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."

Comments

purell

[bugs2squash]

should make the case, so you can read them in the john and not spread germs

Re:purell

[sgt scrub]

'What we've got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year,' Wilcox says."

Anyone able to translate that into number of trees saved? Not only does it save trees but the chemistry involved in making paper is horrible. Even with new process'. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=1188&content_id=CTP_003400&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=b6dfb0f1-988d-4fd1-96e3-8856d0b81993

Re:purell

[fataugie]

That assumes that some of us won't cut down trees just for the fun of it.

You're speaking with someone who lit a tire on Earth Day just because it pissed off the hippies in the neighborhood.

Re:purell

[macxcool]

Anyone able to translate that into number of trees saved?

Once again, these trees are not from clear-cut tropical forests made into farmland for subsistence farming. These trees are most likely in areas managed by forestry companies who plant at least as many trees as they cut.

There are regulations in western countries and the forestry companies would be putting themselves out of business if they cut down all the trees.

Re:purell

[Yvan256]

I also tried to do the same thing last year. Except that I'm Canadian.

The police didn't find it funny that I tried to burn a Canadian Tire on Earth Day just to piss off the hippies in the neighborhood.

Re:purell

[fataugie]

You guys scare me....Canadians I mean.
90% of you live within 10 miles of our border.

Are you guys getting ready to invade?

Re:purell

[SupplyMission]

Har har har... burning a Canadian Tire...

For people not from Canada: http://www.canadiantire.ca/

Re:purell

[DrinkDr.Pepper]

I can just imagine:

Purell this week announces that it is suing Amazon and E-Ink for disrupting their hand sanitizer <del>racket</del>business.

Re:purell

[eleuthero]

though the others have noted they will cut down trees for fun... I am thinking more importantly that paper mills get their trees typically from tree farms... which have a record for 1) using eucalyptus trees which damage soil but 2) treating damaged soil to reuse the land... We aren't saving any trees by stopping the production of paper... unless you are one of those concerned about dryads being killed and then, well, I for one am not that concerned about you anymore.

Re:purell

[jcr]

You're speaking with someone who lit a tire on Earth Day just because it pissed off the hippies in the neighborhood.

What do you use to get the tire started? I tried ethanol, but it burned out without lighting the tire. I eventually had to build a fire out of copies of Silent Spring, the IPCC report, and Earth in the Balance to get it hot enough.

-jcr

Re:purell

[Applekid]

So let me get this right: because there's currently a plan associated with gathering a resource, it is wrong to economize the use of that resource? And that companies deserve protection from becoming obsolete?

No, he's saying that because there's currently a plan associated with gathering a resource that's directly proportional to it's replacement that economizing use will not "save trees". If demand goes down fewer trees will be cut and hence fewer will be planted. The trees saved are those that would never have been planted. Trust me that those that find vast percentages of their land not profitable due to increased supply will still chop down the trees and perhaps do something more economically viable with the land.

Buggy-whips and Whale-bone are simply not in demand. Leather for the whips diverted to other things and whale bones are as well.

Re:purell

[Lumpy]

Why? trees saved means nothing. Most paper come from managed forests that are replanted after harvest.

Most of the destructive tree cutting comes from land clearing for useless things like Golf courses, Subdivisions, Farms, and industry.

The logging industry is the most "GREEN" industry you can get, they understand conservation.

Re:purell

[Duradin]

Wait, you're making it sound like trees are a renewable resource that can be managed to provide a sustainable harvest! That can't be right! Once a tree is cut another one can never be regrown in the same spot! That's why we have to save trees... right?

Re:purell

[Endlisnis]

You ignore the environmental cost of manufacturing the Kindle. I suspect that building 1 million of them (one for each NYT reader), would cause more environmental problems than printing all 365 million papers combined.

Re:purell

[godrik]

Not only does it save trees but the chemistry involved in making paper is horrible.

I thought that producing electronic device were very costly and relatively dangerous: capacitor, batteries. To be fair, we will need an estimation on the cost of producing those device and their expected life time.

Can someone provide an estimation ? (I have no ideas of the real cost).

Re:purell

[mweather]

If you listen closely at the border, you can hear them sharpening their ice skates, biding their time.

Re:purell

[fataugie]

The last time I tried to get into Canada, I was turned back at the border, so I have no idea how many are up there.
Next time, I'll try growing a mullet to bypass the checks at the border

(Mullet == Canadian Passport).

Re:purell

[FishWithAHammer]

Old growth forests have maximized the amount of carbon they will ever sequester and don't even really provide a lot of oxygen to the environment (compared to other sources). Cutting them down is not inherently bad, as long as you aren't freeing up that carbon--if you're making paper or wooden products out of the trees (two-by-fours, chairs, whatever), it's fine.

At any rate, American logging companies at least plant more trees than they ever plan to harvest.

Re:purell

[Mr. Slippery]

Once a tree is cut another one can never be regrown in the same spot! That's why we have to save trees... right?

Trees can be replaced easily. Forest ecosystems can't. If we use fewer trees, we can let some tree farms begin the slow, slow process of returning to being actual forests.

A tree farm is NOT a forest.

Re:purell

[SnarfQuest]

Are we about to be invaded by people wearing hockey masks? Chain saws optional?

Re:purell

[fugue]

Good point about sequestration, at least if the trees are not burned. Of course, there are other reasons to save them. On the practical side, it's very difficult to cut them down without causing erosion, topsoil loss, destruction of complex and far-reaching ecosystems associated with habitat loss, etc... But perhaps more importantly, there are also interesting quality-of-life issues involved with destroying things of great beauty. At what point is it just not worth cramming a few billion more people onto an ugly planet?

Re:purell

[DM9290]

Old growth forests have maximized the amount of carbon they will ever sequester and don't even really provide a lot of oxygen to the environment (compared to other sources). Cutting them down is not inherently bad, as long as you aren't freeing up that carbon--if you're making paper or wooden products out of the trees (two-by-fours, chairs, whatever), it's fine.

killing endangered animals is not inherently bad either. As long as all the elephants and tigers have their carbon properly sequestered into house hold products or jewelry it's fine.

Re:purell

[NevarMore]

Not only does it save trees but the chemistry involved in making paper is horrible. Even with new process'

The process for making plastic, circuit boards, and e-paper in the kindle is cleaner how?

Re:purell

[Saerko]

Here's the thing: you're assuming all trees cut down and processed into paper are grown on land owned by paper manufacturers and mills. You're also assuming that replanting always occurs.

What actually happens is a little different. Let's say I'm a company, and I happen to--for some reason--own a forest. Perhaps I use it for experiments, perhaps for milling. I replant because I have an incentive to keep processing wood or using the forest.

I go bankrupt or get bought.

Now these "friendly" fellows called Asset Strippers come in. They do just as their name implies...and strip my assets. This means removing every conceivable resource from the land, and then selling it for as much money as possible.

The truth is that there hasn't been any money in cutting down forests as a sustainable business for about 10-15 years. So a lot of forestry these days is a consequence of asset stripping, rather than any normal business practice. If the bottom dropped out on timber for paper use, you'd probably see clearcutting from asset strippers cease because the cost of the logging would be greater than the profit to be reaped.

Boom! Problem solved and explained.

Re:purell

[CannonballHead]

Congratulations, that was "Informative." =P :)

Re:purell

[Carnildo]

Trees can be replaced easily. Forest ecosystems can't. If we use fewer trees, we can let some tree farms begin the slow, slow process of returning to being actual forests.

I drive past a tree farm on a regular basis. If it were shut down, it wouldn't return to forest. It would return to semi-desert scrubland. The only reason there's a tree farm there is because it's just up the hill from the fourth-largest river in the United States. Most places where trees are farmed for paper are like this: take a chunk of cheap land with good irrigation, plant a bunch of fast-growing trees, and harvest them every 15 years or so.

Trees farmed for lumber are different: since they grow slowly and need to be larger to produce worthwhile products, they're usually grown in places where trees would naturally grow.

Re:purell

[QuantumRiff]

Actually, forest ecosystems rely on destruction every few years to clear out the ground clutter and dead trees. This used to be accomplished by fire, but then we started putting these fires out. Then, we logged them, so everything was in a balance.. but in the mid 90's or so, we stopped logging because of environmental reasons in the west, and over the last few years, we have had HUGE fires on the west coast. Logging or fire was the only way to kill the western pine beetle. With no logging, and putting out the fires combined, HUGE sections of the forest are dying. Near where I used to live in Oregon, there was a stand of dead trees that was measured in hundreds of square miles from the beetle. within the next few years, its going to be an insane forest fire.

Re:purell

[macmurph]

In the case of Indonesia, the rainforest is being cut illegally to supply China with wood and paper (and hence US bound products). You can't just "replant" an ecosystem like a rainforest because it has a lot of fragile symbiotic relationships. Once its gone, it becomes cattle grazing land (see australia or southern mexico for examples).

This is why Forest Stewardship Council lumber and paper products should be promoted. http://www.fsc.org/

Re:purell

[amRadioHed]

You're speaking with someone who lit a tire on Earth Day just because it pissed off the hippies in the neighborhood.

What an iconoclast you are. Do you also piss in people's beer at the pub just because they don't like it?

Your parents must be so proud of their contribution to the gene pool.

Re:purell

[jon3k]

nice, you even pissed off this hippy just by talking about burning a tire to piss off some other hippys. that's two hippies with a single stone!

Re:purell

[Seraphim1982]

Why wouldn't a drop in the paper market cause more wood suppliers to go backrupt, and have their forests stripped?

Re:purell

[pilgrim23]

Speaking as a collector of antiquarian books; made of linen paper and just as fine today as they were 300-400 years ago when they were made, I find this curious. I also wonder in 300-400 years how well the kindle interface will work compared to a standard bound book.

Re:purell

[amRadioHed]

I'm not pissed off, but I am shocked that someone would brag about such idiocy. What what could be more pathetic than engaging in destructive behavior just because other people don't like it?

Re:purell

[maxume]

Much of the logging that is done leads to tree farms, but not all of it (for instance, the majority of North America has been logged at least once). This is somewhat related to it being rather difficult to farm hardwoods (they die a lot, and grow funny, mitigating the benefits of nice neat rows).

Even if logging ceased, there are all sorts of more subtle things to worry about, like worms:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=invasive-earthworms-denude-forests

Re:purell

[shutdown -p now]

that's two hippies with a single stone!

No, that's two hippies with a single tire!

Re:purell

[JackCroww]

I live adjacent to 250 acres of tree farm. It *is* a forest. No doubt about that. Around 1900, it was a sheep farm completely devoid of trees. Now only clear-cutting would keep it from becoming more of a forest.

And the dead trees from it keep my house warm in winter via my two woodstoves. I use less than 200 gallons of heating oil per year to keep my house warm.

Re:purell

[Destoo]

But be careful. If you die in Canada, you die in real life too.

Re:purell

[andy_t_roo]

actually if you click the "Looking for company info? Click here" button you get company info where you can find nuggets of wisdom such as
"Canadian Tire has a long-standing tradition of operating with integrity and we aspire to be Canadaâ(TM)s most trusted company. We expect each of our team members to perform in a manner that maintains the trust and confidence of our shareholders"

Sold

[Camann]

"(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)" You had me at Kindle.

Re:Sold

[RapmasterT]

they had me at shutting down the presses.

Re:Sold

[RapmasterT]

wouldn't be the first industry a union rode into oblivion by refusing to accept the inevitable changes brought by technology.

Re:Sold

[ubrgeek]

Refuse to print stories about the Kindle?

Oh noes

[MrEricSir]

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?

Re:Oh noes

[0racle]

How will England sell fish and chips?

Re:Oh noes

[TheRaven64]

You haven't been able to sell fish and chips in newspaper for a long time, because of the ink being transferred into the food. Amazingly, this market has been filled by companies printing wax paper that looks like news print, which chippies buy to wrap the fish and chips.

Re:Oh noes

[Sabathius]

How will we "copy" things with Silly Putty?

You had me at Silly Putty.

Re:Oh noes

[Lumpy]

How will we start beach bonfires?
short the battery and stuff it under the wood. you'll have a fire soon.

What will we line the bottom of the bird cage with?

flexible plastic that you clean off. Why are you looking for a wasteful solution?

What will we do when we forget our umbrellas?

Get wet.

What will we roll up and smack our friends with?

Hit them with the kindle. or better yet a panasonic toughbook. They wont forget that one and you wont damage anything important.

Re:Oh noes

[diamondsw]

> How will we start beach bonfires?

Kindle boxes!

> What will we line the bottom of the bird cage with?

Kindles!

> What will we do when we forget our umbrellas?

Kindles!

> What will we put under kitty's food bowl?

Kindles!

> What will we roll up and smack our friends with?

Kindles! (bonus for harder smackability)

> How will we "copy" things with Silly Putty?

Damn, you got me there. I knew there was something wrong with this Kindle-utopia. :-)

Re:Oh noes

[nsayer]

How will we start beach bonfires?

Or, indeed, our charcoal grill chimney starters?

Fortunately, the end of newspapers arrived almost a decade ago at our house. The workaround I use for the chimney starter is that I hold a propane plumbing torch under it for a minute or so. It's actually more reliable than the paper was anyway.

Now if only I could come up with something like a "charcoal starter stand" that would hold the chimney starter over a natural gas flame for a minute (plumbed from the house gas lines), that would be really convenient.

Re:Oh noes

[RobBebop]

sudo mod me up

sudo make me a sandwich, and I'll mod you up.

outsourcing cheaper: News at 11

[fantomas]

"(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)."

Third world labourers wage bills significantly lower than those in developed countries: your company will save money by closing down local presses and giving people output from developing countries.

More news on this channel shortly, don't look away!

Re:outsourcing cheaper: News at 11

[timeOday]

In your world, are cellphones a ploy to put bike messengers out of work?

Re:While good in one way

[Volante3192]

the summary doesn't seem to indicate that while saving tons on cars per year, you'll be costing businesses down the line money, lost jobs (think feed, blacksmithing, carriage repairs), etc.... So while it may save one type of business, it may put others on the street.

Costs or Price?

[0100010001010011]

Their costs may drop but are we going to see a reduction in price? If the Music industry is any indication we'll pay more for the 'ability' to use the Kindle.

Vinyl records were large, required manufacturing and shipping. MP3s only require bandwidth and a server. (Which isn't free, but much cheaper, and scales up much better). With the whole TTS issue I'm guessing that the Printing industry is going to copy the Music industry (and Video industry)...

Re:While good in one way

[manekineko2]

Your argument seems to me like an instance of the Broken Window Fallacy:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window.

As a Heads Up

[value_added]

For anyone interested, Jeff Bezos is scheduled to appear tonight on Charlie Rose on your local PBS station.

No doubt, he'll spend most of his time talking about Kindle.

Saving or just another Lock In

[icebike]

> What we've got here is a technology that could be saving the world $80 billion a year,' Wilcox says."

Really?
What happened to the 80 billion worth of printers, loggers, paper mills, transport, and fish-wrappers? Did they all go on Welfare so we can ship their jobs overseas to the Kindle manufacturing countries?

News print is a renewable resource. Is the Plastic in Kindle?

You can look around the ads (or read them as you see fit) in newsprint.

Will you be able to do that on the Kindle when corporate sponsors for media grab control of the device and make you stare at an advertisement for 6 seconds prior to viewing the content of a story?

Kindle might be great for books, but remember, its principal reason for being is to enforce DRM, to keep the book you bought on ONE device, to prevent sharing, or even transfer.

Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.

Re:Saving or just another Lock In

[rhsanborn]

As a Sony Reader owner, I appreciate eInk reading significantly more than reading large amounts of text on a back-lit screen. It just feels easier on the eyes.

Re:Saving or just another Lock In

[cryfreedomlove]

Icebike,

You make a good point about DRM and closed systems.

However, your first point about loggers and paper mills is lost on me. Is is my moral duty to buy paper books so a logger can keep his current job? Was Henry Ford a bad person because he destroyed the demand for blacksmiths in the United States?

Re:Saving or just another Lock In

[nine-times]

Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.

Kindles do have some features that your netbook probably doesn't. For one, it's very light, thin, and doesn't require you to open it like a clamshell device. Second, it has electronic ink, which lowers power consumption and supposedly is much easier on the eyes. Also, I've read that you get free wireless internet (via cell phone networks) to download books and such wherever you are.

Now I don't know whether Kindles will ultimately do very well, but they aren't the same sort of device as a netbook.

Re:Saving or just another Lock In

[merreborn]

once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.

They're not comparable. Your average netbook has a battery life measured in hours. The Kindle's battery lasts over 30 hours. In addition, people report that the display is much more comfortable to read for long periods.

And of course, the kindle is smaller and lighter, and includes free 3G internet access.

Different tools for different jobs.

Re:Saving or just another Lock In

[icebike]

So after stating that they are not comparable, you proceed to compare them??

You make far too much of mere temporal technical issues. Display technology, battery run time, and form factors change all the time. The netbook does so much more than a kindle.

DRM for books :(

[Anonymous Coward]

They've already tried to put DRM on these things, what makes you think they'll stop? This is just another attempt at turning book ownership into the same thing music ownership has become :(

Re:While good in one way

[shutdown -p now]

the summary doesn't seem to indicate that while saving tons on printing press per year, you'll be costing businesses down the line money, lost jobs (think ink, delivery, machinery engineers), etc.... So while it may save one type of business, it may put others on the street.

Like pretty much any other invention in the history of humanity, it may cost someone his (before, profitable) business model, but ultimately it benefits everyone on a much larger scale. This goes for telephone, automobile, airplane, TV, Internet...

hrmmm

[jollyreaper]

I've not yet had a chance to check one of these out. As I understand it, the look and feel of reading the eink display is just like reading bright white paper fresh from the laser printer. I've never had problems reading text on computer screens for long stretches but many people say it causes eye strain for them.

I'm curious as to how this technology scales. It boggles the mind to think it took that much time and money to develop but now that they have it, how cheap can they make it? Could they get the readers down to a more reasonable cost? And what about the books? I have no problem paying a buck or two for a rental like getting a movie out of a DVD kiosk -- I only have the dvd for a limited time, would have to pay again if I wanted it later, and have nothing to physically show for it. I feel more possessive when talking about books, especially books with DRM. DRM, unless you hack it, means your purchase is as impermanent as a rental and renting a book for $9.99 is a pretty damn expensive proposition.

This also brings us back to the issue of resale. There are so many books available on Amazon for what essentially boils down to shipping and handling. I can find even recent books for 75% off the cover price. If physical books are no longer printed or printed in far smaller runs, this means that the secondary market collapses. I can't borrow a book from a friend after they read it. I can't sell the book to a bookstore when I'm done. If my friend wants a copy, he's paying $9.99 the same as I did.

I don't know how this is all going to shake down but it'll certainly be an interesting fight.

Re:hrmmm

[timeOday]

If physical books are no longer printed or printed in far smaller runs, this means that the secondary market collapses.

As a fellow book cheapskate I agree that is a little frightening. Hopefully the efficiency of electronic delivery, combined with the market forces of supply and demand, will force e-publishers to lower their prices after a book is a few months old. (Though I realize this has been a long-running issue with iTunes with many objecting to graduated pricing.)

If nothing else, look at it this way, somebody will build a lego Mindstorms robot to turn the pages on Kindle so you can scan it in and upload it to bittorrent without even cutting the spine off, take that DRM :) PS if you want me to implement this cool hack please gift me a new Kindle 2, I want one.

Re:hrmmm

[zenyu]

I've not held one nor seen one update the screen, so I can't speak to those attributes. But I have seen the screen and it is nothing like black text on bright white paper. It's like black text on drab gray paper, it's too low contrast to have any appeal over a printed book. If the reader was priced at $9.99, and a had large selection of $1-$2 books were available (pot-boilers and other commuter fare), I think it would take over the world in short order, but it's just not nearly as user friendly for most people as a book. For blind people and those with the kinds of motor function impairments that make holding a book or turning the pages difficult or impossible it is probably a great improvement, so I wouldn't say it will have no market after the fad fades. And it is of course possible that the display quality and price will improve greatly in the next year or two.

Re:hrmmm

[EricWright]

My wife's Kindle showed up yesterday. I was blown away by the display. At one time, it looks like a fake image plastered on top of the case AND like an actual printed page. Watching it redraw the screen is the only time you realize that this isn't a static picture. There's absolutely no flicker in the foreground or background.

She read hers for a couple of hours last night and only put it down when she nearly fell asleep. I think it's easier on the eyes than any other electronic device I've seen.

As to the price tags, yes, new books are typically $9.99, but they have a large back catalog. My wife found several short stories for $0.45 each, and some other, older novels in the $4-5 range.

[disclaimer]I'm not an Amazon fanboy...[/disclaimer]

Re:While good in one way

[bagboy]

except that theory indicates the harm to the first business. In this case, the first business' business model is broken - (subscription based-news) due to technology. Lowering costs does not fix the business model. If you want to salvage a newspaper, they HAVE to rethink their model.

Re:While good in one way

[greg_barton]

So while it may save one type of business, it may put others on the street.

Shall I send you a buggy whip, sir?

The math is simple. Say your subscription to the NY Times costs $1 per day, $365 per year. That's a Kindle. Even if you replace them every two years, and pay retail for them (which are both unlikely) you're still coming out on top if you give them away.

I'm sorry, but we shouldn't support a business model if it's grossly inefficient, not in this day and age.

Re:I guess this explains...

[moosesocks]

The Motorola F3 has a (fairly rudimentary) E-Ink display, and only costs about $25 for an unlocked handset.

If they can get these things in a lot of devices, the $150mil R&D should be easily recoverable. Remember that the Kindle also includes a wireless modem, storage, and a decent amount of processing power.

Don't want one

[Adrian Lopez]

Sorry, but as cool as I think the concept of e-Ink really is, I can't get past the fact that native Kindle books are tied to your Amazon account. The Kindle represents an attack on the first sale doctrine, and I refuse to support it to the tune of $400 plus the price of crippled books.

Re:Don't want one

[Killjoy_NL]

Check out www.scribd.com then :)

Daily Show appearance

[AlpineR]

Jeff Bezos also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a couple days ago. Jon gave him a hard time about how you have to pay $359 just for the device and another $10 per book (some of which are DRM'ed). Mr. Bezos didn't have a good response.

What I think he should have pointed out is that The Daily Show interviews many authors and 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.

Re:Daily Show appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Daily Show appearance

[stewbee]

I saw the episode also. I think Jeff's answer was as good as he could give. He was upfront about the fact that it was up to the publishers about their chosen DRM policies. I would rather him have been upfront and honest about this than to deflect the answer. Honesty like this is refreshing. He was not trying to hide anything.

Additionally, from interviews that I see on the Daily Show, John Stewart can sometimes be a bit overbearing so being able to get some of the points you would like to as the interviewee may not happen. Additionally, it is after all a comedy show, so John will always take the chance to crack jokes. (Jokes he probably should have avoided, because Jeff's laugh was kind of scary). I think it would have been neat if he could have demoed the unit a bit more too, but all in all, I thought the interview was pretty good.

Re:While good in one way

[timeOday]

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.

Re:Kindle 2 got your tongue?

[Daravon]

Your (troll?) post confuses me to no end. You seem to rebuke criticism of the Kindle in your points while admitting there might some truth to the complaints. That sounds like you like it.

Jump ahead to your summary, and you say "it sucks ass".

Inbetween those areas, you reference an outdated rumor about a now confirmed/release second Kindle.

Summary: You work for Fox News.

Re:While good in one way

[fataugie]

I'm sorry, you are the one that's working under an incorrect assumption.

You ASSUME you'll be able to BUY a Kindle2.
The Kindle 1 was almost never in stock...and I looked often.
It was always on a pre-order basis. ;-)

Re:While good in one way

[nine-times]

It was always on a pre-order basis. ;-)

Does that mean that, if you order one, you'll eventually get one? Just not right away?

Either way, if there were enough buyers, I'm sure Amazon would ramp up production. When there are shortages like this, it's often because they don't want to ramp up production too much and then end up with a surplus they can't sell.

Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2

[hackus]

We already have something far better than a Kindle.

It is called a Netbook with a web browser.

Not only that, my browser is totally open and I do not have to buy a $354 unit again when I want to read my books, or print them out. My books do not magically evaporate because I did not pay a license fee to read them on some crappy black and white device.

Kindle. It bites.

Kindle 2! It bites more!

Stupid idea.

Dumb.

Oh, and the web has ALREADY saved far more trees than you can possibly imagine. Way before the Kindle got here, newspapers were starting to go out of business, computer manufacturers were delivering documentation on CD in PDF form.

Way too much hype around this stupid device.

-Hack

Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2

[fataugie]

Actually, I don't think you went far enough.

Kindle2 == Steak knife (good at one thing)

Netbook == Swiss Army Knife (pretty good at a BUNCH of things)

Kindle2 price is equivilent to a Netbook

For me, the netbook makes more sense for the money.
If the Kindle was $50, then fine.
But it's too much for a single purpose item of that sort.

Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2

[merreborn]

We already have something far better than a Kindle.

It is called a Netbook with a web browser.

Netbooks have a fraction of the battery life, are heavier, are bigger, and are harder to read for long periods of time.

Try to spend 12 hours on the beach reading from a netbook, and from a Kindle. You'll see the difference.

Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2

[Thaelon]

You somehow forgot to mention that it requires a freaking booklight to read in the dark.

The most absurd facet of the thing if you ask me.

I still prefer my Nokia N810 device with software ebook reader FBReader. I can set the display to red text on a black background and reap the following benefits:

• I can read in the dark
• I can read in the dark in bed without keeping my girlfriend awake.
• I can read in the dark without hosing my night vision due to the red text.*

For a $360 device that uses electronic paper I'm flabbergasted that you still need to buy a freaking book light for it.

*Note: Prior to learning to use red on black (still using white on black text) I noticed that after I turned the reader off and laid down to sleep that I could still see an afterimage of a bunch of little lines organized in a rectangle with my eyes closed. This problem evaporated with red on black.

Re:Stupid=Kindle, Stupider=2

[shutdown -p now]

You somehow forgot to mention that it requires a freaking booklight to read in the dark.

Yeah, that's because it doesn't shine a powerful backlight right into your eyes - which is not good for the eyes in general, and particularly so if you do that in darkness.

Seriously, do not stare into bright screens when the environment is dark (such as reading from a lit screen at night in a room with no lights). No color combination will solve this problem, though some are better than others (as you say yourself). If you care about your vision, then keep in mind that the only right way to read is with a proper external light source, correctly positioned - such as, yeah, a book light :)

By the way, the thing doesn't have its own backlight because of the nature of "e-paper"/eInk screens - they are reflective, not transparent. Both white and black pixels on those are particles of solid matter. It makes it impossible to do proper backlight, but it is also what gives them the "paper look" and that long battery life (because once all the particles are set appropriately, they persist without need to apply any energy).

Re:While good in one way

[zach_the_lizard]

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!

Re:While good in one way

[Ninnle Labs, LLC]

not to mention the critical role they fulfil in maintaining an informed electorate.

A what? Since when did one of those every exist?

Re: Broken Window Fallacy

[slashdotmsiriv]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

ob. xkcd

[prograde]

I'm a little amazed that no one has linked to yesterday's XKCD.

Not too worried...

[HiVizDiver]

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.

not sure this would be a net improvement

[Trepidity]

The number of trees saved will probably be around zero, since newsprint's wood source is almost exclusively tree farms. If demand for wood from tree farms decreased, they'd probably be cut down and turned to some other use, like farms of the non-tree variety.

The other environmental effects are trickier to sort out. Paper, as you point out, uses lots of nasty chemicals. But then so does manufacturing electronics, and mining the various metals that go into electronics manufacturing. Disposing of electronics, even when they're recycled (usually in China) is a rather nasty business, too.

Re:While good in one way

[Hijacked Public]

You just won 5,000,000 internets.

It would have been 10,000,000 if you'd gone further and mentioned 1984 and DRM.

Good, but no cigar.

[RedCuber]

I have a Sony eReader, and a 1st Generation Kindle. Doubtfull i'll be buying this new Kindle. The Sony is rubbish. The buttons are in the wrong place, you have to deal with it's leather case and the books available are few and far between. The Kindle however.. is a breath of fresh air. I love how it hangs off the Verizon network and downloads very quickly. It even feels good holding it - next page, back etc.. all in the right places. This won't replace the modern book. Here's the scenario: Techies - if you're reading technical books 9/10 you'll be scribbeling on them, highlighting passages, drawing circles etc.. as references to future projects or deployments. You'll then potentially go "Hey dBag - read this" to a colleague. They take a beating - Kindles do not work well with this. Vacation - i took my Kindle to a beach in the Indian ocean (Zanzibar) over xmas, and Kindles do not like the sand. It still works, but i was very cautious with it. It was GREAT not to have to hold pages back becase the wind was blowing it. Big fan of Kindle, but by no means a replacement for good old time-tested paper and ink. - RC

Re:While good in one way

[Experiment 626]

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.

Re:Future in e-bboks.

[chromatic]

There is a fear in the publishing industry that authors could cut them out and sell directly to the readers.

Good. Publishers have been cheating authors for years.

Re:Am I the only one who likes newspapers?

[Culture20]

My wife an I like flipping through the Sunday paper over pancakes, handing sections back and forth, pointing out stories to each other, she likes cutting coupons, flipping through the sales circulars. I just don't think all that works as well in E-form.

1. flipping through the Sunday paper over pancakes - Doable, but syrup on newspaper is better than syrup on a kindle.
2. handing sections back and forth - Zune Style Squirts would help here.
3. pointing out stories to each other - I know couples that do this with laptops currently. They IM the URLs to each other, even when they're in the same room
4. she likes cutting coupons - I'm betting that once companies realize that they're getting all the data and marketing they need from other sources, coupons and rebates will be a thing of the past. There's just too much expense with marginal benefit.
5. flipping through the sales circulars - Reading a sales webpage on a computer is very similar to a sales flier with added benefits of searching for the things you want instead of looking through everything.

To me, #1 is a show stopper. Getting expensive stuff dirty when I could have used something expendable for the same purpose is silly.

Re:While good in one way

[zippthorne]

No, he's right. "lost jobs" due to technology upgrades are not costs. To be sure, they are not good for the people who lose the jobs, but society as a whole benefits: those people are now freed to do something else, increasing the net wealth available to everyone.

It doesn't map perfectly to the broken window fallacy, but it is certainly well related.

If you always count "lost jobs" as costs, you'll never get beyond Mennonite colony levels of lifestyles. Come to think of it, you'll never get UP TO that level.

Without the tractor to replace field workers, we couldn't afford to dedicate the manpower to medicine or developing plasma TVs. Your cushy office job couldn't exist without backbreaking laboring jobs being lost to productivity gains.

From Questionable Content:

[renimar]

Source

Faye: "It's a little known fact that every Canadian citizen is born with a sharp, serrated edge somewhere on their body as protection from polar bears and enraged Quebecois."

Marten: "Every night they quietly hone their blades, biding their time until the Great Curling, when they will cleanse the earth of all other nations. That's why they're all so polite- they know we're all doomed eventually."

Re:From Questionable Content:

[MadUndergrad]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who reads QC.

Re:Still shouldn't cost almost 400

[Pengo]

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.

Re:While good in one way

[geekoid]

Right, in fact technology will get to a point where we will need to become a lot more socialist in our care for people.

Lets talk about robots.
Lets say I make a robot that can run the grill and fry stations at a fast food joint.
Lets say the cost 25G a piece.

I would displace nearly all worker who worked those stations. that approx 125,000 workers at Mcdonalds alone.

Using modern methods of manufacturing, I wouldn't needs half that number to build and maintain those robots.

If the robots had the capabilities of the robots in iRobot*(minus the kill all humans feature) it would displace every person who has physical work.

Society will change to a more socialist form, either guided or after a mass breakdown.
SO what do we do?
Perhaps tax robot work to pay for education?
What about non essentials like TV? Bear in mind that TV can help mass riots and disturbances from happening.

What do I do? would there be enough money to support street performance?

We will get to this point in technology, and it wouldn't hurt to have some sort of ideas to think about now.

*I haven't seen it I am inferring from the commercials.