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Are the New Kindles Tablets-In-Training?
Hugh Pickens writes "TechNewsWorld reports that Amazon's new, slimmed-down Kindle devices are notable for several things, including upgrades to their experimental WebKit browser that makes it faster and easier to navigate, and the new 'article mode' feature extracts the main text-based content from Web pages for easier reading (as Safari does), suggesting the possibility that the Kindle may grow up to be a real tablet computer someday. Eventually, the tablet and e-reader categories 'are going to slam together,' says Rob Enderle, adding that they are 'held apart, largely because we don't yet have an affordable display that will do both tasks well.' One current problem 'is that TFT displays like the iPad uses suck for reading because they aren't outdoor viewable and are very power hungry. Display technologies like the Qualcomm Mirasol stuff will change this over the next 18 months, and by the end of next year — likely before — we'll begin to see converged devices.' Mirasol uses tiny mirrors, known as microelectronic machines, to create its display, which has the low power characteristics of E-Ink displays and the video-playing and color abilities of LCDs."
I want one of these, and think it's a great idea (de-innovation?) to remove the 3G support. I'm often in wi-fi areas, but don't really see the need to download books while I'm actually AT the beach. I can download enough when I'm at home (or at McDonalds, at Starbucks, etc...). Save money, save power, save bandwidth. I'm getting one!
Mirasol? Really? A technology that's not even on the market yet? Why not go with the already available and commercially viable pixel qi screen tech? It' the best of both worlds, a dual mode screen for indoor and outdoor use! And you can already get one! Just add touch-screen capabilities and you have the perfect tablet.
Save money, save power, save bandwidth. I'm getting one!
Indeed, I made the statement that this reader would have to be under $100 for me to get one when I first saw the Kindle. And now we're down to $139 so it edges even closer.
When I first saw that it would have 3G, I went searching for videos on the surfing experience and was not impressed. Unless drastic improvements were made in how it renders and handles web pages, it looks like it would be tedious and almost unusable except for outlying circumstances.
Now, that doesn't mean some software or new mobilized content mentality couldn't change all of that but from what I've seen it looks to be little more than a novelty like the web browser I have on my Nintendo DS.
So, like you note, the purpose of 3G really boils down to selling books while you're sitting around -- which is nice but not a crucial need. I guess I could imagine using 3G to get books off of Gutenberg or some other open repository of open formatted books but again that wouldn't really be worth a 35% price increase.
Is anyone able to comment on what the browsing functionality actually does for them? Is there news that you actually digest in a productive fashion? Certain news sites that work flawlessly? Blog technologies (like Wordpress or something) that always work? And how is the 3G coverage and reliability? I have so many questions about these devices and can find so little on reviewing this web browser functionality on the Kindle.
Good job on price but I don't ever see the Kindle replacing my Asus Netbook with Ubuntu on it. Yeah, you're going to have a large price delta and I think there's a long way to go -- much longer than the 18 months or sooner that the article mentioned -- before these two consumer products converge. Battery life is just one thing. Price, general purpose computing abilities and the ability to install open source software are big factors for me (not sure about other folks).
My work here is dung.
IPS displays are TFT displays. TFT means Thin Film Transistor. Before TFT displays (and in small LCDs), the pixels were/are activated by voltages which are delivered by a lattice of rows and columns directly. In TFT displays, there's a transistor at each pixel which amplifies the signal. Passive displays are slow because the voltages can't be increased without causing artifacts throughout the rows/columns. TFTs eliminate this problem. IPS is the way the liquid crystals are arranged and moved to change the display content. IPS means In-Plane Switching. The most common arrangement is TN, which means Twisted Nematic.
It's not a TFT display. It's IPS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD
Types:
Twisted nematic (TN)
In-plane switching (IPS)
Advanced fringe field switching (AFFS)
Multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA)
Patterned vertical alignment (PVA)
Advanced super view (ASV)
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I don't follow that. The Kindle is a reading device. They took an update from Safari that makes reading web pages easier. They improved it's reading abilities. That doesn't make it a more general purpose tablet.
If they add a touch screen, that will make it more of a "tablet in training". Refining a feature that was already there? Seems like a stretch.
That said, those new cheaper Kindles look really enticing, and the fact they have this mode only makes it more interesting.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Is anyone able to comment on what the browsing functionality actually does for them? Is there news that you actually digest in a productive fashion? Certain news sites that work flawlessly? Blog technologies (like Wordpress or something) that always work? And how is the 3G coverage and reliability? I have so many questions about these devices and can find so little on reviewing this web browser functionality on the Kindle.
I can't speak to the new one (or even the software upgrade, since I haven't used it extensively since it was installed), but I had the original Kindle DX for over a year. Critical new features in the software upgrade include "collections" (a way to organize documents you've loaded onto the Kindle, which was probably the number one feature request and something I can't believe they didn't originally include) and improved PDF handling (basic zoom/pan ability - before your only option was to flip the device to get a larger view).
As for web browsing... it's always been slow and unimpressive. My expectations aren't even that high, since I don't have a data service for my phone or anything like that. On the other hand, it came in handy when I was visiting my parents out in the boonies... jumping on the Kindle to check Wikipedia was faster than dialup. Sometimes I had to go outside to get a good signal, but we have to do that with cell phones anyway. Specific mobile sites I've bookmarked, like mobile New York Times, are fine... for me, though, it makes more sense to use an application like Calibre that will automatically download all the news you want in the morning and sync with the Kindle, rather than just relying on the 3G. I've used the web browser to get on Facebook and Slashdot from trains... again, better than nothing, but not exactly pleasant. I've gotten a few things directly from Project Gutenberg as well.
One great thing is that I've written up some scripts that use the command-line version of Calibre to watch a directory on my home server. Instead of having to e-mail documents to Amazon and pay for conversion (or carry around a sync cable and software capable of converting), I just e-mail my documents to a special address. The scripts check the e-mail, download the document, convert it, and upload it to a web server. A few minutes after sending it, I log into the web server from the Kindle and download the converted document. This is actually what I probably use the web browser for the most.
For reading text... IMO it kicks ass and bests any other style of device (netbook, tablet, etc.) currently available. But I also always carry about my 9" netbook with Ubuntu.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
So... if they got a much more powerful processor, a completely different display (color, fast refresh, touch screen) and an entirely different operating system... it might be like a tablet?
It's a lot more plausible that tablet display contrast will improve, and people will tend to use a tablet where a Kindle isn't enough for them. Kindles aren't ever likely to develop into the tablet space.
Apple must have seen the inevitable convergence of the tablets and dedicated ebook readers.
Amazon will probably want people to be locked into their software platform as much as possible, and they have quite a userbase already, as well as the ability to provide a lot of content.
When they control the software platform, they can easily extend the control to hardware.
Apple with it's iPad platform will not like that.
Hence introduced iBooks to hopefully turn the tide against Amazon.
Or at the very least allow them to stand on equal footing, where iBook is an equally established platform, with a large enough userbase that publishers cannot do exclusives without hurting themselves.
With both having a more or less similar selection of books, there will be no difference between the two platforms.
Maybe the reason the space station article has so few comments is because they're appearing in other articles instead?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Why doesn't anyone speak about the need for cheaper ebooks? At $9.99, they still cost *twice* as much as economy version paperback and as much as a premium one, at least in developing countries. And paperbacks come with all the freedom you want.
If they are cutting all middlemen out, apart from the printing and transportation costs, they will still end up making a good deal of money at prices below $4.99 per book. Even lower prices will see greater volumes, so the authors also will not complain.
I believe the current prices will just encourage a greater amount of piracy, with rapidly falling costs of the e-readers especially where there are alternatives that don't tie you in to a specific store pr format.
Just a pet peeve of mine.
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
After going through two articles and a blog, we get to the Mirasol site. Mirasol is straightforward - each pixel is a flexible membrane in an air gap. It's bistable; either the membrane is against the front plate (dark) or against the back plate (light), pushed there by an electrostatic charge. So it's either monochrome, or an 8-color technology if RGB pixels are provided. By putting in more pixels, they can dither their way up to 3 bits of color per pixel, for 512 different colors. This costs resolution, of course. Their technical paper talks about dithering over time at 50Hz to get more even shades. But if they do that, they lose their power-saving advantage. It costs power to change a pixel.
This is one of many bistable persistent display technologies. Kent Displays has had a similar technology, cholesteric LCD devices, for years, used mostly for big display signs and military applications. Until recently, Kent's displays were very expensive, but they've finally solved the cost problem. This year's DEFCON badge has a built-in Kent display.
Kindle will win, once it also does full colour with fast refresh.
Amiga will win, once it gets 16 core CPUs.
See, it's easy to say a product will win, when you can make it up.
(For years, the Iphones had rather low resolution, even my old cheap 5800 beats it; interesting that only now resolution is suddenly an important feature when comparing phones...)