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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Destoo]

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

Re:Sold

[RapmasterT]

they had me at shutting down the presses.

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

[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

[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?

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

[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: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

[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.

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.

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: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: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:Sold

[RapmasterT]

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

ob. xkcd

[prograde]

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

Re:Sold

[ubrgeek]

Refuse to print stories about the Kindle?

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.

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: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.