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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."
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."
'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
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
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.
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
WTF? Over?
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.
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.
You guys scare me....Canadians I mean.
90% of you live within 10 miles of our border.
Are you guys getting ready to invade?
WTF? Over?
Har har har... burning a Canadian Tire...
For people not from Canada: http://www.canadiantire.ca/
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.
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
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
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you listen closely at the border, you can hear them sharpening their ice skates, biding their time.
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).
WTF? Over?
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.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm a little amazed that no one has linked to yesterday's XKCD.
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.