You might get a strong sense of deja-vu reading this, but Amazon is holding a Kindle press conference this morning. Yes, the company just launched the
Kindle 2 a couple months ago, but it's apparently not taking any time off. It's also not saying much about what will be announced--but
a few details may have leaked out.
Of course, I'll be there to report on the announcement along with Dan Costa. Check back soon for all the details! The festivities begin at 10:30 EST. If I have connectivity, I'll live-blog. Otherwise I'll post info and photos as soon as humanly possible.
OK, I'm in! And we're live. I'll start posting after the jump.
11:10: Kindle 6-inches $359. Kindle DX $489. Detail page is live on Amazon's Web site. Pre-order now for shipment this summer.
Bezos is leaving the stage. No star power beyond Sulzberger... And we're off to touch the product! More coverage coming soon.
11:07: What comes with the Kindle DX? 9.7-inch display with autorotation, 3G wireless access 275K books, 3.3GB of storage for 3,500 books, native PDF support, $9.99 for NYT bestsellers, no multi-year wireless contract or service payment. $489.
11:05: Textbooks: "Biology of Fish." Get definitions on the fly. You can also--new feature--decide how many words per line you want. "I find I read faster when line length is shorter."
11:03: Multiple ways to read newspapers: sequentially flipping through articles. He is showing a bunch of articles, one after the other. "You can also go to sections list and go to a section, get to article and then flip through sections. Selecting number of articles brings you to summary of all articles." I'm not sure if any of these features are new to the DX.
11:02: Demo is crashing. Product is fine, but projector is wonky... Bezos may be stopping demo... No, it's back.
10:59: Bezos is showing a PDF reader with an annual industry report on digital music, a form, a pilot's charts, sheet music. Now he's showing a document on a small rocket thruster--"This is exactly the kind of document I would have wasted ink-toner on." Video of device is suddenly backwards--that's funny.
"Think of yourself as looking through a mirror--even in reverse..." [laughter] "I'm going to choose to find this hilarious."
10:55: He says he's known for more than a decade that ebook reader would arrive. "This experiment ...demonstrates our commitment to reinvention."
Kindle DX represents an important milestone in print/digital convergence. The issue, as always with new tech, is how we can best use it. Trials will provide useful answers to this question, "Ultimately, it is about providing our readers with what they want and need."
Sulzberger thanked Amazon and now he's gone.
Demo time! Outside after the event, they will have Kindle DX's with us to play with. Great news!
10: 53: Newspapers: They have been the absolute best seller on Kindle. 3 newspapers piloting Kindle DX for reduced price with long-term subscriptions: New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Chairmen of NYT is now onstage.
10:52: Barbara Snyder, President of CaseWestern, is speaking. She's talking about this being a product of partnerships and how they'll test the product on campus. She thanks students who will be first to test ideas
10:48: Great to have textbook on devices this small.
Students: Announcing that 5 top universities are piloting Kindle DX this fall, AZ state, Princeton, Reed College and UVA, CaseWestern Reserve.
10: 47: Showing an example of scientific article, newsletter. There is a widescreen mode. Rotate the device and content changes automatically. Cookbooks, with a big photo of sushi "Making me hungry."
Textbooks: Announcing that we've reached agreements with 3 leading textbook publishers, they represent 60% of higher ed textbooks: Pearson, Wiley, Cengage.
10:46: Kindle DX! 2.5 times the size of Kindle display. Built in PDF reader, no panning, no zooming, no scrolling--just read the documents.
10: 45: "Why do we print so much? Because computer traditional displays are worse displays than printers. It's worth the hassle of printing. Kindle solves that problem, but most documents we print and read are 8x11.
10:44: "What about personal and professional documents? Paperless society never came. Printers and 'their evil companion' ink toner catridges have proliferated."
10:42: "You can carry your whole library with you." So far, no news.
10:40: Bezos is going through why the Kindle "works." Paperlike display "sips" battery power; wireless (3G). And "it's purpose built for reading."
10:39: "Kindle Vision: making progress on it..." So far he is gicing the same speech he gave with the last speech, but now they've added 45K books in last 3 monhts. "We're accelerating! Where we have Kindle editions, Kindle is now 35% of sales." These are crazy numbers.
10:38: It begins! Jeff Bezos is onstage.
10:30: Amazon's Wi-Fi is choking. Too many people are live-blogging at once. We'd all do anything for a fatter pipe... The press conference should be starting any minute now. Music has not gotten any better.
10:23: Playing very, very mellow music in the press conf auditorium. Why are they trying to lull us?
10:22: This may be the most Tweeted press conference of 2009.
10:18: Press conference should start in about 10 minutes. Lots of speculation about what Amazon will announce. We've noticed there are no product demonstration tables upstairs--will there even be a product for us to touch?
10:08: Just made it inside the Pace University auditorium for the Amazon Kindle Press conf. The room is packed!
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