Kindle Kindle little star - take my Word

The first of its Kindle ? Over the past decade, we've seen much nicer ebook readers than Amazon's ugly $399 gizmo. The size, weight, shape, vertical scrolling, the next / previous page system, the keyboard, or E Ink are cool, but Kindle is definitely not meant for LG Shine nor iPhone lovers - even though one may find a couple of book readers* among those.

And anyway, the aim of the game is not to propose the sexiest device but to set the standards for ebooks. Beyond hardware, this is about softwares, formats, DRM... and sustainable business models.

And this is truly wireless. Not Wifi but CDMA2000-EVDO (as usual, Sprint Nextel provides the radio for a new disruptive player). But the customer won't be charged for airtime.

This is not a phone but a reader with a restricted connectivity : the main revenues are supposed to be books. A New York Times Best Seller or New Release will sell for $9.99, and overall, there are over 88,000 books available in the Kindle Store (amazon.com/kindle). And Amazon has already been a 99¢ store for paperless short stories for over two years**.

Compulsive readers could help Jeff Bezos break even, but he still needs to make sure all buyers will actually use the device on a regular basis. Usages that bring the dough, not like reading on and on the same thing (including The New Oxford American Dictionary included in the purchase).

Well. This reader has a rather restricted connectivity (dubbed "Whispernet"), and the only way to read something that wasn't imbedded is to access or download it over the air. Amazon offers all you can read Wikipedia.org, and you can browse for hours the store - no doubt other things can be ordered this way, but no card reader for book readers, and the capacity is limited to 200 titles (500 to 800 k files). AmazonKindle kindly declines files that are neither Word documents, nor pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG), nor HTML, nor TXT.

You can download such files through a personal kindle e-mail at the rate of $0.1 each. That's a start. You can subscribe to blogs and news services from $.99 / month each. That's getting juicy. And Amazon can bring partners or open the web step by step and cent by cent as they please. That's smart to start from such a low point, but I'm not sure everybody will follow all the way.

Whatever. The proof of concept would help Amazon export this service to all other devices. And turn 3G handsets and PMPs into even more multimedia players***. Come on. You don't need 3G just for a 500 to 800k file every other month.

* I mean actual books, not the Bridget Jones / Devil wears Prada / Shopaholic series.
** see "Google Mob (pay .99 for the unshorted version)" (20050823)
*** after all, you can already use your PDA or iPod or iPhone as a sort of ebook

Zune - comin' down next ?

There was a gap in Microsoft's anticompetitive maze and its name was iPod. The Zune project is supposed to fill the gap and strenghten Redmond's portable multimedia player / game console front. Just like origami, Zune 1.0 will be a useless thing to please avid analysts and not so avid developpers. Just like origami, Zune is not even a brand. Since it's pronounced the same way as June, a reference in mobile multimedia, SK Telecom could even sue them. Besides, Zune.com doesn't belong to Gates yet but to Gate Market Research Limited*. So the teaser website is comingzune.com, which could mean we won't have a device for Christmaz but at earliest coming Zune or maybe Zuly 2009 because this is the way we work up in Washington.

The least one could say is that one could see this iPod killer coming. iPod has been doomed for a while** and Microsoft has nothing to do with it : once again, apple have to become a more open community and to reach and federate far beyond their own customers. But they're back at ruining their best efforts - at least, this time, the iPod as a device is far from being the best looking multimedia player so I won't be crying a iRiver over it.

Microsoft also tends to bore me. They're not even as good at being evil as they used to be since Paul Allen focuses on rock'n roll, Bill Gates on non virtual viruses, and Steve Ballmer on retirement plans. The company itself is focusing on self destruction : giving more dividends for shareholders, purchasing more stocks, being defensive even when it attacks. Of course Microsoft will lose money with Zune, just like with Origami, the XBox, Windows Mobile, MSN... any innovative thing money alone can't buy.


* you can't fool me lads : of the 20 significant changes in zune.com's whois in the past 5 years, 90% happened in the last 2 months !
** see "Apple - something rotten beyond the Kingdom of France" (20060322)

World Cup Train - coverage and cover up

TU Media, SK Telecom's satellite mobile TV operator, will launch World Cup Trains for the Korea-Togo game : on June the 13th, a KTX bullet train will leave Busan at 9:30 and another Seoul at 9:50. All passengers will follow the game on big screen S-DMB devices.
This "event" is about coverage but also about covering up another event : TU Media's competitors just announced the coverage of Seoul's subway lines (1 to 4) with their own T-DMB techno. It's terrestrial, it's free, and you don't have to go all the way from Seoul to Busan to enjoy the games.
T-DMB operators started much later than SKT but since they don't need to control the devices, they can leverage on a much bigger community for terminals. The mobile TV function logically became an extension of PMPs (such Portable Multimedia Players as ReignCom's iRiver Pocket TV) as well as other screens (ie digital cameras : Samsung's Miniket Photo).

Jeju Telematics celebrates the wedding of GPS and DMB

Jeju-do, Korea's capital island for honeymooners, has been a test bed for enhanced telematics since 2004. When the trial period ends next July, the Jeju Telematics consortium promoters (beyond the MIC and a few VCs : SK Telecom, SK Communications, SK C&C, Samsung Electronics...) could start exporting the concept to mainland ROK.
Nothing revolutionary there : LBS, 3D navigation, multimedia broadcasting... but you can tell SKT are involved : e-mail since the beginning, Cyworld, DMB games and TV for the second phase started last month. Samsung's 3.7 inch touch screen PMPs (Portable Multimedia Player) complete the multimedia oriented consumer experience. It definitely beats NATE Drive's handset craddles for seamlessness.


=> Jeju Telematics website : http://www.jejutelematics.com.

Apple - something rotten beyond the Kingdom of France

Proprietary digital media players are now illegal in France : consumers should be able to play the tunes they purchase on any given platform.
RealNetworks, Microsoft and Sony have less to lose than Cupertino's darling : Apple is even more iTunes dependant than iPod dependant.
If abandoning the French market won't kill the group, clinging to a non-durable business model certainly will. Steve Jobs can't say he wasn't warned : his company has a knack for narcissist autism.

Origami Project - a crush for paper tigers ?

Second week, second teaser on the Origami Project's website*. Microsoft being Microsoft and Origami being the art of paper folding, you must be patient and expect a full basket of wasted stuff before enjoying the real thing.
MS' viral marketing campaign started last year and will culminate next week at CeBit 2006. You can tell they're not familiar with viral marketing (except when it comes to spreading bugs, malware, spyware, stuporware...) : note the quantum leap between the first "hello" and the following "hi there" - what will it be next time : "Hang on", "Wait a sec'", "Got your attention ?", "Still there ?", "Pickaboo !"...?
The suspense is unbearable. How will the damn thing look like ? I guess something less steel-waffle-ish than Dualcor Technologies's cPC**, and something less ToysRUS-ish than the Ultramobile 2007 starring in last year's mini clips.
We already know its main and optional features : the PC DNA, the tablet PC assets (touch screen, pen, always-on, easy boot, easy break...), a medium-sized screen (rather 6 than 10 inches), wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, digital TV...), multimediapps (WMA & co, games, VoIP...), bizapps (MS Office, MS Server, MS Breakdown...), a few useful excrescences and holes (camera, USB port, card readers...), and of course the full Windows environment (including state-of-the-art BBS : Bugs and Blue Screen).
This iPod-killer / PSP-killer / mXbox was first supposed to cost under $800, then under $600, then again under $500... Come March the 9th, I expect under $400 and even under $300 for the launch : Microsoft are ready to lose more money than they did to help the Xbox survive its first years. Weakening Nintendo and Sony was a walk in the park, this will take much more.



* Origami project : www.origamiproject.com
** Dualcor Technologies : www.dualcor.com