A Series of Tubes

So Amazon recently released the kindle 2.  It is an ebook reader that allows you to download your books over a 3G connection (provided by sprint).  The interesting thing about it is that you can have a device that will automatically download the days news for you and have it ready in a convenient reader waiting for you on your kitchen table.  I spent some time looking into the device and below are my thoughts.

I would make a few changes to the kindle:

1)  I would make it spill proof and drop proof.  I’m not the most coordinated when I wake up so if I spill something on my newspaper it doesn’t matter much but if I spill something on a $400 ebook reader I tend to care a whole lot more.  This is not an unreasonable request considering the OLPC.

2) Price:  We’re in a recession/depression and at an electronic book for $360 + other expenses, in more detail below, is a bit much.

Raining on the Kindle 2’s parade: There are some problems with the Kindle.

I can go to a used bookstore and get a book for cheap and not worry about breaking it, losing it, having it stolen, or having the battery die.  There is not a lengthy EULA associated with the used book I just bought.  I will also know that amazon will not have a database of all of my reading material (including blogs, websites, newspaper and magazine subscriptions).  I cannot find a privacy policy that states that they will not sell this information or will not share this information with other corporations or with any governments.  I’m not allowed to modify the kindle, even if I know how to make it better and I share the information with everyone.

Unless you are using the wireless Internet connection on the kindle to buy stuff from amazon, then the kindle will send you a bill for the data other data. If the pricing is anything like the charges that most cell phones bill you for, and there is no reason to expect it to be different, then I would recommend never ever using the wireless abilities of the kindle…ever. Just to visit a blog or a popular website will cost you about $2 per website per month if you purchase that ability for the kindle.  So if you have a computer you can look at the website for free.  For every registered website that amazon decides that it wants to allow you to look at on your kindle, because amazon gets to decide what websites do not get access to on the kindle 2), you have to pay.  going to slashdot costs $2 a month, yet I can visit it for free on my computer or laptop or .  As if paying $360 up front to amazon wasn’t enough, now they want to ding you for even more money for things that should be free.

I guess if I were to include these problems into the how I would change the kindle it would be not to have my privacy violated and my rights stripped by a team of lawyers at amazon.com and not to get charged money to visit websites that I can view on a laptop for free, in color, faster, without amazon tracking me, and for many other reasons as well.  Actually if you are thinking of getting a kindle you should probably just get a good laptop instead since you can just go to the websites of various newspapers for free and get the same content.

Conclusion

Ok..after looking in to the kindle 2 I will recommend that nobody buy the kindle 2.  They took a good idea (being able to have a ebook reader that automatically gets you today’s paper) and made it a restricting device that robs your privacy and squeezes every last penny out of you for features that would be cool if they were free, but instead start making you feel like they have you by the ankles and are shaking you upside down for all the money you have.

GI Joe

There is a GI Joe movie coming out.  Hasbro is developing the movie with Paramount and it is painfully obvious that they are using the movie as essentially a way to have people pay money to see an advertisement for GI Joe Dolls (or since marketers don’t think males play with dolls they call them “action figures” but ).  It kind of sucks because the trailer had some cool looking visual effects, but once the words GI Joe came up I was instantly dissapointed.  Anyhow, so that I don’t have a completely negative post, here is a video of the public service announcement at the end of an original GI Joe cartoon with the audio replaced: