The Kindle is Slowly Dying

Adventures in Green Electronics

I have just purchased this solar powered cover/book light/charger for my kindle 4.

It will probably arrive in 2 to 3 weeks so I will stop recharging my kindle now so it can be totally drained by the time the cover arrives.

At that time I will place the cover by my window to let it charge its internal battery from which it will charge my kindle.

The goal will be to have my kindle totally off the power grid with the minimum of effort.

I just think it would be amazingly cool if charging my kindle required nothing more than sitting it in my window sill.

Anyway I can't wait to see how well it works.

Competition Destroys the Kindle - or Why the Kindle Touch is Pocketful of Fail

My first experience with the Amazon Kindle was with Model #2. Since then a Kindle has the following features: keyboard, e-ink screen, free internet connection, mp3 player, audible audiobook player, web browser, wireless delivery of books, wireless delivery of personal documents, text to speech and custom apps/active content.

With the Kindle Model 3 we see Amazon reacting to the market. They removed 3g from the basic model - if nook doesn't need it they don't, they removed the number keys from they keyboard -if the ipad doesn't need number keys then we don't, they did add a webkit browser but they stopped allowing the browser to access file urls.

Needless to say their sales responded, 3g model sold less than wi-fi model. The Nook became popular with the press because it didn't have a keyboard and was shorter, consumer reports says that even though Nook didn't have web browser, apps, mp3, text to speech, e-mail delivery of documents, audiobook it was a better product.

So Amazon responded, they removed 3g, keyboard, text to speech, mp3, 3rd party apps and audio support. While smashing through the mystical $99 price point. So they produced the best e-reader which I reviewed here.

The e-reader was excellent but it was no longer a "Kindle". My son could no longer pick it up anywhere and search google for images of characters from his favorite tv show. He couldn't click a button and have the book read it him, he couldn't listen to his "The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders" radio drama, he couldn't play Chess.

At this point you can now understand why Amazon is selling 5 different e-ink models instead of the 1 they had just 30 months ago because they are trying to respond to the press and market pressures. They are trying to sell their UNIQUE device the Kindle. While every review has them competing with the Kobo Touch, Kobo Wifi and the Nook Simple Touch.

Amazons' response was two parts, the first was their $79 reader that took a classic Kindle and ripped out everything that had a marginal cost of greater than zero cents that was required for it to be an e-reader. Even the power adapter and and 1/2 the memory was removed. The second part was the Kindle Touch.

The Kindle Touch is Amazon's attempt to put the UNIQUE features of the Kindle into a $99 package that has a touch screen like its "competitors". Unfortunately its for us its a "Pocketful of Fail". The reviews are positive because reviewers aren't Kindle users, they aren't readers. They don't understand that earlier Kindles had many features that they never noticed or reviewed. See this awesome positive review from Wired and the assumptions it contains. Such as "Gone as well are the page-turning buttons as users, even infants, assume and insist the screen be the sole interface"

First I must state that what I mean by a "Pocketful of Fail" I simply mean that it is worse not better than the previous Kindle. The reason this upsets me is that I fear that Amazon will eliminate the previous models leaving us only with a reduced device.

Since I have K2, K3 -3g, and k4 I am able to compare the Kindle Touch to all of them.

The Kindle Touch does 1 significant thing better than previous kindles. The touch screen allows you better control when reading PDF files. So if want to view lots of PDF's such as the ones provided by google books the Kindle Touch is your e-reader.

In ever other significant point the Kindle Touch is reduction in functionality from the Kindle 3, now called the Kindle Keyboard. The reason the Kindle Touch is not a upgrade from the Kindle 3 is that its a total software rewrite and not an upgrade as Amazon implies by calling it firmware version 5. I haven't read any reviews or news or insider information to support this belief but I will lay down the supporting evidence. (Update: New software now verified by

outside source).

Lets talk about the significant reductions in functionality

1. You can't rotate the screen - ie. no landscape mode
2. no volume/page turn/menu/ or 5 way controller buttons
3. The maximum volume for audio books is reduced significantly along with speaker quality
4. You can no longer browse the internet on 3g
5. 3rd Party Apps don't Run

I think these changes speak to a total rewrite of the software. There is no reason to remove landscape viewing mode especially when the smaller form factor makes it so much more appealing as I pointed out in my $79 Kindle hands on review. In an ideal world the software of the old kindle would all be there but you could now touch as well as use the 5 way controller, they could then just add the pinch and zoom functionality to make it better.

As a experienced project manager I can see in my minds eye what happened. Jeff said just add these touch zones and pinch and zoom to our touch screen version and we release Nov 2011. They started and realized that they couldn't be sure that they could deliver on the extra required functionality but they could take a tablet web browser and customize it to the kindle. They just used their current interface as their specs.

If you look closely this is what they did. For example it makes no sense that the "Menu" button is at the top of the Kindle Touch instead of near the bottom by the physical "Home" button. It stops you from being able to manage it one handed. With the K4 -($79) you can stop reading a book and then browse through the kindle store one handed, you can't do this with the touch.

Notice that the excellent and useful "back" button functionality that exists in all previous Kindle Models is gone. Also notice that the UI is not optimized for Touch. I.E. no intelligent utilization of fitts's law (unless you think they used it so you are always accidentally touching the special offer) which shows that the designers were told keep it just like the old Kindle's so we don't get crap from users and reviewers for changing everything. (The fact that most reviews don't even notice that landscape mode is gone tell us how much the quality of tech reporting has dropped since the days of Byte).

Lets look at some more changes for the worse. In all previous models of the kindle you could go through your list of books and your long web pages using the same physical actions you used when reading books. You could scroll through using the next page and previous page button which would move it up or down by one screen. With the Touch you can't use previous and next touches you have to swipe up or down, on the book list it moves by one page but in the web browser it doesn't move up by a full screen sometimes its hard to get it to move up or down even 1/3 of a screen this makes the web browser significantly worse than the previous model.

When you are in the web browser you lose the ability to scale the page by the menu, you can only do it using pinch and zoom. Also in the web browser if your focus changes to a textbox the on screen keyboard come up but for some reason the browser decides to automatically zoom in the web page about 300%. It doesn't go back once you lose focus so as far as I am concerned the browser is broken.

My final evidence that this is a total software rewrite is that the screen refreshes look different and much less sharp even when you put it in refresh every page. It starts to melt away then it forces the full refresh. This indicates to me significant low level changes.

This review might seem like I am harping on small things but details matter. The Kindle Touch is using 1.0 software and it shows. My recommendation don't purchase it yet. If you want full functionality get a Kindle Keyboard, if you just want to read books get the Kindle you will be very happy with either of those models.

If you don't believe me note the Amazon reviews of the Kindle and Kindle Keyboard are higher than the Kindle Touch.

Final note: After using the $79 Kindle for a month the extra weight of the Kindle Touch feels like carrying around a brick.

$79 Kindle Hands On

Last week Amazon announced their long awaited video ipod.
(P.S. I previously only published this to a listserve).

What wasn't expected at the announcement was that we would finally
have a top quality e-reader available for under $100.

Needless to say the day after the announcement I checked my Amazon
Gift card balance and was able to order the $79 kindle with $7.01 tax
and free super saver shipping . Leaving a paltry $2.79 gift card
balance. It was all worth it because on Monday evening I came home to
my new 4th generation Kindle.

Since I did my research before I wasn't surprised that like Apple with
its ipod it no longer came with a wall charger, just an usb cable.

Feature wise the kindle has finally become an electronic device just
for wirelessly reading text.

When the kindle was $259 plus dollars each they needed to give you
"extra" features that you rarely used. For $79 they can provide a
greater value per dollar for their customer. I also suspect without
any evidence that their $79 reader has the highest profit margin of
all of their new hardware releases since they removed the keyboard,
mp3 player, 1/2 the memory, 1/2 the battery and the power supply.

Content wise amazon just started providing an excellent system for
borrowing books from public libraries. You can also e-mail books and
documents to your kindle and they will be stored for free on Amazon
Servers. On the downside some of their current Kindle games and apps
are not currently compatible with the new Kindle.

Anyway lets get to the meat, a hands on review.

First off the new device is amazingly light. It is significantly
lighter than a paperback or a magazine.

I remember when I read my first novel on my k2 and it was easy to hold
it for 6 hours of reading. At a certain point with the k4 you don't
even realize that you are carrying it.

I really like the push button to turn it on. Its now like a smartphone.

The whole device feels much more solid. More like the metal K2 than
the plastic K3. Although it is also made out of plastic. The buttons
especially the 5 way controller feel sturdy and give excellent
feedback.

Below are the approximate dimensions of the K2, K3, K4
(yes k3 and k4 have a larger screen than the K2)

Device Screen
K2 8x5.25 4.75x3.5 40% of the area of the device is the screen

K3 7.5x4.75 4.875x3.5 48% of the area of the device is the screen

K4 6.5x4.5 4.875x3.5 59% of the area of the device is the screen

these new dimensions give the device a totally difference feel. The K4 feels
and looks like a small picture frame.

On the new Kindle the boarders are only 6/16 of an inch on the long sides
and 10/16" on the top and 16/16" or 1 inch on the bottom compared to 2 inches
on the bottom of the K3 and 2.5 inches on the bottom of the K2.

This change of dimension accomplishes something very very important. It makes
the Kindle comfortable to hold sideways in one hand. Since your
fingers are closer to
to the center of mass of the device the torque of holding it steady
is reduced thus
putting less strain on your thumb that balances the divice. You can
also handle it
with your thumbs at the side (new bottom) where the page forward and
back buttons
are (they work very nicely this way excellent feel) while the device
is held on both
sides with your index fingers.

As I read through Pride and Prejudice ( I am currently at 58% / page
203 of 333).
I was able to hold it comfortably in any position. I think my favorite
is sideways since
the sideways menus require fewer clicks to reach and item then in the
standard position.
(Yes I know its not a big deal but .. details matter.. the seconds add
up over time).
Also when I am surfing the web more pages can be displayed without having to
scale them which saves a lot of time redrawing screens and scrolling
left and right.

Along with the keyboad being removed the font/size/screen rotation
button has been
removed and it function have been moved to a more convenient space
which is in the main
main accessible through the menu button. This is most useful when
using the web browser.

Most reviews I have read said that the screen resolution and quality
is the same as the K3.
I suspect it is a little better because I can now comfortably read for
a long period of time at
at a smaller font size. ( I doubt my vision has gotten better.)


Since the press gave the latest nook high points for having a screen
that only flashed black every 6th page turn Amazon implemented that feature in the K4. I had
suspected that
irregularly timed screen flashes would be more distracting that the
kindle method of
flashing every page. In fact it MUCH worse than that. The black
screen blanking is
necessary for the Kindle to work as a "book" instead of a computer
screen. During that
"flash" your eyes stop staring at the screen for a second while the
pages changes.
Without the flash you eyes remain on the page and the words very
disturbingly melt away
then reform.

This was a almost a deal breaker for me. I was trying to train myself
to look away when
I clicked a page advance when I found that if your kindle has the
latest software you can change the screen refresh back to have it
happen on every page. I had to download and upgrade the software to
have this feature
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200774090
) but I suspect it will the default software for anyone who purchase
it in the near future.

Living without sound. I have so many mp3 players that I don't miss it.
Now if the kindle played my amazon mp3s on my kindle over wi-fi I
would have been so amazingly happy but that has not happened yet. My
8 year old does like to use text to speech on his K2 so if you are
purchasing for young children the $79 version might not be for you.

Living without 3g. No biggie anywhere I read has wi-fi. Also I have
become so spoiled with the free doc transfer by wifi its my primary
means of downloading content now. I use the "klip.me" service to
e-mail long web articles to my kindle for later reading.

Living with Advertising, wish they actually had more deals to chose
from. But if you don't like it you can pay $30 to have them removed
later. So don't have to make the call to live with or without the ads
without actually trying it out.

Living without a keyboard. To be honest I have been unhappy with the
keyboard ever since they removed the number row from the K2. The lack
of keyboard will mean that I wont be using it to send messages from
gmail. Using the soft keyboard is like using a remote control on you
dvr to write out the name of the show your recorded or searching for
netflix movies using my roku box remote.

Overall I really like it. I will keep my K3 since its the last model
that will have free unfettered internet access and that is useful
when I am traveling, but for day to day use the K4 is my go to
machine.

It easily fits into my jacket pocket, the wi-fi and web browser seem
to be bit faster and have a longer range. The menu options actually
improve web browsing (mostly gmail and google reader to read my
favorite sites).


Oh and one final note now for $79 dollars you never need to purchase
another book again if you don't want to. You can borrow books directly
from the public library, feedbooks, and project gutenberg and they
wirelessly download to your machine over wi-fi. Very very nice.

I will probably be posting this review to the web later, so if you
have any question or thought that you think people would like to know
about this product please drop me a line.

Why the Kindle Fire Matters

After writing this post I realized that I am way too long winded so I
will start with the conclusion.


The Conclusion:

The Kindle Fire will bring more and better software to the Android Platform.



Introduction:

The Kindle Fire is a cheap Chinese Android Tablet

Note the specs:

Kindle Fire: 8 gb storage, 512k Ram, 7 inch display, Capacitive
Screen, $199

Chinese Andriod Tablet : Pearl - HD Android 2.3 Tablet with 7 Inch
Capacitive Touch Screen (1.2GHz, 8GB, DDR3 512MB, 1080P)
http://tinyurl.com/dymtyq4 $199.

The tech press has been knocking cheap Android Tablets for years
saying they are a waste of money. Even though many people are happy
with their Pandigital Tablets even with their resistive screens.

Amazon has the clout to say that these cheap tablets are good enough
for us and good enough for our customers to do what they need and they
are correct.

The Argument:


My $351 Vista Laptop is not in the same class as my $1200 MacBook Pro
but both of them allow me to get my work done. In fact the #1 reason
why I used my MacBook over the Vista/Unbuntu Machine is 1 piece of
free software (TextWrangler) that allows me to save files over ftp as
easily as saving to my hard drive.

What differentiates the Kindle Fire from the Chinese Tablets is
software. What differentiates the IPAD from top of the line Android
Tablets is software. By working on the software Amazon had taken
underpowered hardware and made it competitive with the IPAD
(Hardware/Software Combo). Can the Kindle Fire beat an IPAD of course
not. Its less than 1/2 the price. Can a Kindle Fire beat an IPOD TOUCH
which is the same price ? (That is for you to decide).

The Kindle Fire will be a commercial success because it will be on
Amazons home page and Amazon wont abandon it. Since it will be a
commercial success SOFTWARE makers will write APPS for it. APPS for
the Fire mean APPS for ANDROID. There is finally a compelling reason
for the best software developers to write Android tablet apps.

To return to the theme of this note: Software makes all of the
difference in the end.

To Quote Netflix:
"New Experience Now Available for All Android Tablets (iPad Coming Soon)"


The Conclusion: (Reprise)

The Kindle Fire will bring more and better software to the Android Platform.

Tiger & Bunny

Robert Anton Wilson explains Quantum Physics

Lets Go to Mars

Revisionist History:

If you go a Hulu or dvd and watch The Season 2 Opener of The Greatest American Hero Your will be treated with this mid episode clip.

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The above clip is not what was originally shown.

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This a a link to the original clip

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This is just one of the many unforgettable moments of great tv that will only live in the memories of those who saw it since they refuse to republish the original. :(

How Illegal Immigration Hurts Black America

With national unemployment hovering around 10 percent and black male unemployment at a staggering 17.6 percent, it's just not true that undocumented workers are doing the jobs that we won't do.

.....

Following a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid that nabbed 300 undocumented workers at a Columbia Farms processing plant in Columbia, S.C., a spooked House of Raeford quietly began replacing immigrants with native-born labor at all of its plants. Less than a year later, House of Raeford’s flagship production line in Raeford, N.C., had been transformed, going from more than 80 percent Latino to 70 percent African-American, according to a report by the Charlotte Observer.

.....

For their efforts, African Americans were paid a median household income of $32,000 in 2007. In the same year, the median household income for illegal immigrants was $37,000.

Extra Note:
The unemployment rate for illegal immigrants in March 2009 was 10.4 percent