Amazon's Kindle and the Possibilities of Paperless Publishing

Kindle goes 2.0 but only in America By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla Amazon's Kindle Electronic Reading device was recently released in the US and has caused quite a stir. Version 2.0 was redesigned by former Frog Design employees and they have done a great job prettying up the once unattractive but useful device. With the Kindle and the Sony eReader hitting their second and third product generations respectively -we wonder if these paperless devices can serve beyond their current functions and replace some of our current paper models. Here in Canada, the only option we have for a handheld reading device is Sony's Digital Book which is limited to ebooks and RSS feeds and requires a PC connection in order to purchase and download the digital books. Amazon's Kindle, on the other hand, relies on PC-free wireless connection to deliver content on demand and this includes books, newspapers, magazines and RSS feeds. Is an Amazon Kindle in the cards for Canada? The new Amazon Kindle offers the following new features: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you Large Selection: Over 240,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases (US) $9.99, unless marked otherwise - The Kindle certainly has the upper hand in terms of instantaneous delivery of content, its Whispernet over-the-air service is basically unlimited, on-demand wireless Internet. This is ideal for transferring text and some monochrome images quickly and can be a useful method of sending newspaper stories, textbook chapters, serialized fiction, comics, magazine subscriptions and newsletters. Going beyond the fiction and non-fiction book-selling aspect of these early eBook readers, we can see a myriad of truly useful uses for a wireless distribution system. As a number of traditional newspapers have stopped their presses, perhaps an inkless, paperless and purely electronic means of distribution is the way to go. Certainly, we have the Internet and an increasing number of publications have deferred their content to their online versions since these are more instantaneous, easily updatable and cost nearly nothing to disseminate. Reading online isn't as easy as reading print and despite the increasing portability of computers, tablets and smartphones - they will never be easy mediums to read on. E-ink, on the other hand, is the most paper-like technology available today. E-ink is easy to read, non-reflective and sips battery power. On our Sony reader device, we can turn 300 pages before the battery needs recharging, that's the length of the average work of fiction and over a week's worth of newspapers (minus the adverts). We believe electronic, portable reader devices are a no-brainer solution for newspapers, magazines and serialized content. Once you are done reading the content it can be archived or deleted easily, hard drive space costs next to nothing when you consider the diminutive footprint that mostly-text files carry. For students, who pay a fortune for shoddily-rehashed and often bulky textbooks, a Kindle-like device which can manage thousands of pages worth of information makes total sense. New Edition? No problem, just beam up the updated chapters, references and marginalia and everyone with a subscription gets it within minutes. There will be no problems with copyrights, photocopying and reselling of used textbooks either as it seems that eReader devices are strictly attached to digital rights management. In a lot of university courses, two or three textbooks by different authors are chopped and merged to create a more targeted curriculum but this often results in additional print runs and uses up a lot of paper, production, transportation and storage resources. This sort of tailored hodge-podge can be achieved a lot better and more efficiently if it is done centrally to one file and then disseminated to all the users for that specific course. There seem to be other perks as well, the new Kindle offers a passable text-to-speech technology which can read the content of the text files to the user. This may not be ideal for most as it sounds robotic and monotonous but has its advantages for users with accessibility issues. This makes more titles available to persons with disabilities who now have access to books and newspapers that can essentially read themselves out loud. There are a number of things still to consider. In Canada, there's the copyright and fair use of the books, magazines and content that may be available to US customers. Sony's Reader Store has a fair amount of content but you will see lots of titles marked "Not Available in Canada." The delivery of over-the-air content relies heavily on wireless providers. For the Amazon Kindle, data is transferred by Sprint EVDO. The only companies in the Canadian setting that can offer EVDO are Telus and Bell. Seeing how local data plans today are almost obscenely priced, its very hard to reconcile a lifetime of free data service tied into a device unless it is sold for thousands of dollars. These are just some of the challenges we need to overcome in order to realize paperless publishing. It is achievable, the technology is already in place, we just need to set things in motion and get it all to work together.

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