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 Let’s be honest, many of us were wondering what the status of the Kindle DX would turn out to be after the recent price cuts on both the Kindle and the nook made it seem more than a little bit overpriced for the times. Thankfully, Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) has responded and then some with an update to the device. The new Kindle DX has greatly improved screen contrast, a more inviting graphite exterior, and most importantly a greatly lowered $379 price tag.
Now, nobody’s going to claim at this point that the DX is a game changer. It was a great idea that turned out to be impractical for many of its intended audience. The screen refresh is too slow for students used to flipping back and forth before they lose their train of thought, and the size was often found to be prohibitive to easy transportation in crowded areas. That part hasn’t changed. While it may appeal only to a slightly smaller audience than intended, however, this is a great eReader. It’s the only one I have used that has given me perfect, or near perfect, display on every PDF I’ve thrown at it, it’s amazingly easy to read and just simulates the feel of a hardcover better than the usual 6″ screen, and it has all the usual great features you expect from an Amazon eReader. Fortunately they ship on July 7th. I can’t wait to get my upgrade.
Let’s face it, who doesn’t want a free Kindle DX? I certainly do. They’re not ideal for everything, but for some reason they just strike me as cool and they would certainly be better for PDF display than anything else I’ve got handy at the moment. Feeling similarly? Check out Lemondrop.com’s giveaway page.
They’re giving away a single Kindle DX eReader to a random eligible giveaway recipient sometime after June 9th. To be eligible, you must live legally in the United States(Sadly this does not include Puerto Rico) or Canada(Also excluding Quebec, I’m afraid), be at least 18 years old, enter the contest no more than once, and get your entry into the site before midnight on June 9th. It takes less than a minute to enter the contest, so there’s really no downside to worry about. And hey, anybody who wants to give away something this cool deserves to be talked about a bit, in my opinion.
I wish you all much luck and may the best…well, random-est I suppose…person win! As always, we’ll be keeping an eye out for any similar contests or opportunities that might arise to meet the needs of all the eReading enthusiasts out there.
 A day after Amazon’s May 10 announcement regarding plans to offer Kindle for Android, Amazon announced updates for its Kindle for PC application. The article from eWeek suggests that Amazon’s recent actions might be in response to increased competition from the iPad, Nook, Sony E-reader and others.
Kindle for PC’s new features include the ability to edit notes and marks, change background color, adjust screen brightness control and includes a full screen reading mode. Amazon’s Whispersync technology transfers notes, bookmarks and “last pages read” between a PC, smartphone and the Kindle. By adding these adjustments to the application, Amazon has made it much more user friendly.
Jay Marine, Director of Amazon Kindle wrote: “Kindle for PC lets customers enjoy more than 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle, and it’s the perfect companion application for the millions of Kindle and Kindle DX owners.” Amazon seems to be heading into the predicted direction of gearing their market towards software, despite solid Kindle device sales.
Amazon also recently announced plans for a new update to the Kindle and Kindle DX called Version 2.5. In this version, users will be allowed to share passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter. It will also include Collections, which categorizes books and documents on the Kindle into different sections based on the subject, and Popular Highlights, a passage from a book or document that the Kindle community finds the most interesting. Content sharing is “the big thing” right now. It will be an interesting trend to watch in terms how how the Kindle will work with it.
 There seems to be significant interest in this long overdue feature for the Kindle, so to clear up some of the confusion for people I thought I’d look at some of the functionality and ideas surrounding Collections.
In essence, Collections are short lists of books created by the user to make browsing easier. The idea is to save time on moving through the library and keep things nicely organized along the way.
- Books can belong to more than one collection, or none at all
- Collections are built directly on the Kindle
- Your collection data will be stored by Amazon and all books will remain in their collections until you remove them
- No data is changed by Collections, they are simply an organizational tool
- While you are able to import collections from other people, this will not transfer the books themselves; simply the lists.
- There are no sub-listings. This is a one-level categorization, not a real directory tree.
So what are Collections going to be good for? In addition to saving you from having to sort through your entire library every time you want to read a specific book, there’s a lot of customization that can come into it. Since all Collections are user-created, it adds a certain depth of individuality to the device.
Some suggestions I’ve read so far:
- List by Genre
- Rate Your Books After Reading
- Keep a List of Books To Read
- Keep Track of What You’re Reading Now
- Regional Listings
- Literary Period
Any other ideas I’ve missed?
And finally, some bad news for Kindle 1 owners – it looks like Amazon is focusing all of their development effort on software version 2.* so original Kindle will not be getting the Folders update.
 Kindle DX Lawsuit When Amazon Kindle DX with 9.7″ eInk screen was announced it was dubbed “academic eReader”. Academic publications and textbooks don’t display well on a smaller 6″ screen. When the device was released, several universities and colleges announced pilot programs aimed at evaluating its effectiveness in replacing classic textbooks. However these programs hit the same roadblock everywhere: despite having Text-to-Speech capability (which not other eBook reader has), Kindle DX wasn’t accessible to vision-impaired students. This mostly had to do with the fact that menus and other controls don’t have audio. After this concern was raised repeatedly, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) promised to address it in a software update that is expected to be publicly released in Q2 2010.
However several educational institutions decided to go ahead with pilot programs regardless. This caused Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) to file complaints against Princeton University with Department Of Justice. These complaints led to a lawsuit that was recently settled in a peaceful manner. Princeton University was not held accountable for any wrongdoing and in exchange promised to stop pilot program and only resume it after Kindle DX or any other eReader is fully accessible as required by law. Here’s official DOJ letter that settles the case:
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Disability Rights Section – NYA
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
March 24,2010
Hannah S. Ross, Esq.
Office of General Counsel
Princeton University
120 Alexander Road, Second Floor
Princeton, NJ 08540
Re: Letter of Resolution, D.J. No. 202-48-213 Princeton University
Dear Ms. Ross:
As you know, this matter began with complaints filed by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) with the Department of Justice, on behalf of the organizations and their members who are current and prospective college students, alleging that Princeton University has violated title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12182, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 5 947(a), by using the Kindle DX, an innovative, hand-held electronic book reader that is not accessible to students with visual impairments, in a classroom setting. According to the complaints, Princeton University is offering a pilot program that began in the fall 2009 semester. The object of this pilot is to test the utility of the Kindle DX in a classroom setting.
The Department of Justice is responsible for the enforcement and implementation of titles II and III of the ADA. The Department decided to investigate this matter because the Kindle DX is inaccessible to an entire class of individuals with disabilities – individuals with visual impairments. According to its product descriptions, the Kindle DX provides several benefits that make it a potentially superior tool to a standard textbook, including the ability to download all textbooks instantaneously, the ability to carry all textbooks on a hand-held device that weighs just over a pound, the ability to search words and concepts instantly on the device’s web browser, while retaining all the characteristics of a standard text book, such as annotating, highlighting, and taking notes. Under title III, blind students must be provided with “full and equal access” to all of the goods and services of the university, 28 C.F.R. § 36.201(a); must be provided with an equivalent opportunity to participate in and benefit from its goods and services, 28 C.F.R. § 36.202(a), (b); and, must not be provided different or separate accommodations unless doing so is necessary to ensure access to goods and services that is equally as effective as that provided to others, 28 C.F.R. 36.202(c).
The Department acknowledges both that Princeton University denies any violation of the Americans with Disabilities Acts and that it has stated its commitment to ensuring equal access to educational programs, activities and opportunities for students with disabilities.
Both the Department of Justice and Princeton University agree that the emergence of new electronic book reading technologies that benefit the sighted have the potential to benefit blind students and faculty as well. The Department of Justice and Princeton University have decided that it is in their interest to resolve this matter amicably. In consideration of the agreement by Princeton University to undertake the actions set forth below, the United States will close its investigation of this matter.
Princeton University agrees to the following actions:
- The University will not require, purchase, or incorporate in its curriculum the Kindle DX or any other dedicated electronic book reader for use by students in its classes or other coursework unless or until such electronic book reader is fully accessible to individuals with visual impairments. Alternatively, Princeton may comply with the terms set forth in paragraph 5.
- The phrase “other dedicated electronic book reader” means any wireless, hand-held, electronic book reader that has been or will in the future be produced or offered by Amazon.com or any other corporation, such as but not limited to the Barnes and Noble nook, the Sony PRS-600, PRS-700, PRS 505 or upcoming Sony Daily Edition, and others.
- Princeton University will commit a policy reflecting the terms of this agreement to writing within 30 days of the date of the last signature below.
- Princeton University agrees that its commitments in paragraphs 1-4, herein, will, take effect on the date following the last day of the pilot project with Amazon.com, Inc., which will terminate no later than the conclusion of the fall 2009 semester,’and will remain in effect through June 30,2012.
- As a reasonable modification, the University may provide its students with visual impairments with a dedicated electronic book reader that ensures that individuals who are blind or have low vision are able to access and acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted individuals with substantially equivalent ease of use.
This agreement does not constitute a finding by the United States that Princeton is in full compliance with the ADA, or an admission by Princeton University of fault or noncompliance with the ADA. This letter agreement does not alter nor enlarge the legal obligations of the University, and shall not form the basis for any enforcement action against Princeton University. The decision to close our file in this matter does not affect the rights of private individuals or of the complainants to enforce their rights under the ADA against Princeton University. As indicated in paragraph 4, above, this agreement also has no effect on Princeton University’s current pilot program testing the Kindle DX.
Please countersign and return a copy of this letter to us, indicating your agreement with the representations and terms set forth herein. Once we have received your countersigned copy, we will consider this matter resolved. We will take no further action on this matter unless we become aware of new information suggesting that Princeton is not complying with its obligations under the ADA or this agreement.
We appreciate your cooperation. If you have questions or concerns regarding this agreement, please do not hesitate to contact the Department.
Sincerely,
THOMAS E. PEREZ
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
SAMUEL R. BAGENSTOS
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
JOHN L. WODATCH
Chief
PHILIP L. BREEN
Special Legal Counsel
Disability Rights Section
Civil Rights Division
Deputy Chief
BY:
ALLISON NICHOL
Deputy Chief
KATE NICHOLSON
Trial Attorney
Disability Rights Section
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Tel: (202) 5 14-8301
Fax: (202) 305-9775
Countersigned:
BY:
HANNA S. ROSS, ESQ.
Counsel for Princeton University
120 Alexander Road, Second Floor
Princeton, NJ 08540
Tel: 609-258-2525
Fax: 609-258-2502
Personally, I believe that eBooks and eReaders are the future of education and when done properly they can provide levels of accessibility previously unobtainable. Hopefully the software updates will be released soon and XXI century publishing can finally happen for textbooks.
Amazon Kindle is gaining immense popularity in China these days even though Kindle and Kindle 2 are not officially shipped there. While buying a Kindle online on Amazon Store, if you enter the location as ‘China’, it shows a regret message – ‘Unfortunately, we are unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle content in China’.
However, Chinese are known to be avid technology lovers and true gadget freaks. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Kindle is selling in large volumes in Chinese Gray Markets, stalls in Beijing electronics bazaar and other Chinese websites including Taobao.com, an auction site similar to eBay. PC World reports that Kindle 2 was on sale for 2,600 yuan (US$380) and the Kindle DX for 4,300 yuan ($630) at the Beijing bazaar. In fact, many people in China get the Kindle through their friends and family in United States by ordering the Kindle online, having it delivered to an address in United States and then having it mailed to them in China. e-Readers are quite popular in China these days and it is expected that sales of e-readers could reach 3.5 million units in China this year, up several fold from around 400,000 last year. Though there are numerous Chinese e-Readers in the market, Amazon Kindle stands its ground against one and all.
It is not hard to imagine that as and when Amazon Kindle starts shipping in China, it is bound to be a monumental success.
Amazon’s Kindle satisfies preferences identified by e-book readers in the United States, based on a recent survey released by Strategy Analytics. The survey reported that current e-book readers report a high level of satisfaction with their devices, and prefer e-books to physical or “dead tree” books. It also reported that e-book readers are looking for three things in their devices: ease of access to books, ease of content transfer, and newspaper and magazine availability. With more than 400,000 titles available to purchase and increased access to free content through services such as Scribd, Amazon offers superior content availability. In addition, Kindle has 107 newspapers and 50 magazines available for subscription, including most of the major US and international periodicals. Both the Kindle and Kindle DX can access Amazon’s bookstore with 60 second downloads.
The one unknown factor is the strength of Apple’s brand recognition. With its strong marketing strategy, buildin up hype prior to this month’s release of the iPad, Apple is betting on brand recognition to tip the balance in its favor. While the survey reported that Apple ran a close second in terms of preferred brand, it also said content will still trump name recognition.
“While brand name is still an important factor for current owners when choosing their next e-book reader,” commented Chris Schreiner, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics. “Consumers buying their first e-book reader will focus more on the durability and availability of e-books.”
Strategy Analytics is an international research and consulting firm that specializes in the information, communication and entertainment industries.
 Amazon Kindle DX Right after international Kindle 2 was shipped there were some speculations about international version of Kindle DX shipping sometime in 2010. Well… There is no need to speculate anymore. Amazon has just announced international availability of its 9.7″ eBook Reader. International Kindle DX is available for pre-order right now and will ship on the 19th of January 2010 worldwide.
There doesn’t seem to be any changes to the software as compared to the US version. Kindle DX will most likely get software version 2.3 that is now standard for the entire line-up of Amazon eInk readers. Since it now runs on GSM 3G wireless rather than CDMA it benefits from the latest software update that extended battery life with wireless on to roughly a week.
Last time I’ve checked international Kindle book availability, most countries has 320,000+ books available, while US customers can choose from 404,000+ books.
Most likely new Kindle will have new hardware ID (first 4 symbols in the serial number) so all hacks, including the Unicode Font hack will need to be repackaged specifically for the new version.
This updated version of Kindle Unicode Fonts Hack works on all versions of Kindle software including the most recent 2.3 and installs on Kindle 2 US, Kindle 2 International and Kindle DX.
I’ve added more font combinations:
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GNU FreeFont – this hack uses GNU Free Fonts that come with Linux and are free to redistribute. All font styles are preserved (serif, sans-serif, mono-spaced, bold and italic) but these fonts only support Latin, Cyrillic characters and some others (click here for full coverage data). So if you are only interested in Russian books – this is the way to go. Otherwise this patch will do you little good. Here are download links:
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GNU Free Fonts SansSerif (recommended for Cyrillic) - same fonts as before but SansSerif family is used instead of Serif. In my opinion it looks better. Bold and italic styles are preserved:
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Droid Fallback Fonts (recommened for Asian glyphs) - this hack uses open-source Droid fallback font that is part of Google Android platform. Unfortunately styles and typefaces are missing completely. You’ll only get regular Sans Serif. The upside is the broadest character support. It supports Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese and a bunch of other languages. This font also looks very good on the Kindle screen (in my opinion way better than native Kindle fonts). This is the patch I currently have installed on my Kindle 2. Here are download links:
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Droid Fonts with Styles – Same fonts as above but all families and styles are there. However Asian characters are not supported:
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Droid Fallback with Styles SansSerif – Same as above but Serif fonts are replaced with Sans Serif because I believe it is more readable on Kindle screen:
Visit the Kindle Unicode Fonts Hack page for detailed instructions.
It definitely looks like I’ll have to eat my words… One month ago I made a statement that there will be fewer Kindle software updates and that chances of new features being added via update are slim. At least on the second count I was wrong. Amazon has released Kindle software version 2.3 for Kindle 2 US, Kindle 2 International and Kindle DX. It added significant features to all of these devices. In fact Amazon deemed the update so significant that they’ve sent out emails to Kindle owners about it.
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Kindle 2 International (wireless by AT&T) got a significant battery life boost. You can now go for a week without having to recharge the device and keep the wireless on. Since it doesn’t apply to the US version of Kindle 2 (that uses Sprint for wireless connectivity) it looks like Amazon didn’t change the poll frequency but either fixed some bug in wireless driver or took advantage of a technology similar to PUSH email.
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Both US and international versions of Kindle 2 got native PDF support based on the same code that was used in Kindle DX. Now you can also manually switch screen orientation to landscape. Kindle DX style automatic switching doesn’t work since Kindle 2 devices lack the accelerometer hardware. PDF files are better cropped now as blank margins don’t use up valuable screen space. This is especially important for small 6″ Kindle screens since PDF viewer still lacks zoom feature.
- Since all Kindle versions now support PDF, sending PDF file to @kindle.com email will no longer convert it to native Kindle format by default. If you still want the conversion to happen, you should put the word “Convert” in the email subject.
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Kindle DX screensaver activation time was increased from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. This makes sense since larger screen can contain more text that takes longer to read.
- All Kindle versions will not require signed update packages. This problem however has already been solved.
Normally you Kindle would update itself automatically if you have wireless connectivity. However if you do not or the update failed because you had hacks installed, you can update Kindle manually. This time around though, rather than trying to hit dynamic URLs that are supposed to always provide the latest version, you can download the update from the appropriate static location. These locations are listed on Amazon.com Help page.
By bringing all Kindle devices to the same version, Amazon will simplify software development process in the long run. They may change the update process in the future to cut the update delivery costs. 2.3 update package was around 10 megabytes large. If they keep the current method update packages will get only larger.
At the moment there is no update for 1st generation Kindle. And dare I make another prediction – the chances of it happening are rather slim.
While we are on the topic of updates. There might be another update currently in the works in Lab126. On Kindle Facebook page Kindle developers have posted the following message:
Amazon Kindle Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team
Personally I have just one question left: Where are the bleeping Unicode fonts? Amazon, seriously! Is it too much trouble to replace the current fonts with ones that support wider range of characters? Although with PDF support in place there is workaround via PDF font embedding, it would be nice to have native support as well.
I guess this leaves me with little choice but to recompile Kindle Unicode Font Hack to work with Kindle Software 2.3… I’ll post as soon as it’s ready and tested.
Personally I’m used to updating software. Pretty much every week one or another piece of software on my PC updates – be it Windows itself, the antivirus, iTunes or whatever. I’ve subconsciously come to expect the same from Kindle. And at first Kindle firmware did update quite frequently:
As you can see it seems that Kindle 2 got several updates soon after release and then there was silence.
Early update rush was caused by bugs in the new software. One or two updates were caused by law suit (Text-to-speech, and Orwell book deletion). However, note that none of the updates introduced new features. I guess Amazon sticks to the policy – don’t fix it if it ain’t broken.
Kindle DX and Kindle international share most of the software with original Kindle so there is little room for new critical bugs.
But most importantly, the number of Kindles in operation has exploded since the beginning of 2009. And this is probably the most important reason why we will not see many Kindle updates in the future and probably none of them will be feature driven. Amazon pays Sprint 12 cents per megabyte transferred. It would be safe to assume that Amazon gets similar pricing from AT&T for domestic traffic and a much higher price for data roaming. Average Kindle update is 2 megabytes in size. Because of the way Amazon structures the update packages, this accumulates as each subsequent update includes all previous updates as well. So first update was 2 megs, second one was 4, third – 6, etc.
6 megabytes times 12 cents is $0.72 per device updated. By some estimates there may be 2..3 million Kindle devices in operation. Let’s assume that 80% of devices are within wireless coverage (although in reality this number can be much higher). This adds up to $1,440,000 to $2,160,000 per software update deployment and increasing with every update version. And this is just to update domestic Kindles. I wouldn’t even want to think about the pricing to worldwide distribution. Also I wouldn’t want to be the software developer who makes a critical bug that causes an update or that software developer’s boss for that matter…
Given these numbers I don’t believe that Amazon would release update unless they have a very strong reason to do so. Strong reason being a court order or something else of this sort. This more or less addresses they questions of where Amazon will add folders, PDF support for Kindle 2 or official Unicode fonts for that matter via an update. The answer is a definite NO.
On the issue of fonts I’m most sure since Unicode fonts in the updates that I use (that add only partial support without all of the font styles) are 1.5..3 megabytes. Proper Unicode support can easily add up to 10 megabytes. So this would mean millions of dollars spent with potential to spend more millions in the future and near zero return of investment since although many people would like to have this feature, for most of them it’s not a deal-breaker (especially since on Kindle DX you can have any kind of fonts via PDF files). The few books that have non-Latin characters that Amazon sells use Topaz format to embed the extra glyphs that they need. So adding Unicode fonts would help customers read books that Amazon doesn’t sell. In this light the question about Unicode fonts via an update for existing devices is a no-brainer.
It is possible that this support would be included in Kindle 3 or whatever else the next generation Kindle will be called since in this case the cost for Amazon is just licencing fee for the fonts.
 I’ve create Unicode Font Hack that also works on Kindle 2 International. I’ve also reorganized the files to minimize download times. Each device/font combination can now be downloaded as separate file. That file would contain only update binaries. Source code for all binaries can be downloaded separately. I’ve updated the hack page accordingly. You can find instructions as well as more detailed information there.
I’ve made the following changes to the hack:
- Removed browser only hack since it didn’t add much value – if you still want it you’ll need to build it from the sources yourself.
- Changed the uninstaller so that it removes extra font files completely as some of you have requested this feature.
- Since droid hack uses the same font, rather than making multiple copies I’m using symlinks now so the hack uses less disk space on Kindle.
Here are installation instructions:
- Download one of the following files:
- Droid fonts: this is an open-source font that comes from Android Google OS. This font looks quite nice and supports Asian characters. However it only comes in sans serif style:
- Liberation fonts. These fonts come from RedHat linux and are open-source. Personally I don’t find them as nice as droid. It doesn’t support Asian characters. However it does support all 3 font styles – serif, sans serif and mono-spaced.
- If you have international version of Kindle 2 you need to jailbreak it first:
- Connect your Kindle to PC via the USB cable.
- Download this file: update_freekindle-k2i.bin
- Copy it to the root directory of your Kindle.
- Press Home. Press Menu. Select Settings. Press Menu. Select Update Your Kindle. Select OK.
- The update WILL fail. This is expected. However from now on you will be able to install custom Kindle updates.
- Connect your Kindle to PC via the USB cable.
- Copy update package that corresponds to your device to to the root directory of your Kindle.
- Press Home. Press Menu. Select Settings. Press Menu. Select Update Your Kindle. Select OK.
- The update will install, Kindle will restart and when it does – new fonts are going to be in effect. Please not that for International Kindle it will take some time before the installation progress bar moves as font files are large and it takes a long time for Kindle to verify the update signature.
To uninstall:
- Connect your Kindle to PC via the USB cable.
- Download and copy uninstall package that corresponds to your device to to the root directory of your Kindle.
- Press Home. Press Menu. Select Settings. Press Menu. Select Update Your Kindle. Select OK.
- The update will install, Kindle will restart and when it does – old fonts will be used and there will be no trace of the hack in the Kindle file system. So official updates will install once again.
If you would like to customize the fonts – you can do so by downloading the hack sources and modifying them. I have to warn you that this is risky business though. It may be a good idea to install the antibrick hack before you proceed.
 Amazon Kindle DX Refurbished Kindle DX is once again available for purchase at Amazon. It comes with the same 1 year warranty as the new Kindle DX but at $90.00 discount (18.4%).
I’ve just noticed that refurbished Kindle DX is currently out of stock. You can still purchase the new one for $489.00. I”ll notify you when this changes.
Amazon Kindle DX While browsing the announcements about Kindle 2 international launch I’ve stumbled upon a post on electricpig.co.uk in which James Holland claims that Amazon UK spokesman Ben Howes telling that “we (Amazon) expect to add a Kindle DX family member with international roaming sometime next year.”
This is interesting piece of news, although you can hardly call it surprising since there is obviously demand for such a device, “sometime next year” is a rather wide period of time (I’m sure that Amazon will release something and Kindle DX seems logical), also there is little that is preventing Amazon from releasing such a device:
- Hardware and software changes are rather trivial and low cost.
- Amazon managed to untangle the horrible mess called international copyright law and publishing rights and implement geographical restrictions for books based on country and still come up with decent number of books for most of the 169 countries to which Kindle 2 will start shipping on October 19.
- They’ve managed to set up wireless connectivity in 100+ countries by taking advantage of AT&T roaming agreements. While data prices are substantial and infer usage restrictions (international download surcharge, no web-browsing, etc) but it works for Kindle 2 and it will work for Kindle DX
- Amazon had distribution and logistics set up and figured out long before Kindle 1 was released.
So you would ask why not release it now? There are several possible reasons and most likely all of them play a role to a different degree each:
- If Amazon does two releases that are several months apart, they would generate hype twice and benefit from two spikes in sales. If they were to release both devices together I doubt there would have been twice as much hype. I think that Amazon is carefully timing their releases and price drops to maintain maximum possible customer attention to their product in the long run. After all Amazon was selling products made by other companies (some of them quite hyped, like iPod Touch), they know sales volume and how much does it spike after a piece of news and at what pace it then drops. And it would make total sense for them to use this knowledge to their advantage.
- It’s easier and cheaper to test new technology (3G GSM modem integration) on one device and then apply your experience to integrating this technology into another device. It’s also easier to retool one production line than two. If you consider the fact that Kindle DX was sold out for almost a month this summer it makes sense that Amazon would like to avoid disruptions in production if they can.
- Perhaps international Kindle DX will include additional features like better PDF support, touchscreen or some other innovations. These take time to develop. Taking a pause would also let Amazon see how Sony touchscreen eReaders would fare and make a decision on whether to go down that road or not.
- If you look in the upper left corner of BlogKindle.com you will see that Amazon already sells 6 Kindle devices, all with different price points. Adding another one might confuse customers too much and disrupt the buying process. So Amazon would likely phase out US version of Kindle 2, merging it with refurbished Kindle 2. Then they would have 6 months before they would need to worry about reselling refurbished international Kindles.
If I were to guess when would Amazon roll out international Kindle DX I would say: “not for another 4 months” since this seems to be the pace they’ve set this year and considering that Amazon just did their “holiday season release” and it would make little sense to dump something on the unsuspecting customers amid holidays.
Let’s wait and see…
 Kindle Copy-Paste As I was playing around with my Kindle DX, I’ve found an undocumented feature that can be used in a couple of ways. I checked and it also works in Kindle 2. It’s possible that it is known in the Kindle community or even documented but I wasn’t aware of it until I discovered it by accident the same way as I’ve found Kindle calculator easter egg.
If you start selecting text in Kindle book or document with 5-way controller but instead of pressing the controller the second time to highlight the selection press any alphanumeric key or space bar, the highlighted text would get copied into the search box as shown on picture.
From here you can go two ways:
- either use this text as a search query against current book/document, all of your kindle content, Kindle Store, Google, Wikipedia or default dictionary (to change search scope tilt 5-way controller left or right)
- or select the rightmost search button “note” that would paste text from a search box to a newly created note. You can then edit the note text as you see fit. The note will be anchored to the location where you have finished your selection.
I hope you will find this tip useful.
Amazon Kindle DX For quite some time Amazon was selling refurbished Kindle devices at a discount:
Now you can also get refurbished Kindle DX with 9.7″ screen and PDF support at $90.00 (18%) discount for $399.00.
It should be noted that refurbished Kindles come with the same 1 year warranty as new ones.
Thanks to reader UB for letting me know about this via a comment.
I’ll keep you updated on the stock status of all 3 models at it changes.
I’ve covered before the possible applications that the Kindle and other eReaders could have in education. With Amazon’s pilot program for Kindle usage at universities, this semester is a testing of the waters for the future of eTextbooks. The students involved have begun to voice their impressions, and they’re not entirely satisfied.
Does this mean that eReader adoption in the academic world will slow down? Probably not. The whole point of the Kindle trial is to see what works, and what doesn’t, when eReaders are put in the classroom. So far students like the convenience of textbooks in the Kindle platform, but aren’t happy about studying with it. Complaints are mainly about the inconvenience of note taking and flipping between passages when compared to traditional books.
But these complaints aren’t surprising. The Kindle isn’t designed as an academic tool. The whole reason for its success is that it is an entertainment device, created for the purpose of reading books for entertainment. The opposite would be something like the Plastic Logic, which was created explicitly for the business world with entertainment as a secondary goal. Chances are, Amazon is planning something similar to the touchscreen enabled Plastic Logic, some sort of Kindle academic edition. Touch screen would be the most obvious addition, but a school oriented Kindle will probably find other ways to innovate as well. The pilot program means that Amazon now has tons of data explaining exactly what students need from an academic eReader. I don’t see why Amazon wouldn’t use it.
 Kindle DX, Kindle 2, Sony PRS-505 It so happened that I purchased Sony PRS-505 for my Dad. I chose Sony eReader because my Dad living outside WhisperNet coverage and having very little knowledge of English language (and therefore no interest in any books that are sold on Amazon.com) effectively negated all benefits of Amazon Kindle.
On the other hand Sony eBook reader is extensively used by Russian community so on top of Unicode fonts there’s also complete localization of UI available in Russian (and in many other languages). A lot of credit for this should be given to Igor Skochinsky who also made Unicode Font Hack possible by figuring out a way to create custom updates for Amazon Kindle.
Therefore I’ve had a chance to briefly compare the Sony reader with both Kindle 2 and Kindle DX side-by-side. I would like to share my impressions on the subject. It is in no way a complete review – just an opinion. But perhaps someone will find it useful.
Exterior: Although I found Sony PRS-505 more visually pleasing than Kindle, I found pagination buttons of Kindle more comfortable. This is kind of a big deal since flipping pages constitutes 95% of eBook reader usage. It is nice that Sony eReader comes with protective cover included. I also purchased cover with light prism. It looked really cool all the way up to the moment when I turned it on. Then I found that it somewhat reduces text contrast. On the bright side, it leaks much less light than Mighty Bright XtraFlex that I use with Kindle. I also found 10 numerical buttons on PRS-505 handy and highly functional.
Display: Both Kindle 2 and PRS-505 sport 6″ eInk displays of the same resolution of 600×800. They differ in the number of supported colors: 16 for Kindle vs. 8 for Sony and in contrast which I subjectively found to be higher in the Sony reader.
Storage: Kindle 2 sports 1.4Gb of internal flash memory storage usable for books, while Sony device has significantly less (192Mb) but compensates for it by having 2 expansion slots that can potentially add 10Gb of additional storage. Plus you have the ability to swap memory cards that you carry in your pocket making the storage potentially unlimited. Not that it really matters because as I’ve shown in Kindle 2 vs. Kindle DX comparison, you’ll need to spend around $8,500 to completely fill up 1.4Gb of Kindle storage with books. So unless you use your reader for viewing manga as collection of JPEG files or go on solo many times around the world boat trips without a computer you really should not care either way.
Software: Sony seems to resume from sleep mode faster than Kindle. It also offers more in terms of organizing your book collection. Latter is a major pain point and probably the most requested feature by Kindle users. I would very much like Kindle to do a better job at organizing the books I purchased. There really is no reason for this feature to not be there given that Kindles have fully functional keyboard that would make naming collections and tags really easy. On the other hand Kindle sports some features that are not found in its Sony competitor like text-to-speech and web-browser.
PDF Support: While Kindle 2 only supports PDF via conversion, Kindle DX has a native support like the Sony does. While I didn’t have a chance to explore in detail PDF capabilities of Sony PRS-505 like I did with Kindle DX, I did try one PDF file. I have to admit that Sony does a better job at supporting PDF than Kindle because PRS-505 supports internal hyperlinks and table of contents as well as reflowing text to accommodate different font sizes. 9.7″ screen size of Kindle DX that can also work in landscape mode provides a saving straw because it makes reflowing unnecessary for many PDF files.
PC Software and book buying experience: I didn’t install the Sony software as my Dad would have no use for it (he only plans to read Russian classics that are freely available on the Internet) and I didn’t need to install Amazon software because there isn’t any. Although it may seem unfair (since I haven’t tried the Sony way) I’ll say that comparing book buying experience for Kindle and Sony would be like beating a dead horse. It’s the main selling point of Amazon Kindle and it’s what made it so successful.
Conclusion: Overall I liked the Sony device even tough it’s soon going to be outdated by newer models some of which will have touchscreen (another highly anticipated Kindle feature). Sony seems to have better software and both Amazon and Sony have strong and weak points in ergonomics. If I could have the same book buying experience and selection on Sony as I have with Amazon Kindle, I’d probably go with Sony eReader. However since things are the way they are, I’m staying with Kindle and my dad will use Russian-localized version of PRS-505 to read classics freely available from sites like lib.ru
P.S.: I’ve alredy finished this comparison review when I discovered a new aspect of these devices I wasn’t aware of. Kindle turned out to be much better for non-English speakers who want to learn the language than Sony PRS-505 due to built-in dictionary and text-to-speech capability. My sister started reading English books with intent of enriching her active vocabulary. Built-in dictionary lookup saved her tons of time each time the ran into an unfamilar word. Text-to-speech gave her a very good idea of how each word sounds as she read along with the device. So Kindle although lacking free Internet connectivity outside the US can still be perfect for some foreign users.
When I get my hands on newer Sony eReader models I’ll see how they stack up against the Kindle and post some reviews as well.
I’ve come across yet another way to crash Kindle DX: connect it via USB cable to your PC and try copying over a dictionary file. After copying around 2MB of data Kindle drive disconnects from the computer, Kindle goes into home screen and then freezes. I discovered this when trying to copy over Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary without using WhisperNet (since I’m currently outside the coverage zone).
The bug was pretty consistent regardless of which folder I tried to copy the file to. However after I’ve successfully copied the file over (I’ll explain how in a second) I couldn’t get my Kindle DX to crash with this file again. Copying the same file to Kindle 2 also worked out fine.
I’ve noticed that once some portion of file was copied you can append to it and it will not cause crashes. So I used robocopy.exe to resume the copy operation. To do it you need to put the file you want to copy in a separate folder and then run robocopy.exe /z . k:\documents after resetting your Kindle DX, assuming K: is your Kindle drive letter. If you are running Windows Vista it already comes with robocopy installed, for other versions you can download it here.
After the process was complete it seems that my Kindle works fine and there is no lasting damage. However if you would like to try reproducing this bug please to it at your own risk as your mileage may vary. Let me know if you experience something similar.
Later I did some additional testing and found out that other dictionaries would crash Kindle DX in the same way as well and for some dictionary files the robocopy workaround doesn’t seem to work. I’ve notified Amazon so hopefully it will get fixed sometime soon. With any luck this had already happened in Kindle 2.1.1 update that some people are getting already and that’s listed in the Kindle source code section along with Kindle 2.0.4 update.
On the Kindle source code page two new packages recently appeared:
Some users have already reported receiving these updates on your devices. Manual Kindle software update URL still returns 2.0.3 for me and there is no known URL to check for Kindle DX updates at the moment. There doesn’t seem to be any update for the original 1st generation Kindle at the moment.
If you notice any differences after your Kindle updates, please let me know. This would also be a good time to temporarily revert Unicode Font Hack or any other firmware-altering hacks that you have installed so that automated update installation will not fail. You can safely reapply hacks after you get the updates.
 David Byrne Reviews for the Kindle seem to pop up from some of the most unexpected people. One new response to the Kindle DX comes from David Byrne, the front man of the legendary Talking Heads (and one half of the duo responsible for last years phenomenal Everything That Happens Will Happen Today). It might seem a little odd to hear gadget commentary from Byrne, but when you’re a world famous performer you do a lot of traveling. The Kindle DX simply seemed like the ideal traveler’s accessory.
His review is for the most part positive. Byrne likens the Kindle’s screen to the same quality as a black and white newspaper and perfectly suited for reading. He raves about magazines on the device and how he can read the New Yorker without ads and with the latest issue wirelessly appearing on his Kindle. Byrne does have a few gripes about Amazon’s proprietary format, however, and takes some time in his review to decry how closed off the platform is and his overall disapproval of DRM.
More interesting is his speculation for the Kindle’s future. Byrne predicts that it won’t be long before the format is broken open and future of digital book publishing will involve formats with less DRM restrictions or none at all just as it happened with digital music market with Apple, Microsoft and Amazon selling DRM-free MP3 files.
The Kindle DX has a nice, big screen. For the most part, the extra large screen is used to make newspapers and magazines easier to read. But one of the cooler applications that Amazon offers is the ability to buy sheet music.
Amazon sells sheet music from the catalog of Novato Music Press. While reading on a Kindle 2 is made a little difficult by the smaller screen, the Kindle DX does a great job of displaying full pages of music. Plus, sheet music on the Kindle store is cheap: individual pieces can be as little as about $1.50. The only real downside is the hassle of refreshing the Kindle whenever you need to turn the page, but this isn’t that different than regular sheet music.
Are there any musicians who read this blog? Have you tried reading sheet music off of the Kindle? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Since I’m currently travelling in the UK for more than a month already, I have Wireless turned off on both Kindle 2 and Kindle DX that I have. After a month of moderate reading while Kindle was getting an occasional small charge only when I connected it to the computer to sync new content battery indicators on both K2 and DX were showing roughly 75% battery capacity.
My original intent was to wait some more and then make a post about how great Kindle battery life is if you turn off the wireless. However before I could do that, interesting thing happened. When my wife turned on her K2 the charge indicator jumped from 75% to “critical low” (battery icon with exclamation mark). Kindle had to be charged. In a couple of days exactly the same thing happened to my Kindle DX.
This happened about one month after devices were fully changed. What is interesting that although my wife read roughly 3 times as many pages as I did, batteries in our devices ran out at about the same time. So it looks like it was more related to idle time rather than usage.
Amazon’s official stance is that with wireless turned off Kindle should go around 2 weeks without a charge depending on the usage. Ours lasted twice as long. However what’s more interesting is the way charge suddenly dropped to zero. Something you should keep in mind if you intend to take your Kindle somewhere without electricity for long time.
I’m interested if anyone has observed similar strange behaviour?
 Kindle DX Package After a little bit over a month of being on back order, Kindle DX can be purchased with same day shipping again. Either Amazon has ramped up their manufacturing or the peak of initial demand has been satisfied already. However back-to-school shopping might kick in any time now…
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