Mar 3 2009

First Touch-Screen, Bendable E-Paper Developed

Al writes “The first touch-screen flexible e-paper has been developed by a team from Arizona State University and E-Ink (the company that makes the technology for Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader). Jann Kaminski and colleagues at ASU’s Flexible Display Center say the main challenge is that most touch-screen technologies do not respond well to being flexed. So they used an inductive screen, which relies on a magnetized styluses to induce a field in a sensing layer at the back of the display. The first adopters for the technology are likely to be the US Army. Watch a video of the device being tested.”

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Mar 2 2009

Reading the New York Times On a Kindle 2

reifman links to his thorough and thoughtful review of the experience of reading a newspaper on the Kindle 2. “I’ve been eager to try The New York Times on the Kindle 2; here’s my review with a basic video walk-through and screenshots. I give the Kindle 2 version of The Times a B. Software updates could bring it up to an A-. Kindle designers should have learned more from the iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, my Kindle display scratched less than 24 hours after it arrived. As I detail in the review, Amazon customer service was not very accommodating. Is it my fault — or will Kindle 2 evolve into an Apple 1G Nano-like .5M settlement? You can read about Hearst’s e-reader for newspapers from earlier today on Slashdot.”

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Mar 1 2009

Hearst To Launch E-Reader For Newspapers

thefickler writes “The credit crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for newspapers, which were already suffering at the hands of the Internet. Now it seems that the Hearst Corporation is planning to launch an e-reader later this year to try to save its dwindling newspaper readerships. Apparently the e-reader will have a bigger screen than the Kindle, helping it to accommodate ads. It’s not clear whether Hearst will go it alone, or try to gather wider industry support for its venture. As one pundit observed, ‘it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.'”

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Feb 28 2009

Amazon Caves On Kindle 2 Text-To-Speech

On Wednesday we discussed news that the Authors Guild had objected to the text-to-speech function on Amazon’s Kindle 2, claiming that it infringed on audio book copyright. Today, Amazon said that while the feature is legally sound, they would be willing to disable text-to-speech on a title-by-title basis at the rightsholder’s request. “We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.”

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Feb 26 2009

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 9 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 0 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 0 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 billion a year,’ Wilcox says.”

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Feb 25 2009

Readers praise Kindle 2's abilities, but price is a drawback – USA Today


ABC News

Readers praise Kindle 2's abilities, but price is a drawback
USA Today
By Mark Lennihan, AP In the aftermath of my review of the Kindle 2 on Tuesday, dozens of readers weighed in with questions and comments.
E-books cost too much, Kindle forum writers complain Computerworld
Your new Kindle is talking — but not paying Reuters
New York Times – BusinessWeek – CNET News – PC World
all 316 news articles
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Feb 25 2009

10 reasons to buy a Kindle 2… and 10 reasons not to

The dead tree book will never die – I think it will even have more longevity and popularity than the boutique appreciation of vinyl records – but our generation will be the last to use “books” as our primary reading systems. Expect ebooks to hit colleges in perhaps five years and high schools and grade schools in about 7.

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Feb 25 2009

Indigo launches e-book service – Globe and Mail

Indigo launches e-book service
Globe and Mail
Canada's largest book retailer, Indigo Books and Music, moves aggressively into the burgeoning e-book market tomorrow with the launch of its Shortcovers service.
Shortcovers set to launch tonight Quill & Quire
Kindle 2 is Now Available Dealerscope
all 4 news articles
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Feb 25 2009

Your new Kindle is talking — but not paying – Reuters


ABC News

Your new Kindle is talking — but not paying
Reuters
Amazon’s hotly anticipated Kindle e-reader got even more press on Wednesday, but not the good variety. In an op-ed titled “The Kindle Swindle” that appeared in the New York Times Wednesday, the president of the Author’s Guild, Roy Blount Jr.
E-books cost too much, Kindle forum writers complain Computerworld
Cost-Justifying the Kindle 2 PC World
CNET News – New York Times – BusinessWeek – USA Today
all 306 news articles
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Feb 25 2009

Authors Guild President Wants To End Royalty-Free TTS On Kindle

An anonymous reader writes “The president of the Authors Guild has launched a rant in the NY Times about how the Kindle 2 provides Text-to-Speech capabilities that, oh the horror, allow the user to have any text on the Kindle read to her. Roy Blunt, Jr. moans that this is copyright infringement of audio books, and that Kindle users should be forced to pay royalties on audio even though they’ve already paid for the text version of a book! Amazingly he harps on about how TTS technology has become so good that it may replace humans — and then uses this to argue that it’s unfair for Kindle to provide TTS! I think the Authors Guild need a new president — someone less of a Luddite, and more familiar with copyright law.” (See also the Guild’s executive director’s similar claims that reading aloud, royalty-free, is an illegal function of software.)

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