Archive for the ‘color kindle’ tag
Amazon Android App Store and Tablet Rumors 1 comment
There has been speculation lately that Amazon is preparing to launch an Android app store. This was first reported at TechCrunch, but there have since been a number of reported sightings of developer agreements and confirming statements from app developers.
That Amazon would open its own Android app store makes sense. The Android Market is relatively ungoverned and uncontrolled, which may be fine for early adaptors, but now that Android has gone mainstream the Market perhaps needs curation. Consumers know and trust Amazon, and there are many who would probably prefer to buy their apps there.
Recently there has also been a resurgence of rumors that Amazon was working on an Android tablet. This speculation has in part been based on the job openings listed for Lab 126.
My guess is that yes, Amazon is indeed working on an Android-based tablet, but it is not an LCD-based tablet. I don’t think that it would make any sense at all for Amazon to enter the increasingly crowded Android LCD tablet market. Not only because of the competition, but because it might not bode well for the Kindle for iOS app.
Amazon and Apple are competitors, and do trade shots at each other. The recent Kindle add that disses the iPad (if you have not seen it yet, it is below) is a good example. At the same time, Amazon sells lots of ebooks on the Kindle for iPad and iPhone apps. Amazon even sells the iPad (through 3rd party sellers for now). I imagine that the ability to read ebooks from any of the major ebookstores (except Sony, who says that they are working on device apps, but who really cares?) on the iPad figured into more than a few people’s decision to buy one, and has thus helped to drive iPad sales.
Apple has been known to cut off other companies that come into direct competition with it’s core business. The latest example of this is probably when Apple severed its ties with Surfaceink, an engineering design firm that has been working with Apple for about 10 years, after the company began showing its own prototype tablet design. Apple can also remove apps from companies that compete with its core business.
If Amazon were to release a me-too LCD multifunction tablet, Apple might be forced to consider it direct competition to their iPad and take action — possibly by removing the Kindle app from its own devices. This would be an extreme worst-case scenario, and I seriously doubt that things would escalate that far — it would not be good for Amazon, consumers or for Apple itself. Both companies make money from the other’s products as long as the status quo is maintained.
I think that the tablet Amazon is working on is in fact its first color ereader. A color ereader that will be 
Android-based, but with some form of reflective color display rather than a regular LCD. Perhaps Mirasol, perhaps a color e-ink product from E Ink Holdings, or possibly even a Pixel Qi display, although the latter seems less likely to my mind.
I imagine such a tablet will have multifunctionality, but will be optimized for reading. Such a device would fit more perfectly into Amazon’s business model — it would also fit in nicely with an Amazon Android app store as well as its video download business.
It is not yet the traditional time to be making predictions for next year, but I’ll go ahead and make one: I think it is highly likely that Amazon will release an Android-based multifunctional tablet that is optimized for reading, probably in the first half of next year, and possibly even in the first quarter. Of course, in addition to the right display such a device will also depend on the availability of a flavor of Android that is optimized for tablets.
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eReader News and Links– 6/30/2010 no comments
Color Kindle coming sooner rather than later? Pocket-lint, in a brief article covering a demonstration of Mirasol display tech and the coy comments of a Qualcomm spokesperson does absolutely nothing to dampen hopes that we may see a color Kindle with a Mirasol display by the end of the year. Some nice photos are included as well.
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Copia, which will sell both ebooks and pbooks and will have a strong emphasis on social networking is set to launch in July. The company also has been planning to launch six different ereaders – four with 6-inch and two with 9-inch e-ink displays – with varying feature sets.
Publishers Weekly quotes Copia senior VP Anthony Antolino as saying that Copia has reconfigured its ereader lineup and will be selling a 5-inch color LCD model for $99 and a 10.1-inch touchscreen LCD model for $299. It is not clear from the article if Copia will be completely abandoning its e-ink based devices.
The new ereaders have not yet made an appearance at the Copia website. It really never made much sense to me that Copia would have so many different ereader models, and it makes even less sense now in the current market.
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Baker & Taylor, Inc, which makes claim to being the world’s largest distributer of books both paper and digital, is also one of the powers behind the Blio reader. B & T recently announced that they have entered into an agreement with F+W Media to bring that company’s rich, highly formatted content to Blio.
F+W Media publishes full color, richly illustrated instructional titles for graphic designers, artists, craftsmen, woodworkers and others. Baker & Taylor has announced similar agreements to bring graphics-rich content to Blio from other publishers, including John Wiley & Sons and Elsevier. The latter is a leading publisher of medical, scientific and technical books.
I’m looking forward to having Blio on the iPad; I saw the Blio demo at CES and it was impressive.
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Amazon’s previously announced 70 percent royalty option for its Digital Text Platform (DTP) goes live today. Amazon also announced some feature improvements to make DTP more convenient for authors and publishers: a more intuitive “Bookshelf” feature and a simplified two-step publishing process.
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The New York Times is reporting that Google is close to reaching a deal with the American Booksellers Association which would make Google Editions the main source of ebooks on the websites of most independent booksellers.
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Amazon’s Kindle will be sold at some airports around the US. HMSHost has signed an exclusive deal with Amazon to sell the 6-inch Kindle at its shops in the following airports:
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Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International: Simply Books
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Charlotte Douglas International: Simply Books
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Dallas Ft. Worth International: Simply Books
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George Bush Houston Intercontinental: Simply Books
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Miami International: Simply Books
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Minneapolis-St. Paul International: Simply Books, Authors Bookstore
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LA/Ontario International: Authors Bookstore
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Salt Lake City International: Simply Books
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San Diego International: Authors Bookstore
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Mineta San Jose International: Authors Bookstore
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Tampa International: Authors Bookstore
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No Color Kindle Soon – Bezos no comments
Yesterday at Amazon’s annual shareholders meeting Jeff Bezos seemed to unkindle any hopes that a color version of the Kindle ereader would be making an appearance any time soon.
When asked by a shareholder when a color Kindle would be available Bezos replied that “high-quality color is still some ways out.” He also said that he had seen reflective color screens in the laboratory, but that “they are not quite ready for production.”
Of course “some ways out” and “not quite ready” are pretty vague phrases. Mirasol is said to be on track for production in time for product to hit the shelves by this year’s holiday season if not a little before. If Amazon plans on sticking with e-Ink however, it will most likely be the first part of next year before PVI has their color solution ready. Liquavista should also be ready the first part of next year.
In good news for readers, Bezos also indicated that the Kindle will continue to be a device focused on reading – “The Kindle will compete with these LCD devices like the iPad by being a very focused product.” This would seem to weaken the theory that Amazon is preparing a multifunction Super-Kindle, perhaps with a Pixel Qi screen, to compete directly with the iPad.
Of course Amazon is always in stealth mode when it comes to talking about its future Kindle strategy – which is to their advantage – so we won’t know until they actually announce the next Kindle. In some ways I actually find Amazon’s secrecy more trustworthy than I do the PR methods of a company like Plastic Logic which is constantly telling us what it is going to be doing a year or two from now and still has not released any actual product.
(source: MarketWatch)
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Color eReaders – Liquavista and Freescale Collaborating on New eReaders no comments
Liquavista and Freescale Semiconductor announced today that the two companies are collaborating to bring ereaders to market by the middle of 2011 that feature Liquavista’s electrowetting displays and the Freescale i.MX515 processor. From the press release:
Freescale’s high-performance i.MX51 system-on-chip provides the necessary file decoding capabilities to match the enhanced graphics and video functionality of Liquavista’s displays. By combining both technologies, eReader manufacturers can produce a wide range of highly compelling consumer products that enable increased usability and enhanced content.
Liquavista’s displays create bright and colourful images that deliver excellent indoor and outdoor viewability and use dramatically less battery power. Offering significant advantages over existing eReader technologies, Liquavista’s high performance displays support color and high-speed video providing a true multimedia experience not currently available with today’s eReaders.
Freescale’s highly integrated i.MX515 processor has multiple processing units including an ARM Cortex™-A8 core, a vector floating point unit and an image processing unit. The i.MX515 provides up to 1680 Dhrystone MIPS and can scale in performance up to 800MHz. Advanced power management features allow for extended battery life and eliminate the need for fans or heat sinks.
Available for two of Liquavista’s launched product platforms, LiquavistaBright and LiquavistaColor, each SDK includes a 6” electrowetting display, driving circuitry, a mobile application processor host platform and a Linux based operating system.
Qualcomm has said that there will be ereaders using its Mirasol based displays on the market by the fall of 2010. Unless Mirasol hits some kind of production snags it still looks like this will be the first color ereader display technology to hit the US market. If I had to place a bet as to which color display the first color Kindle ereader will use my money would be on Mirasol.
Meanwhile Fujitsu announced (via Akihabara News) a few days ago that it has developed new color epaper with a 7:1 contrast ratio and much faster page rewrites than the epaper used in its FLEPia ereader. Fujitsu says that they plan to commercialize the new technology this fall for the Japanese market. The FLEPia ereader was priced at around a thousand dollars and was only sold in Japan.
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