If you happened to have visited Amazon's Web site today, you might have noticed that a large message from Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, was plastered across the home page of the site. Basically, it was a big fat apology for Amazon's inability to ship its Kindle electronic book reader in a timely fashion.
Ever since it quickly sold out at launch, a lot of folks have been speculating about just how many Kindles Amazon had sold and whether the long delays in shipping were a case of production problems or a PR ploy designed to make the Kindle appear hotter than it really is.
Well, the note seems to speak for itself. People want the Kindle, and Amazon hasn't been able to make them fast enough. All that said, I still think this was a case of the company rushing to get the product out before last year's holiday season--and failing to iron out all the production issues before it went to market.
Of course, Amazon is new to the consumer electronics-manufacturing game, so this isn't shocking. The fact is, this is what happens when you're a pro at selling crap but not at producing it. Comments?
Investors put in $16 million more into E-Ink in the latest effort to get the e-book ball rolling.
That brings the total that the small company has raised to $150 million, according to VentureWire. The market, however, has yet to take flight. Everyone loves the idea. E-books don't consume trees and you can carry several books at once. Some believe that college textbooks will go this way.
Still, no one seems to be buying them yet. The most prominent product to use the company's technology is the Sony Reader, an electronic book from the Japanese giant. Sony has sold some, but not a lot of these devices.
"I'd like to sell a hell of a lot more than we're selling," said Sony Electronics president Stan Glasgow in an interview in June.
E-books were tried in the 90s. NuvoMedia and SoftBook Press both came out with e-books back then. NuvoMedia aimed itself at consumers and SoftBook aimed at business users. Neither sold well. But, the companies lucked out. Gemstar-TV Guide International bought them both for around $300 million in 2000, when concept companies were selling for premiums.
NuvoMedia founder Martin Eberhard took the money, retired for a while, and then formed Tesla Motors. So something has come out of all of this.
E-Ink was founded in 1997 and grew out of the MIT Media Labs.
Someone was certainly following the KISS method when it came to designing Adobe's new electronic book reader, Adobe Digital Editions.
Adobe on Tuesday announced the release of Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 available for free download to Windows and Mac users.
The application provides a very basic and easy-to-navigate interface for storing, sorting, viewing and annotating digital text files along the lines of what Apple's iTunes does for audio and Google's Picasa for pictures.
Library view from Adobe Digital Editions
(Credit: Adobe Digital Editions)The only main difference is that Adobe offers no automatic search and import feature, and does not have a direct portal to the Internet for searching and downloading books.
There are two main views from which to navigate the entire application. The library view lets you manage your collection, while the reading view lets you work within one individual eBook or PDF file.
Adobe Digital Editions is compatible with any PDF or .epub (International Digital Publishing Forum standard) file. Loading files consists of either dragging and dropping them into the application window or choosing "Add File" in the Library menu.
You can view books through Adobe Digital Editions in thumbnail or list view by title, author, publisher, last read, number of pages, date added or status. You can also read any metadata, such as permissions information, attached to a file.
Adobe Digital Edition's "bookshelves" are akin to playlists. You drag and drop files from the general library into bookshelves in a column on the left to categorize books, magazine and other digital documents by genre, type or source.
Books can be viewed in double or single page views of adjustable screen fits.
The simplicity makes sense given the fact that the software is intended to integrate with the Sony Reader.
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