Kindle DX aims at the education market

Kindledude is currently in beautiful downtown Albuquerque.  The picture is of Central Avenue, the main drag.  Note the beautiful blue sky.

Amazon announced a new, large-screen Kindle aimed at the newspaper and education market.  Engadget has a hands-on here.  It is reported to have a larger display and screen that will auto-rotate when you change the device's orientation, and, at $ 489, is quite a bit more expensive than the Kindle 2.  Amazon states that it is entering into deals with major textbook publishers and certain universities.  The Chronicle of Higher Education [subscription required] noted on May 6, 2009 that:

"This week The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon plans to work with a handful of universities on a pilot project featuring Kindles loaded with textbooks. Officials at the institutions named in the article—Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Pace University, Princeton University, Reed College, and the University of Virginia's business school—refused to reveal details, citing nondisclosure agreements."

In addition, Amazon announced that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe will offer reduced priced for long-term Kindle subscriptions.

Kindledude's current read is The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, and I hope to have a review soon.

Amazon buys Lexcycle

Amazon has agreed to buy Lexcycle, the maker of the Stanza e-reader app for iPhone.  This is an interesting acquisition because, of course, Amazon has Kindle software for the iPhone.  While the Kindle iPhone app is not as full-featured as the Stanza e-reader in respect to highlighting, search capabilities, and other features, it does have the ability to access any book in your Kindle archive and also syncronize between the two devices, very handy for Kindle owners who may find themselves with only an iPhone and a yen to read their current book.

It is unclear where this acquisition is going, but a reader for iPhone that can sync with Kindle and also has the more full-featured aspects of Stanza would be nice.

Any thoughts on possible synergies?  Or is Amazon simply eliminating a potential competitor? Please comment!

Discount Car Rental Hell

I'm going to a writing retreat in Taos, New Mexico, in May. As part of that journey, I arranged for a car rental from a company that we'll call "CostPoint.com" (not its real name). So, I arranged for a mid-size car, as I usually do in these car rental situations.

By the next day, I'd (happily) agreed to ferry two of my co-retreaters from the airport to the place where we'll be retreating. The organizer also mentioned, "oh, by the way, you'll be going straight up the side of a mountain to 10,000 feet. You'll need a four-wheel drive vehicle." That's right--not a mid-size with a four-cylinder engine and 86 horsepower, but nothing less than a Mount Kilimanjaro-qualified Range Rover.

I was pretty sure that if I explained the situation, "CostPoint" would let me change the rental car, of course for a higher price. So I wrote an email, explaining the situation. In reply, I received the following:

Dear Kindledude:

We understand that since you will now have three people in your car, and will be ascending a nearly vertical mountain road, you would like to change to a different vehicle. Unfortunately, CostPoint is able to give you its really great prices because of the contracts it negotiates with its partners, which do not allow for any changes or cancellations. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Vijay Patel

Dear Mr. Patel:

Perhaps I didn't entirely explain the situation. Since the time that I selected the rental car, driving conditions have changed. I have learned that I will, at peril of life and limb, be traveling up a steep, indeed almost vertical, mountain road. Undoubtedly, the underpowered tin can that you are going to stick me with will not be able to make the journey. Surely, you can make one exception, or renegotiate the rental agreement in this one case. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kindledude

Dear Kindledude:

We understand that, since you selected the car, you have learned that you will be in peril of life and limb in the admittedly small car you selected, which, by the way, is actually powered by the motor from an old VW Beetle. From the 1960s, not the reissue. Hence the fabulous price we obtained for you. Nonetheless, it is still true that CostPoint is able to give you these stellar prices because...[etc.].

Sincerely,

Vijay Patel

Dear Mr. Patel:

I don't think you understand. There will be blood! We're gonna CRASH and BURN up there!! Our blood WILL BE ON YOUR HANDS UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING!!

Sincerely,

Kindledude

Dear Kindledude:

We understand that, given the vehicle we are providing at our truly exceptionally superb price, and the danger of the route you are taking, you may crash and burn, and hence your blood may be on our hands. Nonetheless, it is still true that CostPoint is able to provide these prices, unequalled in the known universe, because of the iron-clad, non-changeable arrangements it makes with its business partners. So please, quit whining, suck it up, and accept your fate like a man. Oh, and if you do survive, please think of CostPoint for your next trip.

Sincerely,

Vijay Patel

Walter Mosley--A New Locale, A New Hero

First, let me apologize for my 1-month layoff. I missed blogging very much and am glad to be back at it!

As Walter Mosley fans know, Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins seems to have taken the Big Sleep at the end of Blonde Faith. Rather than L.A. in the pre-civil rights era of the 1950s, the new Walter Mosley novel, The Long Fall, takes place in current-day New York. To quickly answer the first querstion that is going to come up: Is Mr. Mosley as keen an observer of the social and racial dynamics of modern day New York as he was of historical Los Angeles? The answer is an unqualified yes.

The new protagonist has the rather unlikely name of Leonid McGill. In response to a character's question, "what kind of name is that for a black man?", we learn that "Leonid" is a name with a past, as it was given by his father, an avowed Communist. Leonid T. McGill, however, finds himself neither in a worker's paradise nor a capitalist heaven, as he must use his wits and brawn to get by in New York City as it is now. He is a private investigator with the burden of a past, trying to find his way back to north on his moral compass. It is the moral dimension that helps create the conflict and gives the character depth.

He is asked, with a plausible story as incentive, to trace the real identities of four people by their old street names from years before. He does so, and three of them promptly end up dead. McGill sets to find out why and, maybe, to try to save the last of the four, in part because he doesn't like being played for a fool, but also in major part because after years of acting as point man for killers and fixer for politicians, he wants to act morally. Of course, the plot isn't so simple--one of his children is also in the mix and in jeopardy, and this is another conflict McGill has to resolve. I won't say any more about the plot than this, but I assure readers that it is both an intricate and satisfying one.

Of course, another question that fans will ask themselves is: how are McGill and Easy Rawlins alike or different? A few things are obvious. Mostly, McGill lives in a modern, cosmopolitan world free of the overt racism that Rawlins contended with. McGill was "almost" a boxer, and sort of acts as his own Mouse (a violent man that Rawlins often relied on when violence was called for), as it were. Both McGill and Rawlins share an uneasy symbiotic relationship witht the police.

Undoubtedly, the reader will discover many more points of comparison and difference, but it's best, I think, to look at McGill as an entirely fresh character, but not out of character for those familiar with Mosley's work.

I leave by commending this book to Mosley fans and mystery fans in general. If you've never read a Walter Mosley book, what with a new hero and a new story line, this novel would be a good place to start.

The future arrives!

Fujitsu announed today what appears to be the first commercially available (in Japan) color e-paper reader, the FLEPia.  Here is the official press release.

Engadget has more pictures.

Wired blog has an article.

The price is 99,750 Japanese Yen, or $1017.35 at today's rate.  

According to Fujitsu's press release, the device:

Supports 260,000 colors on an 8" screen;

Lasts for 40 hours of continuous use on a full charge;

Can support storage on a 4GB SD (secure digital) card for approximately 5000 300-page books;

Is equipped with the Japanese version of WinCE and two popular Japanese e-book viewers;

Includes embedded stereo speakers;

Has a screen redraw rate of 1.8 seconds; and

Has a 768 x 1024 dot screen resolution.

The redraw rate is slow.  Here's a page with videos of the device operating where you can see for yourself.

The high cost alone would exclude many buyers, including Kindledude, and the device is not yet available outside Japan, but this is simply the first harbinger of greater change.  Who can doubt that in a year or two, the Kindle and other similar devices will have a color e-ink display at an affordable price  and reasonably fast page flips, and will be widely available?  It will be a welcome development.  Book covers and illustrations will be able to be rendered fully, in all their glory.  Graphic novels, comics, and manga, and perhaps even coffee-table books with photographs, will become reasonable to read on e-ink devices.

I'm looking forward to it!

Lethal Legacy: Linda Fairstein

Lethal Legacy is a murder mystery wrapped in bibliophilia.  A library curator is mysteriously attacked in her New York apartment; later, in the same apartment, a housekeeper who is wearing the clothes of a wealthy heiress is murdered.  Finding the killer involves Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper in a journey through rare books and an almost-mythical map, hidden spaces in and under the New York Public Library, and a highly dysfunctional, if wealthy, family.  It's a strong story, and the background about rare maps and books (and their quirky collectors) is clearly a fascinating labor of love for the author.

Unlike many of the books she admires, however, Linda Fairstein's prose tends toward the direct and functional rather than subtle and sophisticated.  In a murder mystery such as this one, this is rarely a problem--the story moves along well and it retains one's interest.  Unfortunately, it becomes something of a liability when expounding the fascinating backstory of rare volumes and New York history via its architecture and a series of topographic maps.  These details, often placed in long explanations in the mouths of characters, could be woven into the story with greater subtley.  As it is, you sometimes get a policeman speaking like a museum tour guide, which is a bit disconcerting for the reader.

This caveat aside, this a good mystery with interesting characters about the power of family legacies and the fascination exercised by rare books and even rarer ancient maps, which, in parallel, portray mankind's striving to unravel the mysteries of the world as Alexandra Cooper (and the reader) unravel the mystery at hand.  

1001Books.com

One of the awesome Kindle enthusiasts at www.mobileread.com, Daithi, has produced a nice download portal for the Kindle, 1001books.com. At one location, you can browse or search for books that reside, if they are free public domain works, at sites such as mobileread.com and feedbooks.com, and if they are under copyright and for sale, at Amazon.com's Kindle store. If you select a book, the site will:

• Download the book from one of the free sites if it is in the public domain
• Allow one to buy the book from Amazon if it is available but not free
  
• Request Amazon to ask the publishers to make the book available if it isn't available
  

Not only is the site one-stop shopping for these sites, it is particularly nicely designed with a clean, easy-to-navigate look. The site is new, but is already quite useful (and should only get better), has a very nice book list, and saves a lot of hopping around the Web. For more information, the discussion thread on the mobileread forums is here. Definitely check this site out.