Kindle Device

Does Amazon have a problem with the Kindle replacement battery? There seems to be a mixed bag when it comes to the Kindle battery, while some people get awesome battery life it seems like others get a raw deal with the battery.

As you can see, the Kindle battery is out of stock which tells my that there is a real problem with the battery and it isn’t just effecting a handful of people. It scores a pitiful 2.5/5 in the customer satisfaction review which also backs up the theory that the Kindle battery is somewhat volatile when it comes to consistent performance.

The reviews paint a worrying picture:

J. E. Link writes:

My Kindle battery failed within 3 months. It is yet another poor quality Lithium Polymer battery manufactured in Communist China. I had hoped that Amazon would have done better with it’s Kindle product. This is not encouraging.

Michael T. Earle

While I love my Kindle, the original battery that came with it only lasted a mere three months (and not real heavy usage) and is now dead and won’t recharge. And now I see Amazon is sold out of replacements!

James Mueller “Gadget Head”

My battery is dead after only 3 months as well. Based on the comments I have read others are having the same issue. Is Amazon looking into this? Are they going to make good on the replacement batteries for customers who have this problem? It’s a shame, the device is great. I hope they don’t let this issue overshadow the device’s good points. Take a lesson from Apple when the iPod had battery issues when it first came out. FIX IT!

When the iPod came out it was plagued with battery issues, it Apple took a long time to fix them and it definitely hurt iPod’s image - its time Amazon learned from Apple’s misfortune. Lets hope its not as as bad as it looks, how is your Kindle battery, have you had to have it replaced?

Have you ever wished that you could use a stylus to write notes on a page or use your fingers to turn the virtual page on your Kindle? well your wish might be about to come true, the company which supplies Amazon with its Kindle EInk displays, PVI (Prime View International), has partnered with a company called F-Origin (of which it owns a 20 percent stake) to incorporate zTouch, a proprietary touch screen technology, into EInk display panels.

From the F-Origin press release:

The functionality and flexibility in design provided by zTouch is the perfect solution for ebooks and other products that utilize PVI’s ePaper displays. zTouch enables users to control book navigation and numerous management functions, such as turning pages, making selections or simply making edits or comments via touch and through gestures and hand writing recognition. The ease of use and high-functionality of zTouch are an ideal match for eBooks by PVI.

From the separate PVI press release:

When a user touches the display, proprietary software calculates the location and intensity of the touch with input from the sensors. There is no additional layer of materials on top of the display as there is in traditional touch technologies; as such, there is no impact to the reflective qualities of the display. This technology requires no ITO (the most fragile component in traditional touch panels), hence exhibits superior robustness. Unlike capacitive touch panels which requires the touch medium be conductive (such as a finger), this force sensing technology works with either stylus or fingers

You can read the full accompanying press release from PVI’s perspective on their website and you can read up on the zTouch 3.0 Technology [PDF warning] with this product information guide provided by F-Origin.

What does this mean? will the next Kindle offer a touch screen interface as standard? The Kindle isn’t mentioned by name by either PVI or F-Origin in the press releases, but its hard to see this technology not making it onto any future incarnation of the Kindle. These certainly are interesting developments and would strongly suggest that Amazon is working on a Kindle v2.

Source: Teleread

As you may have noticed, there have been a lack of updates recently, however that doesn’t mean we have take our eyes off the ball. Amazon updated their website today and it shows that the Amazon Kindle is now now available to order.

WOHOO!

I know a lot of you had grown inpatient with Amazon and been waiting for this news for quite a while, so now is your chance to grab a Kindle device before (inevitably, I think) the stocks run out yet again.

Go to the Kindle Store and get you Kindle!

Believe it or not the above picture is not that of a fine old book, but rather a modified case cover for the Kindle! This beautiful piece was made by a user on the mobileread Kindle forum, it features a hand made leather book case, marbleized paper for the end papers, gold leaf to give the impression of gilded pages and a felt-lined holder which keeps the Kindle securely in place. You still don’t believe me do you? in that case I suggest you scroll down the page and have a look at other the images.

Whilst it does look pretty, a few readers on the forums have pointed out that there seem to be some usability issues. For instance on this particular case-mod the cover does not fold back upon itself which may cause readers to use both hands whilst reading content, however the creator of the case mod assured them that it is not a big issue. I guess the only way of telling if it affects usability is by actually using it.

This case-mod simply blows the standard case you get with the Kindle out of the water, or for that matter any other case out there. I think a commercial venture which would offer this to Kindle owners would be an excellent idea, apparently this case-mod it has already fooled some people into thinking that it is a real book!

Now here are some more picture for you to drool over:

Source: user artsci on mobileread Kindle forums

Since I assume that Kindle is only the first generation of mobile ebook readers, it got me thinking of what the next generation of Kindle ebook readers might look like.

Then by accident the other day I stumbled upon this forum thread which explored the idea of what a next-generation ebook reader might look like. Whilst some of the designs are outrageous, others have obviously had a lot of thought up into them and could work. I have attached a few of my favourites designs.

Let me know what you think.

Source: core77

This is a great article from Well Thsy, dissection of the Kindle device, design, ergonomics and styling, comfort, takes a look at why Amazon decided to design kindle the way they did.

There are great comments after the article, so if you a Kindle owner I suggest you check it out!

Source: Well Thsy

AppleInsider have just received their Amazon Kindle device and have uploaded an in-depth review of the Kindle along with some very high quality images of the unboxing process.

AppleInsider have done a good job with the unboxing process, unlike most unboxing pictures out there, AppleInsider have taken very high quality images, which are well lit. Good job from the guys at AppleInsider!

When I said earlier that the review was in-depth, I wasn’t kidding, the review is spread out over 5 pages and covers just about everything you can think of! here is an expert of the review where they are talking about the interface and navigation:

The biggest problem for E Ink is that it can’t redraw rapidly enough to support animation such as a mouse cursor or smooth page scrolling. Kindle attempts to work around this limitation using a scroll wheel to navigate between options on the page

Dialing a small roller up and down animates a silvery block cursor in an independent track that uses its own display that can update rapidly (above). This navigation track allows the user to select between options presented on a page, or to select a line of text which might include multiple hyperlinks within it. Once selected, a push down on the roller brings up a menu, typically including options to:

• select from one of the hyperlinks in the selected line.
• lookup a word in the selected line.
• jump to the Home page.
• visit the Kindle Store shopping page.
• navigate within the existing document to its front page, table of contents, a specific location, a sections listing, or user specified bookmarks.
• add notes to a document, highlight a selection, and access earlier notes.
• create bookmarks.
• save a selected page as a digital text clipping that can be output to a computer.

The right and left edges of the unit each have two large buttons: next and previous page buttons on the left, and next page and “back” buttons on the right. It seems logical that “back” and “previous page” would do the same thing, but that is not always the case. Sometimes back returns to a previous section, for example. It isn’t consistent enough to really be intuitive or predictable, however.

There is also a full keypad below the screen for entering text, along with alt, symbol, and search function keys and a button that brings up a menu to change the text display size used when reading a document. Between the E Ink display and the roller wheel cursor track, it’s quite easy and usually intuitive to figure out how to navigate around, but the slow page refresh is a significant problem that severely taxes navigation speed, as every menu presented involves a flash and a pause.

If your thinking of purchasing a Kindle, but are still unsure then you might want to check this review out, the review answers many questions about the Kindle device, Kindle accessories, the service and what Kindle is like to use every day.

Source: AppleInsider Unboxing Pictures
Source: Review: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5

Crunchgear received and email from a reader who’s Kindle has been showing signs of a rather worrying problem;

From Crunchgear:

A reader writes:

I got my girlfriend an Amazon Kindle for xmas and over the past few days it has progressively gotten worse and worse screen damage, despite barely being used (and never abused). Amazon acted like they had heard of the issue before and are trying to advance us a replacement but the backorder list is apparently huge so we don’t have very high hopes to see a replacement anytime soon. Have pic if you are interested, was mostly just curious if you had heard anything from anyone else about similar issue because Google finds nothing of the sort
its to the point now where the unit is unusable, about the top 1/3rd of the screen is garbled beyond recognition, and each time we turn it on it seems like more rows of pixels go out

I haven’t seen this issue, but now I can’t download fresh content, which makes Trog angry. Anyone else seeing weird eInk problems?

UPDATE - Jason just sent us a pic and an update:

The unit hasn’t even been out of the box long enough to
require being recharged, not to mention being abused, so I really
suspect that there is just a loose connection inside or faulty
soldering. I purchased it on launch day so hopefully this is just a
first-run QA mix-up, not an indicator of long term trouble with the
technology.

Thanks for posting my issue, I see that someone else had a similar
problem and Amazon resolved it reasonably quickly (which is
reassuring).

Crunchgear speculates that the culprit behind this fault is the E-Ink technology, however one reader seem to think that the problem lies with the TFT screen and its manufacturer Prime View International.

Amazon appears to be on top of thing it seems, another reader reports that his Kindle was experiencing similar problems and Amazon quickly replaced his device, which is good news for Kindle owners who may have this problem.

Source: Crunchgear

Yesterday we posted a picture of a hacked Kindle with google maps running on it. Today we have 2 more shots to show you, these were taken with the newly discovered screen-grab utility. The first one is a screen-grab of a New York Times article, and the second one shows google maps running in more detail.

There probably wont be a post tomorrow since its new years eve and I will be out having fun! So enjoy these pictures, be safe and have a happy new year!

Source: Interface

A few days ago we reported that the Kindle had been hacked to allow mobipocket eBooks to run on the device. The guy behind the hack was hacker Igor Skochinsky. It seems Igor has done it again, this time uncovering a handful of exciting hidden features.

The most exiting of which, as you can see from the image above, is a crude GPS system which uses Google’s experimental MyLocation service to pinpoint your approximate location. Google’s MyLocation also allows you to look for local gas stations, hotels and restaurants or whatever else you want to search. Interestingly though some of the commands such as “find nearest gas station,” are built into the Kindle, which suggests at one time this the feature was planned for release, but for whatever reason was scrapped. My feeling is that it was probably the extra bandwidth costs that made them scrap this feature since Amazon is paying Sprint for using the Whispernet service at no cost to Kindle owners.

For those of you who are concerned about your privacy, I dont think Amazon is using this hidden feature to track your location, like I said before, it was probably a planned feature which got scrapped, and somebody probably forgot to remove the code. Rest assured we’ll keep you up to date of any new information that comes out regarding this hidden feature which may effect your privacy.

Other hidden gems include a hidden picture viewer, slideshows, a screenshot utility, a clock, a diagnostic mode, quick-look, the classic Minesweeper game and many more. You can read up on all the new features by clicking the link below. We’ll try to get some snaps of these up on the blog as soon as we get them.

Getting these hidden features requires fiddling with the firmware, so in that sense you need to know what you are doing. If you dont know how to use the modification scripts, you stay well clear as they could damage your Kindle.

Source: Igor Skochinsky (via Interface)

Yesterday I blogged about the Kindle being opened up. Not satisfied with just pictures, I opened up Google in search of something more detailed. I struck gold! I found this article on Dr. Blip’s PC-Doctor’s blog (awesome name and blog btw! you should check out the rest of the blog), its a detailed dissection of the Kindle and shows each component and what it does. It is quite technical and it’s a fascinating read.

The comments at the bottom of the article make for an interesting read as-well, some of the commenter’s speculate that Amazon are selling the device at a loss, although that is purely speculative since we don’t know how much it cost to manufacturer the Kindle or the R&D costs.

Source: Dr Blip PC Doctor - Inside the Amazon Kindle

Kindle only allows you to read DRM protected eBooks, so how would you can you read other eBooks on the Kindle? one way would be to add the Kindle DRM to your eBook!

Hacker Igor Skochinsky who hacked open the Sony e-reader has done it again, this time he has hacked open the Kindle to allow you to read mobipocket eBooks on the Kindle, its a novel solution, by using a couple of Python scripts, you can convert an eBook into Amazon’s AZW format, the scripts add a serial number DRM, unique to an individuals Kindle, which allows you to read them on the Kindle device.

Now there is a chance that it Amazon can ‘fix’ the hack, since Amazon owns Mobipocket, however I don’t think this is the path that Amazon will take. Aarjav Trivedi over at Kindle Hacks has blogged today about how the ‘Director of Kindle’ over at Amazon has no problem with the Kindle being hacked.

CAUTION: USE THESE SCRIPTS AT YOUR OWN RISK! WE CAN NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED AS A RESULT OF THEIR USE.

Source: Igor Skochinsky
Python Script Download: Kindle Mobipocket tools 0.1
Python Script Download: Mirror
Source: Kindle Hacks

Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) allows you, yes YOU!, to publish anything you want and put it up for sale in the Kindle Store. How cool is that?

Do you have an old novel that you wrote in college? or are you trying to find a publisher for your next best seller? Then Amazon’s Digital Text Platform is for you. So what is Digital Text Platform I hear you ask;

Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload and format your books for sale in the Kindle Store.

You can read the FAQ which will guide you through setting up an account, formatting your document and how to uploading your content to the Kindle store. There is also a very active user forum for Kindle publishers to discuss the platform.

Now I think this is a very smart move by Amazon to offer this service even though we know there are a limited number of Kindles out there. Amazon is keeping tight lipped about the number of devices it has sold.

As more people get the Kindle in 2008, I think we are going to see an increase in the number of people, and companies, who decide to publish content through DTP. I don’t think its going to be just authors who use this service, its only a matter of time before blogs and print media truly jump onto the Kindle bandwagon and offer Kindle exclusive content, which I think is what Amazon wants them to do instead of just re-publishing their content in Kindle format. Think about it, soon we will be begin to see Kindle exclusive newsletters , novels, blogs entries and newspaper articles. DTP for me is what Kindle is all about, its going to give the power back to the writers. No longer is the publishing house going to decide whether you’re good enough to get published.

What do you think?

Lets face it, we all want to see what this little baby look like on the inside. Rapidrepair.com were one of the lucky few who were able to get their paws on a Kindle before it sold out. Being the geeks that they are, they decided to dissect it.

I must warn you that its not pretty! She may look sleek, slender and understated on the outside, she is anything but that on the inside.

I’m no hardware engineer, so I can not tell you exactly what each component does or how it was assembled, but it looks like there are an awful lot of gadgets in there, Kindle is essentially a mobile phone/PDA with a fancy e-ink screen, the thing that makes Kindle unique is the software. So if there is anyone out there who knows what each component does then don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Enjoy!

Source: Rapid Repair - Amazon Kindle Take-Apart

For those more tech savvy Kindle readers out there Amazon has provided the source code for Kindle to be freely downloaded. I cant wait to see what developers will do with this information.

Amazon Kindle Source Code