© 2008 Kevin Pereira.
Steal and I will stab you.
Ever heard the expression "it's like herding cats"? You should see the out-takes from this one. Between Rufus hissing at Mercedes and one little kitty trying to climb the felt green-screen in the background, it was an interesting shoot to pull off an hour before the live show. Good times indeed.
Every month or so I head to downtown Los Angeles to talk tech, or swim on the rooftop of the Standard Hotel with Kai Ryssdal for a segment on Marketplace. Today, we discussed all things Android, Google, T-Mobile and the new G1 mobile phone. In case you want to hear my ramblings, here's the link. And here's the HYPERLINK! RAAAWWWRRR!!!!!
Enjoy.
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Back
Yesterday I found myself at Borders, spinning in manic circles as I imagined a not-so-distant reality transforming around me. Gone, were the endless isles of paper and gloss. Gone, were the heavy wooden cases straining under the weight of multiple copies of self-help vegan-lifestyle guides and phonebook thick biographies. Gone, were the plastic nametag wearing “bookistas”, the finger-grease streaked product location kiosks, the bestseller cardboard stand-ups and the dusty puff painted bookmark carousels. The few thousand square feet of obsolete nineteenth century clutter dreamily dissolved right before my eyes. In five or ten a;years, I convinced myself, this would all be wiped clean and replaced by an E-Reader only product-pushing pagoda. Or better yet, a monolithic vending machine, because in my “not-so-distant-future” of a fantasy world I’m far too baked off legalized cannabis to coherently interact with other humans at a point of sale purchase. But I digress…
This delusion was about the future of “print”. This delusion was about the wonders of E-Ink, E-Books and E-commerce. This delusion, turns out, was about twenty-four hours before my Amazon Kindle displayed a Black Screen of Death on the tarmac at LAX.
I’m an early adopter, always have been. I enjoy championing and fanatically campaigning for burgeoning technologies. Often, I’ll endure a little bloodletting as a calculated expense of playing with the cutting edge, and the Kindle is certainly no exception.
To the uninitiated, the Amazon Kindle is an E-Book reader that uses E-Ink technology. To paraphrase for simplicity, and to drastically understate the capabilities of the device, you can purchase digital copies of newspapers or novels and read for days without needing to recharge the battery.
The most amazing aspect of the Kindle, however, is the ability to wirelessly access the Internet to browse the web or purchase a book from Amazon’s astonishingly vast library. Ditching WiFi in favor of Sprint’s cellular (EVDO) network, or “WhisperNet” as Amazon likes to call it, the Kindle can instantly hop online free of charge almost anywhere you get cell phone reception. Want to read today’s Times or grab a copy of the book your friend just recommended? Simply fire up the Amazon store, click to purchase, and you’re digitally-dog-earing pages in seconds.
Over the past few weeks I have simply fallen in love with my Kindle. I’ve had the ability to easily access a library of hundreds of thousands of books from a tiny handheld device that reads just like a paperback; and as such, I had no problem imagining the complete deconstruction of brick and mortar outlets, libraries and magazine stands. The adrenaline like rush of elitism that comes with early adoption has been surging through my veins with each and every digital “page turn”. I’ve purchased books from the bedroom, at a stoplight and from the beach. I’ve smugly adjusted my posture while passing bookstores in malls and airports, as though the Kindle miraculously unencumbered my being and allowed me to finally walk upright.
You know those evolutionary timeline drawings that show primitive man evolving from apes, walking on all fours and eventually upright? Well add a new figure to the far right; one with impossibly perfect posture, a Cheshire-cat grin, and a small tablet in hand. That’s me, and yes, that’s my Kindle.
Just twenty minutes ago I was eyeing the woman on the plane next to me with sadness as she unloaded several large murder-mystery novels onto her tray table, which should have been upright and locked for takeoff, mind you. For a moment I considered purchasing the first book she picked up as an experiment in sparking conversation, and also to assert my technological dominance. And not just dominance over little miss printed-page in seat 3B, but the entire flight! Pour souls all around me. Pour finger-licking, page-fumbling, hardback-lugging souls. I clenched a power-drunk fist in my mind’s eye and laughed maniacally.
My, how things change. Apparently today’s in-flight meal included humble pie, and I saved lots of room for desert!
I fired up the Kindle and prepared to polish off a few novels. I stared patiently at the spinach colored screen and waited for the Amazon logo to flicker to life. I stared with less patience. I stared in disillusionment. I stared the cold and calculated stare of a check-out-line mother with a screaming four year old who really wants a Blow Pop. I shot daggers and assailed the device with ocular laser beams of pure red hate. Nothing.
I flicked the power switch on and off repeatedly. I changed my tact. I caressed the Kindle, lovingly squishing its’ sides and rubbing the cool screen as if administering digital CPR. Nothing, again.
I popped off the plastic plate on the backside of the device and fumbled with the battery before noticing a diminutive crevice with “Reset” cryptically embossed next to it. I pondered, then scoured my person for an object with a sharp enough point to fit. With the battery dangling by a handful of red and black wires, I jabbed at the Kindle with car keys and headphone jacks, surely arousing the suspicion of an undercover air-marshal or twelve. I borrowed the nametag of a kind flight attendant and poked again. The screen flickered momentarily and I instinctively threw my hands up in the air with the enchantment of a pommel horse gymnast who just stuck the dismount. I handed Janice back her gold-plated American Airline’s issued E-Reader-Reseter and waited for my books to appear. Nothing, still.
It was full-blown panic time. Reaching for my wallet, my plan was to make a Kindle-shiv capable of resetting the device once more, thereby magically kick starting the screen to life. I removed an old business card, tore off a portion, and began twisting with a McGuyver like tenacity. The sense of urgency was unbearable; 3B was already several pages into some Sci-Fi murder-mystery-romance looking novel where (I’m sure) a Roomba kills then rapes a police officer, in that order. Flustered, yet determined, I crammed the now cone-shaped card into the reset port and prayed to the Amazonian lords for in-flight mercy. The Kindle belched black pixels of desperation. I shook it like a struggling meth-fueled etch-a-sketch artist. The Kindle screamed in silent protest. I mashed entire sections of buttons, called for clear, applied the electronic paddles and shocked the device repeatedly. Nothing, finally.
Acquiesced to defeat, I slipped the hunk of plastic back into my bag, along with my utopian vision for the future. E-ink is neat, E-readers are fun, and E-commerce is convenient; but they now paled in comparison to the ancient versatility of the printed pages around me. Nobody else on the flight had to break a nerd-sweat trying to reboot their books. They would go on to experience hours of uninterrupted reading while I would write about my lack of experience, set to the soundtrack of their scratchy pages rubbing together.
Which brings us to, now:
Alvin and the Chipmunks is my in-flight “entertainment”. My laptop battery is minutes from empty. And I have an entire, fully charged library of unreadable information and amusement at my feet. Needless to say, I’ll be swinging by Barnes and Noble on the way to my hotel.
I’ve by no means given up on the E-ink or E-Readers in general, yet I’m probably giving up on the Kindle in its’ current incarnation. Ergonomically speaking the device is nothing short of a disaster, a shortcoming I was willing to overlook while evangelizing the power of online access to the Amazon bookstore. Hardware aside, further improvements need to be made, as Amazon currently charges subscription fees for the same blogs you can manually browse to or pull up from any web-enabled mobile device for free.
I’d like to see Amazon open the Amazon Store (WhisperNet) to third-party developers. Let’s face it Amazon you’re no Apple, let alone an iRiver or Sony; grant real manufacturers and user interface designers access to your incredible network. Give the E-Reader industry the shot in the arm it’s desperately needed for years now as companies compete to make the best hardware to access your services.
Then, dearest Amazon, charge a flat five to ten dollars a month for “all you can eat” emails, blogs and newspapers. Then kick a little back to the most subscribed to feeds in a show of good faith, and stop gouging customers on a per-email, per-feed basis.
As I type this, I know the Kindle is still near impossible to get for most and Amazon is surely making a decent profit off of the device; so there’s little incentive to listen to little old me ramble about “the day my Kindle died” or how I would run their operation. But there’s officially one less mouthpiece preaching the Gospel according to Kindle, reading E-books through rose-colored glasses. No sir. After today, given the choice of paper or plastic, I’d shed a single Indian tear for the rain forests, then reach for a puff-painted bookmark.
Until next time, probably five or ten years from now, and from inside a Borders bookstore…
Here's a video. Because I got bored.
May 21, 2009