New Kindle Bigger, but Not Better?

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Amazon started shipping their new version of Kindle last week, the DX. Apparently Amazon is aiming the DX at students (textbooks), magazine and newspaper readers, and business people who are able to e-mail Microsoft Word files and Adobe PDF documents to their Kindle. There is a charge to e-mail documents to your Kindle.

According to Walter S. Mossberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal, the DX is 85 percent larger than the original Kindle. He says he finds the added weight and size more awkward and tiring to use than the original Kindle. The DX sports a 9.7-inch screen (versus the original Kindle’s 6-inch screen) which can be rotated to read in landscape mode. This larger display is, I imagine, better for newspapers and magazines.

There’s still no color; images appear in greyscale.

The DX costs $489 and the smaller Kindle is still available at $359.

I don’t own a Kindle, but last week I used the Kindle app for the iPhone to download John Lescroart’s The Second Chair, which I’d left half finished in the seat pocket in front of me on a recent flight. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about reading a book on an iPhone, but, to my surprise, it’s fine. As a matter of fact, it’s downright handy. I can read a few pages anytime I find myself stuck in traffic or waiting in a long line at the grocery store. I read a couple of chapters the other day as I sat outside helping the sun set. It was fine.

Jun

12

Newspapers and Texting

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In The Post-American World , Fareed Zakaria writes that Indian newspapers are booming “a rare oasis of growth for print journalism—and overflowing with stories about businessmen, technological fads, fashion designers, shopping malls, and of course, Bollywood (which now makes more movies a year than Hollywood).”

From what I know of India today, the Indians who might read a newspaper aren’t less technologically advanced than we are. I wonder what newspapers in India are doing differently than those here which are losing readership in torrents. Maybe the papers there are giving the reader what he wants?

How will the the next generation communicate?

Christopher Ellis, my grandson, graduated from middle school last week. He’s a good kid and was valedictorian so his parents awarded him with his own cell phone. In the first 3 hours of ownership, he got 123 text messages. Using only his thumbs, he types faster than I do using all ten digits. What does this mean for those of us in the communication biz?

Interested in the future of the world and exactly what Zakaria is talking about in The Post-American World? Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U