Technology Nirvana

Love it or hate it, Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader is selling well -- in fact, even at $359 there currently aren’t any in stock. So Amazon certainly doesn’t need any advice from me about how to sell more Kindles, but I have some ideas about how the company could make the device more attractive to casual readers like me.

The basic idea would be to make the Kindle reach critical mass as a consumer product, similar to how many “average” people own an iPod. Whether iPod owners use it or appreciate it isn’t as important as the fact that they bought an iPod because it’s become the de facto standard for portable music playback.

Granted, e-book readers are a harder sell than portable music players as almost everyone consumes music in someway or another but not everyone regularly reads books for pleasure. Still, the idea isn’t to make the Kindle as popular as the iPod, it’s to make the Kindle the iPod of e-book readers.

Greg Parker is a professor of electronics at Southampton University. He's also a wizard. Like his co-author Noel Carboni. Real wizards, capable of obtaining some images that rival the best of Hubble's and giant Earth-based telescopes using less than $15,000 in equipment and more patience than any money in the world could buy. Their magic: A refrigerated CCD chip, a rotating dome, and some smart post processing in Photoshop.

galleryPost('refrigeratedcamera', 8, 'Star Vistas');

These images will be part of Star Vistas, a book that will be published next year and will collect all their photos of space, taken since they met online four years ago. The two alien Peeping Toms started to collaborate online in 2004. Neil—a Photoshop wizard with an astronomy inclination—helped Greg post-process his images of M33, which is a member of our local group of galaxies along with Andromeda (M31, who they also got in their book) and our very own Milky Way.

Greg uses a 28 cm Celestron NExtar 11 GPS reflecting telescope with Hyperstar lens, an optical assembly that attaches to the telescope secondary mirror, turning it from a slow f10 to an ultrafast f2 astrograph. This system is not designed for the human eye, so he got a matching Starlight Xpress SXV-H9C one-shot color CCD camera.

To increase the performance of the camera, he had to get rid of the noise in the sensor, which is produced by heat during long exposure times. This is achieved by installing a solid-state refrigeration system, which lowers the temperature of the CCD to 55º F less than the ambient temperature.

In addition to this, there is a last ingredient in the recipe: Parker moves the dome in his observatory by hand ever half hour, to adjust to the rotation of the Earth, which results in a moving sky.

In other words: Magic. [Star Vistas via Daily Mail]

By allowing its snooty customers to manipulate the snooty Microsoft Surface interface with their snooty fingers, BMW has officially become the first car maker to offer the touchscreen tech to a worldwide car-buying audience. Impressed? Me neither, but that's just because I'm a low-paid writer who's insanely jealous of anyone driving a car that's hotter than my 2006 Mercury Milan. So, basically everyone.

As you can see in the video, there's nothing ground-breaking here, save for some fancy cars and interactive swatches for interior and exterior colors (the software was developed by Vectorform for BMW, btw). If you're up for a stiff German guy reading off a cue card, though, then by all means clicky clicky. [BMW Blog, Thanks Haratiu!]

Is this tire really the "Holy Grail of Eco-Transportation," as Treehugger believes? Maybe. Time will tell if the electric engine inside the Active Wheel from Michelin will catch on and further drive down the cost of electric vehicles. For now, let's delve deep into this tire-motor combo, and you can decide for yourself if it has what it takes to kill the gas-guzzling combustion engine for good.

The wheels, while still in development over at Michelin, already have a vehicle ready to receive them. Called the Heuliez Will, this tiny tot from Opel doesn't look like much, but it has it where it counts, and might produce an offspring that, in a galaxy far, far away, makes the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Or requires no gasoline to run. Probably the latter.

Even more impressive is the notion that in-wheel motors would free up space in the front or rear of the vehicle. This model also eliminates the need for other notorious space hogs like transmissions and exhaust systems. More room means more freedom for tomorrow's automobile designers, and cooler cars for we consumers. (*fingers crossed* anyway).

The target price for the Opel right now is about $24,000-37,000, which puts it in line with the upcoming so-called savior of Detroit, the Chevy Volt. Testing on the Opel has already begun, with an official consumer roll out expected by 2011. Active Wheels are also expected to come standard on the Venturi Volage sometime in 2012. [Michelin via Treehugger]

The global recession has sparked riots at the Nerf factory in Dongguan, South China, but there are as-of-yet no reports of any Vulcan GF-25 cannon discharges. In fact, no foam weaponry of any kind was brandished during the tussle, which came to a head following layoffs and unpaid wages.

And unlike the riots that took place in Wal-Mart and Toys R Us stores in the States last Friday, there were no reports of fatalities. Just general bedlam:

The workers battled security guards, turned over a police car, smashed the headlights of police motorcycles and forced their way through the factory's front gate, Guo said. They went on a rampage in the plant's offices, damaging 10 computers, the company said.

Below is that oldie but goodie Nerf office war video, because it's awesome.

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[AP via Boing Boing]

Jon Hicks from Hicks Design has released the Helvetireader skin for Google Reader. Helvetireader takes a minimalist approach, masking many of Google Readers abilities, creating a simple and very easy to read interface to Google’s excellent RSS feed reader.

Google Reader has been my RSS reader of choice since I made the switch from Bloglines last year. This new skin makes the site seem brand new, and makes it even easier for Reader to stand alone as desktop app with Fluid or Prism. To set up Helvetireader with Fluid, create a new Site Specific Browser for Google Reader, then launch the newly created app. Next, click on the script menu item, and select “New Userscript”. If you have the Developer Tools installed, this will launch Dashcode and allow you to edit the userscript. Just paste in this:

// ==UserScript==
// @name        Helvetireader
// @description Helvetireader style for Google Reader
// @include     https://*.google.com/reader/view/*
// @include     http://*.google.com/reader/view/*
// @include     htt*://*.google.*/reader/view*
// @author      Helvetireader by Jon Hicks (http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk)
// ==/UserScript==

var cssNode = document.createElement('link');
cssNode.type = 'text/css';
cssNode.rel = 'stylesheet';
cssNode.href = 'http://www.helvetireader.com/css/helvetireader.css';
cssNode.media = 'screen';
cssNode.title = 'dynamicLoadedSheet';
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(cssNode);

Save your script, and relaunch the Fluid Google Reader App. After a second, the CSS from Helvetireader will kick in, and you’ll have a brand new look and feel to Google Reader. The CSS is actually hosted on the helvetireader.com web site, so you won’t have to modify your settings as the code is updated. This script is just as easy to set up on Firefox or Opera, and can be used with Safari or Camino with a little tweaking. Hicks expects this theme to be used by 10 people at the most, I expect it will be much more popular than that.

We figure this RC Black Widow Spider is good for maybe one, possibly two, good scares before a skittish family member offs it with a well-placed slipper to the head. But until then, you'll have seconds or minutes of fun making this hairy little abomination scurry around the family room on its eight little legs. Requires six AA batteries, one 9-volt battery, about $36, and a forgiving family that doesn't instinctively squash something that resembles one of the deadliest spiders on the planet. [Play.com via Technabob]

Love it or hate it, Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader is selling well — in fact, even at $359 there currently aren’t any in stock. So Amazon certainly doesn’t need any advice from me about how to sell more Kindles, but I have some ideas about how the company could make the device more attractive to casual readers like me.

The basic idea would be to make the Kindle reach critical mass as a consumer product, similar to how many “average” people own an iPod. Whether iPod owners use it or appreciate it isn’t as important as the fact that they bought an iPod because it’s become the de facto standard for portable music playback.

Granted, e-book readers are a harder sell than portable music players as almost everyone consumes music in someway or another but not everyone regularly reads books for pleasure. Still, the idea isn’t to make the Kindle as popular as the iPod, it’s to make the Kindle the iPod of e-book readers.

No changes to current hardware

My prescription for selling more Kindles to regular people doesn’t involve anything drastic like changing the hardware. It can be implemented easily and instantly. Plenty of pundits would argue that the device is in need of a hardware overhaul – and maybe it is – but let’s work with what we currently have. My plan makes upgrading to newer models enticing for current Kindle owners, too.

It’s way too expensive for casual readers

I consider myself a casual reader in that I read about ten books per year. Assuming I’d buy all my e-books at ten bucks a pop, it’d cost me over $350 to just get into a Kindle at first, plus another $100 scattered throughout the year. Psychologically, that initial $350+ purchase price is what keeps me away. I keep telling myself that I could buy ten books at the bookstore for less than half that price.

For me, as a technology enthusiast, the EVDO data connection is THE killer feature that the Kindle has going for it, but it’s not enough to persuade me to spend almost $359 plus $10 per book on a device that I’m going to use ten times each year.

That data connection is, beyond a doubt, the reason for the Kindle’s high price tag. Amazon has to pay Sprint something for access to its data network and that cost is passed along to the consumer. While some have mused that some sort of subscription to the data access could subsidize the cost of the Kindle, Amazon knows that keeping things as simple as possible is in everyone’s best interest. You don’t buy the Kindle through Amazon and then deal with Sprint, you buy the Kindle and use it without worrying about how those books are getting sent wirelessly to your device.

How to overcome the price obstacle

Here’s how to keep current Kindle-lovers happy while making the device accessible to less avid readers. This model draws from a model previously used by Audible.com to sell subscriptions to its audiobook service. Back when MP3 players were starting to grow in popularity but were still pretty expensive, Audible used to subsidize certain players against automatic monthly audiobook purchases. You could sign up to certain tiers (one, two, or three books per month, for instance) and the higher the tier you signed up for, the cheaper your MP3 player would cost.

So for Amazon, here’s what I’d suggest:

1. Keep selling the Kindle for $359, straight-up, just like it’s being sold now. No fuss, no muss, nobody gets bent out of shape. People can buy the Kindle and then spend as little or as much on e-books as they see fit.

2. Sell the Kindle for $249 with an automatic $15 monthly book credit for one year.

While most books cost under $15, it’s hard to get two books for that price. Not wanting to waste book credits, people might be persuaded to purchase a second book or a subscription to something every month using the remainder of their monthly credit, plus regular money to make up the difference. That, or Amazon would keep the extra $5 or whatever wasn’t spent ($15 for forgetful users).

Buying the Kindle wouldn’t sting as much at first for consumers and Amazon would end up taking in at least $429, minus whatever it pays out for royalties.

3. Sell the Kindle for $49 with an automatic $30 monthly book credit for one year.

This would work for avid readers who don’t want to outlay $359 up front for the device plus it’d entice people like me to get into a Kindle for dirt cheap, load up on books for the first year, and then spend the next year or two reading them.

Amazon would take in a total of $409, minus royalties, and $30 is easier for consumers to use up on three best sellers each month without going over.

Hardware upgrades

The monthly credit model would also entice first-generation Kindle owners to upgrade to subsequent Kindle devices. Instead of saying, “I paid $400 for the first one – I’m not paying another $400 for the new one” they might say, “I paid $400 for the first one and spent roughly $30 a month on books, so maybe I’ll pick the new one up for $49 and sign up for the $30-per-month plan.”

Possible obstacles

The biggest factor for Amazon would be whether or not a system like this would be profitable given the amount of money it has to pay to authors for each book sold. A cursory search on e-book royalties seems to peg the figure at between 15% and 25% to the authors/publishers for each book sold.

If that’s true, Amazon would only be eating a couple bucks on each book sold — and we’re assuming nobody forgets to use up their credit for the first year — but the Kindle would be in the hands of so many more people, which is the whole idea.

Agree? Disagree? Your thoughts?

The company behind MyQuire, a simple but pretty powerful online application that lets individuals and team members work on projects in a social network-like environment, has been recently acquired.

That’s about all we know. We got in touch with CEO Michael Dawson but he declined to comment or share any details because the buyer apparently requested full confidentiality on the deal.

A tipster shared the following e-mail he received:

We have some big news! After nearly two years of building MyQuire, we have been acquired. We have had a great time working with you, and couldn’t have gotten here without your help.

As part of this deal, we will no longer be able to operate MyQuire.com. Services on the platform will end January 1, 2009. We apologize for any disruption to your work.

The collaboration tool was first launched about 14 months ago at the DEMOFall conference but we hadn’t really heard anything from or about the company since. Even their own ‘press coverage’ and ‘press releases’ pages haven’t been updated since December 2007.

Anyone out there who knows a bit more about the acquisition?

Here’s a video of Founder and former CEO David Steinberg presenting MyQuire at DEMOFall 07:

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I was overcome with nostalgic joy this fine afternoon when I first laid eyes on these M.U.S.C.L.E Men USB dongles (short for Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere). The memories! These fleshy pink rubber men, featuring unforgettable names like Muscle Man, Mr. Blocky and Mr. Tea (teacup for a head, duh!), were a staple of my youth. Too bad those fond memories were quickly sullied by the obscene humping end of these USB dongles. Why the Japanese took something as sacred as Kinniukman and turned him into something like this, I'll never know. All I can say is "only in Japan," and then order ten for my desktop. [Geek Stuff For You via Boing Boing Gadgets]