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9.7-inch screen, built-in PDF reader and annotation goodies said to be in ‘Amazon Kindle DX’
May 5, 2009 | 8:36 am
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By David Rothman
The new “Amazon Kindle DX” offers “a 9.7-inch display (as opposed to the current six-inch unit), a long-requested built-in PDF reader, and the ability to add annotations in addition to notes and highlights—whatever that means.”
So says Engadget, the source of the photo.
"We’re also hearing that New York Times will be offering a $9.95 / month subscription, a little lower than the current $13.99. Honestly, that all sounds to us like this really is just a Kindle with a larger screen, not the newspaper savior it’s being hyped as, but ol’ Jeffy B. might still have surprises in store, so we’ll see."
Another IDPF setback?
Back to the issue of “annotations.” Will the Kindle do the shared variety, ever so handy in education-related apps like the kind envisioned for the large-screen Kindle? Jeez, TeleRead has been on the IDPF’s case about that one for years.
As far as I know, the IDPF lacks a shared annotations standard, and if Amazon beats the organization to the punch on this one in an education context, I hope it’ll serve as a good, well-deserved kick in the pants!
Stubbornly, Amazon stubbornly refuses to have the Kindle natively render ePub, preferring instead to play up the Kindle and Mobipocket formats, both of which it owns.
Right now the ePub standard also lacks reliable interbook linking as far as I know. Will we see links galore between even commercial books, but only within Amazon and Google and in other proprietary environments? Go, IDPF—before Amazon steals the show from you on this one, too!
Just the existence of the ten-inch-screen machine with a Kindle-format orientation is not good news for the IDPF.
Official unveiling on Wednesday
Stay tuned for the official unveiling of the DX on Wednesday.
Large-screen machines, from Plastic Logic and elsewhere, are on the way, and I’ll be curious if PL and the others accelerate their deployment not just in the newspaper area but also in others. If not, they could suffer amid the Kindle competition unless they have other enticing features, besides more-open standards.
Related: Techmeme roundup.
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Comments:
After being an early adopter of the SONY reader I switched to a new “ebook technology”
I download the PDF from the web and print it in the office: 2 pages per sheet, print on both sides.
this is way superior to any ebook device that I know.
My primary number 1 factor is to reduce the hassle.
And I could pretty much obtain any book I wanted so far… for free ( = pirated)
In my opinion ebook readers will spread when the screen is large enough to display PDFs formatted for letter or A4 size.
On a related note Amazon has to decide if they want to be in the device business (piracy is good, it helps to sell more) or content business (piracy is bad).
Apple did it smartly… or did anyone believe that an iPod that can hold 30,000 songs is filled for 99c each?
So it’s taller? Big whoop. And no ePub? Pass.
What I’m curious to know is if the Kindle will have an option to re-flow PDF text like the Sony and if the PDF capability will be included in a Kindle 2 firmware update.
Nobody knows anything, of course, not yet. But if the DX is indeed aimed at education then reflowable PDFs are a BAD idea. One of the chief drawbacks to ebooks in a classroom arises when the professor says, ‘Turn to page 238.’ Reflowable text, variable font size, guarantee that everybody’s page 238 is different. PDF’s original aim comes to the forefront here: every page is identical to the printed textbook. Page 238 is the same on everybody’s DX and printed edition.
So the professor can say: “turn to chapter 11″
I agree with pond on this one, but not because I’m a student, but because when I read reference books I want to be able to refer back to where I found a quote or an interesting idea. If the pages were reflowable, writing down “check source for p. 47, para 3″ won’t mean anything.
Also, as much as I love using the pd books from Google Books, their OCR is not the greatest. Reflowable garbage is still garbage. With this larger screen (always assuming that IS the announcement tomorrow), I can see the original scanned page with only the occassional blurry page to contend with.
I’m also hoping for more open access, but not stopping breathing over it. So far the scariest part is that no one is mentioning price. Am I the only one who hears this thing screaming “massively expensive”?
I think we’re mixing two things here.
One: there’s tons of PDFs out there that will never be properly reflowed, so a large enough screen that can display them “AS IS” would be great.
Two: annotating or bookmarking reflowable content is definitely possible, just we have to come up with a naming scheme that is easy and suitable and stop referring to sections of a document by page number.
e.g. a numbered outline works fine. this is most certainly already solved just not widely adopted.
re: price… I’m curious too
…and if they would kindly sell it outside the US…
Since the current Kindles eschew the quaint old concept of page numbers for what is called “locations” there should not be any problems with finding the same place in an ebook being used by a group where some are likely flowed differently due to font sizes, font type, etc.
Regardless of how it is reflowed “location 2134″ should take everyone to the same place.
HeavyG, that is why I like that Adobe put some thought and effort into ePub page numbering. I realize a lot of people want “real” page numbers, but, in the long run, I think a consistent algorithm for page numbers is going to be very beneficial.
WRT page numbering, Mobipocket has always used percentage through the book. I can’t think of a problem with that. Why invent something new and complicated when a good, simple solution was invented in the 15th century?
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Remember, -someone- has to know what ‘locations’ or ‘percentage’ or ‘star date’ (Ok, yes, plug for movie) to find things at the first time, preferably the author (and/or designer), who can cross-ref, then the reader.
If a professor can use the table of contents (we can still say that, right? or is that a banned term now?) to find what they are looking for and refer other people to it with some hope of success, it should be Ok. Locations, maybe, but percentages would be a problem (‘please turn to 43.37%’?)
Jack Tingle, Mobipocket as invented in the 15th century? I kid, I kid.
The real problem is that, in order to provide percentages, you have to pre-render the entire document. Pre-rendering means caching a bunch of data and long delays when you first open the document or change any document settings (such as font). With ePub being what it is, the delays could be minutes long whenever you change the font size.
Plus, as Bob points out, people in the US have an aversion to decimal points.