's coolest feature. In the company's first interview since the Kindle 2 came out, E Ink CEO Russ Wilcox says it took far longer than expected to make the microcapsule-based e-paper film not only legible, but durable and manufacturable. Now that the Kindle 2 is finally getting readers to take e-books seriously, however, Wilcox says he sees a profitable future in which many book, magazine, and newspaper publishers will turn to e-paper, if only to save money on printing and delivery. (Silicon Alley Insider recently calculated that the New York Times could save more than $300 million a year by shutting down its presses and buying every subscriber a Kindle). 'What we've got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year,' Wilcox says."
should make the case, so you can read them in the john and not spread germs
Nullius in verba
they had me at shutting down the presses.
eInk will never replace newspaper!
How will we start beach bonfires? What will we line the bottom of the bird cage with? What will we do when we forget our umbrellas? What will we put under kitty's food bowl? What will we roll up and smack our friends with? How will we "copy" things with Silly Putty?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Well, that's because every discussion about economics on slashdot reminds somebody of the broken windows fallacy. In a few minutes somebody will claim Kindle is a hoax because saving energy on newspaper presses violates (their understanding of) the laws of thermodynamics. Then somebody else will say turning pages on Kindle is inherently unreliable because of the halting problem.
I agree! In the name of not harming anyone, we should never allow progress in these troubling times. Why, think of all the jobs we'll save! I just bought a set of torches, a horse, and a plow. Do your patriotic duty!
But I have an even better idea. Why don't we use our military to evacuate cities and then destroy them. Think of all the jobs that will be created in the evacuation, military, and construction industries!
SSC
it would really be nice to hear about a new book, download it, and start reading it in minutes rather than wait a few days for it to arrive in the mail.
Yeah! Fuck you, patience.
I'm a little amazed that no one has linked to yesterday's XKCD.
Refuse to print stories about the Kindle?
Bark less. Wag more.
What're they going to do, throw jelly donuts and beer at us? I, for one, welcome our new jelly-donut-and-beer-throwing overlords.
You seem to think that discussions here always wind up with the same old erroneous arguments. If that were the case, Slashdot would lose its common carrier status.
Greed? How so?
It's basic economics of supply and demand. There is no more "Greed" in the equation than that of the publishers selling paper books at $20, they have their margins and operating costs.
My guess is what your definition of greed is, "It's a toy that I can't justify for the price, though I might like to have it if it was cheaper".
Sounds more like your crying 'sour grapes' to me.