It turns out that for most students, the answer is “no”: although most agree they make great personal reading devices, almost 3/4 of the 63 students participating in the project said they would not recommend the device to an incoming student for use in school work.

For reading fiction, they work well, but the lack of color and zooming options for PDFs mean that they can be problematic for reading textbooks. It is also much harder to take notes than with a pencil or computer.

However, the college’s professors say they are still working on converting their course materials to e-book formats, and feel that the iPad might correct some of the deficiencies the students noted in the Kindle DX.

However, the first half of the article talks about the rise of e-books and e-magazines, discussing the Kindle, the Kindle app for iPhone, and the Zinio e-magazine reader. White doesn’t really mention many of the other e-book options apart from these, but at least he does agree that the PDF format really isn’t best for reading e-books on portable devices.

He seems a little more optimistic about the efficacy of Adobe’s DRM than I would be, though.

Yun’s report suggests that the New Jersey university’s report will lead with the positive by touting cost savings and the fact that use of the DX “reduced the amount of paper students printed for their respective classes by nearly 50 percent.” But it also makes clear that the Kindle DX pilot project was something less than a love fest.

(Update: here’s a link to the official announcement.)
Out here in the real world, Amazon has generally been very successful in its Kindle marketing by lowering prices several times while promoting the Kindle in a rather understated manner as a dedicated or purpose-built reading device, setting up a delayed “Wow” factor when customers receive their Kindles and discover unexpected features and capacities with the occasional help of a Kindle guide or a Kindle blog. But Yun’s reporting on the comments of students and faculty at Princeton suggests that Amazon may have hurried or overplayed its hand with a $489 DX that is not quite ready for prime time as a replacement for textbooks and courseware. The complaints cited will probably come as no surprise to Kindle Nation Daily readers:

* difficulties in annotating PDF documents
* lack of folders or other content management features
* lack of page numbers for citation, or to help in judging reading progress
* tiny keyboard size, and other limitations on annotation

“It was great to have the experience of using a Kindle, but I think I’ll stick with books until they work out the kinks,” Cally Robertson ’10 told the Princetonian, and her impatience with the Kindle’s “kinks” seemed to be shared widely among students who have probably been denied very little in the gadgetry arena during their brief lives.

“I think [the Kindle]’s one of those pieces of technology that will seem ridiculously anachronistic five years from now,” said another student, aptly named No.

Are you listening, Mr. Jobs?

It would not surprise me if, having been introduced by Amazon and their instructors to the Kindle, many of these Princeton students end up being perfect customers for Apple’s iPad. The iPad’s initial sticker price of $499 to $699 is not going to be a deal breaker for many of these students whose parents are paying $252,480 for four years of tuition, room, and board, even if the total four-year costs of 3G coverage, warranties, and accessories like the iPad keyboard shown above right bring that price above $2,500. That’s over five times the cost of a Kindle DX, but for now at least, you can’t write a term paper on the DX.

While Amazon has been around for 15 years, its Kindle business is still very much a start-up, and for that business Amazon faces a dizzying array of choices about how to invest its capital, its people, and its many marketplace advantages for the future. Kindle DX sales seem currently to make up only about 10 percent of overall Kindle sales, and Amazon may well decide not to engage Apple in what might become a hubris-driven battle for the highest-end convergence-devices-that-might-also-serve-as-ereaders market.

But eschewing a market composed of the children of millionaires is not the same as eschewing a market composed of children, and that’s where Amazon’s smartest future-oriented strategic moves could soon come. I’ve been saying for months that it is time for a Kindle for Kids, and although my predictions along those lines have come to naught, the fact that I’ve been wrong about the timing doesn’t make the entire notion wrong. Whatever Amazon decides to do in the short term with regard to the DX and textbooks, I’m convinced that the company could do much more to build a long-term future for the Kindle and the Kindle Store by putting a full-court press on the possibility of creating a Kindle App for the Fisher-Price iXL Learning System (shown at right), scheduled to ship in July 2010 for $79.95 with Story Book, Game Player, Note Book, Art Studio, Music Player and Photo Album applications, an SD card slot for expanded memory, USB connectivity, PC and Mac compatibility, a software management CD enabling users to add their own songs and pictures, and onboard storage for additional software titles, songs, and pictures (and, I would assume, ebooks). Calling it a Learning System, of course, is a marketing masterstroke that guarantees heavy activity involving grandparents.

But what part of all that would a kid not love? What part of all that wouldn’t lead a fair number of Dads to try to negotiate some user time with their five-year-olds? Most parents are already familiar with the experience of taking their kids to a restaurant and secretly wishing that they too could order the crusty mac and cheese with the $3 price tag from the Kids’ Menu.

And most manufacturers and marketers are already familiar with the way in which many kids’ eating preferences are dominated for years by the culinary themes and motifs of those same Kids’ Menus.

For Amazon, it’s got to be obvious that getting Fisher-Price to link the iXL Learning System to a beefed-up Kids’ Korner of the Kindle Store would — far more than any academic pilot project — virtually guarantee the development of millions of little Kindle Kids and future Kindle Adults.

Hell yes, I’m serious. Or, given the subject matter and the need for this particular App to come with parental controls, “Heck yes.”

Are you listening, Mr. Bezos?

TechFlash reports that Microsoft and Amazon have signed a cross-patent-licensing agreement, where each company gains the rights to use the other’s patent portfolio. The deal indemnifies Amazon against a lawsuit by Microsoft over its use of Linux and other open-source technology in its Kindle and the Kindle servers. Open source advocates may not be too happy that it appears Amazon is endorsing Microsoft’s claims that Linux violates its patents, however.

TechFlash also has a story about Princeton University’s review of the Kindle DX, which they and other universities had been evaluating as a possible replacement for paper textbooks. Princeton likes the form factor, but has some issues with the user interface and internal storage structure. (Paul Biba will have more detailed coverage on this story coming up in an hour or so.)

Whether any universities will adopt Kindles for this purpose is unclear; last month the Justice Department reached an agreement with three universities that they would not do so until and unless the Kindle better supported use by the visually-impaired.

Engadget has video of display company Liquavista’s new dev kit, which combines its color screen with a qwerty keyboard and a Texas Instruments processor to create an interesting, albeit somewhat unfinished-looking device. The video provides a decent look at how the screen changes and refreshes. There’s also video of the LiquavistaBright Freescale e-book reader.

Once you’ve purchased an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the wonderful world of public domain, Creative Commons and free e-book promotions opens up to you. This regular Kindle Reader feature points you to a few of the most interesting new free (or very cheap) e-books available for download from the web.
Jan 27
Free e-book selections for this week include a fan fiction treat for Harry Potter fans, a Jules Verne adventure tale, two classic mysteries, science fiction by Philip José Farmer and Michael Graeme, a novel of time travel back to 1940s Britain and – for history buffs – Lytton Strachey’s biography of a queen who gave her name to an era and reigned for more than 63 years.

A Kindle World blog: This blog will explore the capabilities of this device with its immediate access to the entire global Net, through its 24/7 wireless feature. There will be ongoing tutorials and guides for little-known features and latest information on the Kindle and its competitors. Questions are welcome.

Amazon Kindle Community Forum: run by Amazon its a very active forum and a good place to ask questions and get answers.

Kindle Boards forum: another active forum community.

MobileRead’s Amazon Kindle forum

I’m a little late noticing this, but on January 31st TidBITS posted a detailed head-to-head comparison of the Kindle versus the iPad as e-book reading platforms. There is also some discussion of the Amazon/Macmillan dispute, though the outcome was unknown at that point.

TidBITS‘s Glenn Fleishman concludes:

In the end, Amazon is a bookseller, and its foray into hardware shows that it’s better at moving media than making machines. The Kindle has evolved into a nice piece of hardware that gets great reviews from those who keep it.

But, put bluntly, the Kindle DX just doesn’t compare favorably with the iPad in any way other than battery life and screen visibility in sunlight; the Kindle 2 benefits from being smaller and cheaper. And the Kindle ebook library may offer titles at a lower price, though Amazon may be forced to capitulate on that.

The article includes plenty of comparison photos and charts, and makes very interesting reading. As Fleishman, like me, has no difficulty reading from a lit LCD screen, his conclusions may not be valid for everyone, but I think he makes some very good points.

Judie likes the cover as much as I do and she says, in part:

Impeccable craftsmanship and gorgeous designs; option of reading in landscape or portrait mode; leather is supple and thick – offering plenty of protection for the contents inside.

Here are some points I found especially interesting: the DX has a lower pixels per inch figure, but it is not apparent when comparing directly to a Kindle 2. The DX changes pages faster than the 2. The larger page size makes reading such things as maps, in Lord of the Rings, possible. PDF files are now readable. They didn’t miss the left hand page controls, which are missing on the DX. Battery life is the same as the 2.

The DX will be selling in the UK for £308, before shipping, which is £145 more than the standard KindleRead the whole story here.

I will hit the technical details first, then cover e-book matters in detail below the jump.

Technical Details

The interesting facts about the new iPad are being quoted in detail on dozens of news sources, so I will just summarize: it is basically like an iPod Touch only bigger, with a 9.7”, 1024×768 @ 132 pixels-per-inch screen, 16, 32, or 64 gigs of storage, reportedly 10 hours of battery life and a month of standby power. The complete tech specs are now available on Apple’s website.

Device price is to be $499/$599/$699 for 16/32/64-gig capacity (add $130 to each price point for a 3G-capable model), and it begins shipping in 60 days (90 days for the 3G model). (Go here to sign up to be notified when it is available to order.) This is an iPod Touch-style price: no contracts or obligations factor into it.

This is an interesting price point, to be sure: for twice the price of a $259 2-gig Kindle 2, or just a little more than the $430 4-gig Kindle DX, you get a color device with four to eight times the storage and much more flexibility. Though unlike with the Kindle, the iPad’s 3G data plans cost extra.

Wifi and Data Plans

All devices will have 802.11n wifi, and some will have 3G capacity as well. Apple and AT&T will offer two optional pre-paid 3G data plans for the 3G model: a 250-megabyte plan for $14.99 per month, or an unlimited plan for $29.99 per month. Both plans will also allow free use of AT&T wifi hotspots, such as those at Starbucks.

Unlike most wireless device plans, these optional plans will be pre-paid with no contract lock-in, and can be enabled or cancelled at any time from a control panel on the device itself. The device will be sold unlocked to permit possible use with other carriers.

Existing iPhone apps will work run at native resolution in the middle of the screen, or can be pixel-doubled to run in low-resolution full-screen. A new iPhone SDK to add native iPad compatibility comes out today.

Papers and Books

Early in the event, an iPad-native New York Times application was demonstrated, which works pretty much like the version for the iPhone only larger.

But later in the event, Steve Jobs showed a photo of the Kindle on the slideshow and said, “Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this, but we’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a step further.”

He then introduced iBooks, which bears a suspicious resemblance to the iPhone’s “Classics” app—stored books appear on a handsome wooden bookshelf, and the pages look like a “real paper book”. iBooks will launch with titles from publishers Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, and Hachette.

iBooks will feature the same instant-buy-and-download capacity we have come to expect from the Kindle or third-party iPhone e-book applications. It reportedly uses the ePub format, though there is no word on whether its DRM will be compatible with third-party ePub readers.

There is also no word on whether an iBooks app will be available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Publisher Price Points

According to an article from the Wall Street Journal that David Rothman instant-messaged to me, Apple has asked publishers to set hardcover prices at “$12.99 and $14.99, with fewer titles offered at $9.99.” As with apps in its store, Apple would take 30% of the book price, with publishers getting 70%.

As the Journal points out, this is significantly different from the publishing industry’s usual 50%-of-list-price model, where a $28.95 hardcover book is sold to Amazon for $14.50 then Amazon can set whatever price it wishes.

A $14.99 Apple e-book will only net the publisher $10.49. But, on the other hand, that is still more than they would make if they had to price their books so Amazon could sell at $9.99 and make a profit.

Duplicate Functionality?

There is still no word on what this means for other e-book vendors in the iPhone store. Will eReader, Stanza, Kobo, and other apps be dropped from the store, or have new iPad-native versions refused?

Certainly Apple has been reluctant to allow apps that “duplicated functionality” in the past, and these stores do not earn Apple anything—unlike its 30% take on iBooks. Still, it would seem like a shoddy way to reward apps that helped them sell their iPod Touch and iPhone to begin with—not to mention cause angry revolts from consumers who have already invested in e-book libraries from those vendors.

On the other hand, there have been rumors that both Barnes & Noble and Amazon are bringing their respective iPhone e-book reading apps to the Apple tablet. (And a New York Times report today (found via TechFlash) suggests Amazon seems to believe it will be able to sell books on the iPad too.) If these are true, then perhaps Apple will brook competition to its iBooks store after all.

We will certainly provide additional coverage as more information becomes available.

(Pictures thumbnailed from Gizmodo liveblog.)

Picard’s Syndrome

Back in 2003, economic commentator Gary North wrote about his observation that millions of people had a bias against e-books and preferred to read physical books.

Noting that, on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard was considered “eccentric” for preferring to read paper books, North called this phenomenon “Picard’s Syndrome”.

The essay is interesting to read, and still mostly relevant even now that e-book readers are increasing the popular demand for e-books.

North starts out by talking about the advantages of e-books in terms of searching, copying and pasting, and annotating. But, North writes, most people prefer printed books. “If a book doesn’t have a binding – if it isn’t suitable for reading in bed – well, it just isn’t a real book.”

Manual Labor

North then talks about how he is able to sell technical e-books he writes, on topics such as how to design an effective Yellow Pages ad, for three-digit-sums per copy because he targets them at very specific audiences and—more importantly—calls them “manuals.” He writes, “The document is not called a book, let alone an e-book. If it were an e-book, you would have to give it away.”

I sell my 88-page manual for $176 – $2/page. For a businessman who wants to make his Yellow Pages ad work, $176 is not much money. He pays that much every month, or even every week, to run his ad. As for everyone else, they would not pay me $17.60 for such a report. Most would not pay $1.76. They are not interested in writing Yellow Pages ads. So, I sell my manual to a tiny market at a high price – high in relation to what paperback books at Barnes & Noble cost.

North suggests that one reason e-books don’t sell well (or at least didn’t at the time the report was written) is that people are fixated on the idea of paying for a physical object. If it doesn’t have physical presence, why should it cost anything?

Using a 1,500 page 3-volume book he self-published as an example, North suggests that “Picard’s Syndrome” sufferers have learned to associate the cost of physical books with editorial quality: i.e. if someone spent the time and money on editing and printing it, it must be good or they would not have gone to all that trouble and expense.

(This theory is, of course, somewhat undermined by the new ease of inexpensive self-publishing.)

Publishing as Censorship?

North equates the “intellectual gatekeepers” associated with the traditional publishing industry with censorship:

Picard’s Syndrome creates in its victims a longing for layers of hirelings, none of whom has ever written a book, each of whom declares "yes" or "no" with respect to the content of a book. These censors stand in between the author and his audience. They tell the author that "this book won’t sell unless you allow us to modify it." They tell readers, "we will screen out the useless, the ugly, and the politically offensive." To both, they say, "trust us."

But the great thing about the Internet, North states, is that now writers can reach their audience directly, without having to worry about getting possibly controversial ideas past publishing house editorial boards.

And there is something to this. When I interviewed Lawrence Lee Rowe Jr., the author of the speculative fiction novel Tempus Fugit, on my podcast The Biblio File, Rowe said that all the traditional publishers to whom he submitted the work wanted him to make major changes that would have gutted the theme of the story. Thus he chose to self-publish instead, getting his work out the way he originally intended it.

On the other hand, by some lights North’s “censorship” theory is a trifle optimistic. As I pointed out in an article a few days ago, without such gatekeepers we are left adrift in a sea of slush without a compass.

Though to be fair, further down in the essay North himself admits that “There is a case for screening, of course: letting experts judge quality.” But here he adds that this is a service which can be offered independently of the printing process. “Those who want this can buy it. Those who prefer to get their books straight from the authors with no middlemen will be able to do so.”

Picard’s Syndrome: The Last Generation?

One point North does not consider in his essay is the effect of generational change. We are seeing younger generations now growing up with computers and digital media simply as a part of their life.

As I pointed out in my piece earlier today about the study on using a Kindle DX to replace newspaper reading, there was a pronounced generational gap between older and younger readers in the study—the older ones praised the Kindle for its more book-like experience, but the younger ones thought the Kindle felt “old” and wanted something smaller and multifunctional like their smartphones.

It may be that Picard’s Syndrome is largely limited to the older generations, and will die out when they do.

Picard’s Syndrome Here and Now

While preparing to write this article, I corresponded with North and asked him if Picard’s Syndrome was still prevalent, or whether e-book platforms such as the Kindle promised a “cure”.

North replied:

Mises.org finds that the free digital books create demand for printed books.

Picard sufferers are still afflicted.  But the readers will provide some relief.

North is referring to an article he wrote about how libertarian think-tank site The Ludwig von Mises Institute discovered that giving e-books away increased the sales of printed-on-demand copies of those books.

Like Jean-Luc, they want to hold a book in their laps. They don’t like to read a book in a 3-ring binder. They can read a chapter on-line. Then they say, "Nuts to this. I’ll click a link and buy it."

This is, of course, not a new observation. Baen found it out as well, ten years ago (though North does not say when Mises started giving away its books so I do not know which one was first to do so). But apparently as long as this remains true, it will be because Picard’s Syndrome is still in effect.

Looking to the Future

This preference for books is something that e-book reader manufacturers are going to have to take into account if they want their devices to appeal to Picard Syndrome sufferers. Amazon seems to have done a fairly good job so far with the Kindle, at least in terms of the older, non-smartphone-preferring generation.

And if we look at Kindle users as a population in and of themselves, we might get a sense of where things will go post-Picard. As we reported Saturday, some publishers have taken to giving away the first books in series as free Kindle titles to entice Kindle users to buy the rest.

In this way, the free e-book serves as a promotion not strictly for the printed book (though users of Kindle reading software on other, less book-like platforms might still treat it that way), but for all the e-books that follow.

Perhaps this is the way e-books will be sold in the future. It’s just up to the e-book industry to “make it so.”

The study found that, while participants did like the readability of the Kindle’s screen, most did not feel it made a good overall replacement for a newspaper.

For younger adults, the Kindle fell short when compared to their beloved smart phones, with touch screens and multiple applications—from music to surfing the Internet—available in a single small package. The e-reader felt “old” to them.

Older adults were overall more receptive to the concept of an e-reader. However, the Kindle failed to include aspects of the traditional newspaper they had grown fond of, such as comics and crossword puzzles.

Participants also felt that the DX’s price tag of $489 was too much to pay for reading a newspaper. The study did focus solely on using the Kindle as a newspaper replacement, however, rather than for books and other media as well.

I found it interesting how the attitude of the younger adults in the study mirrored what Andrew Savikas said in the Tools of Change article we discussed yesterday:

Attributes like convenience, portability, price, immediacy, and connectivity are more important to these customers than attributes like paper weight, coating, or smell. So it’s no surprise that we’re seeing the quickest growth in smartphone reading outside of established markets.

Perhaps there’s something to this “disruptive innovation” thing after all?

Stepdad has lately been complaining that with his arthritic hands, he finds it hard to hold and carry a book. He also has trouble getting out on cold days, and I thought he would enjoy being able to buy books from home. He is not a voracious reader on my level (I read over 90 books last year) but he does enjoy books.

What’s more, he plans to retire this year and become a “Snowbird”—an older Canadian who flees the cold to spend much or part of the winter in Florida. Florida Srub Jays lead easier lives than birds up north, so why not join them?

He will have more time to read, and wants to. I figured an ebook reader which does not require a computer or Internet connection would be just the thing for him as he would be staying in vacation rentals and might not always have computer access. And as a bonus, he could use the Kindle for newspapers as well as books. How nice would it be to wake up in sunny Florida to a fresh Toronto newspaper, delivered to your Kindle while you slept.

His one obstacle to getting a Kindle has been its lack of retail presence. He may be able to accept a newspaper auto-delivered to him electronically in time for his morning coffee, but he cannot accept spending hard money on something from the internet that he has never touched or seen. So I thought my Craigslist Kindle score would be a perfect remedy. I could enjoy the Kindle while he dithers for another half a year, and if he decides he likes it, I could buy myself the next model when it comes out and give him mine. He seemed amenable to this idea and was eager to see my new Kindle and try it out for himself.

The initial hands-on

When I first saw the Kindle buttons, I was worried he would have trouble with them. The letter keys are small and the five-way controller requires a certain precision at times. I do think there is perhaps an untapped niche which remains in the ebook hardware market for a reader optimized for older readers. But Stepdad dove in with reasonable enthusiasm and, once a book had been selected for him, he used the next and previous buttons, unprompted, to make his way through. The unit seemed to fit comfortably in his hands and he had no difficulties maintaining a secure hold on it. He tested the Kindle both in the Amazon official leather case and without it, and preferred it with the case because the fuzzy backing gave him some extra traction; he was worried he would drop it.

He found the screen quite readable and said he was surprised at how good it was and how much like a real book it seemed. He asked about using a booklight with it (I explained this was possible) and asked how it looked when reading in sunlight. He briefly played with the font sizes and seemed to appreciate this feature.

The Amazon store

He wanted to check out the Amazon store. His condo is in one of those weird urban Bermuda triangles where too many satellite dishes kill all the wireless signals, so when I saw the bar light up very briefly, I hustled him out of the book he was reading and showed him how to access the store.

Here was where the limitations of his hands became a bit of an issue: when I prompted him to type in the name of a book, he asked me to suggest “a short name” for him to try, and he needed to lay the Kindle flat and use both hands to manipulate the five-way controller to download the sample. He did say he thinks it will be fine once he is used to it; certainly the day to day operation (turning it on, reading a book) was fine for him.

If he needed help loading up content from time to time, he could have it. But I do think that the buttons may turn out to be an issue for him.

I also showed him a newspaper (I had bought one issue as a sample to play around with) and I think that might be something which would interest him. We didn’t spend too much time on this, though. I was just hoping to let him have a play with the Kindle and get used to the idea so he could start thinking about whether he wanted one.

Some lingering concerns

Under normal circumstances, I don’t think my parents read enough to justify the cost of the Kindle. But I can see someone like my stepfather, who has mobility issues with his hands, finding this a worthwhile investment the same way one might buy a cane or a hearing aid. I know he will get pleasure out of it. And in fact, the cost did not seem to be an issue with him and he appeared quite prepared to spend the money if he decided that he wanted it. He had some concerns, and I was surprised at how astute he was about going for the Kindle’s weak points, given that he is a non-techie with no previous experience reading ebooks.

1) He asked about sharing books with my mother. He was worried that if he read a book and then wanted to let her read it, he would have to let her have the Kindle and then what would he read on while she had it? I explained that we could get her a Kindle too and they could share books on their account.

2) This led him to the realization that ‘having an account’ is part of the deal here, and he immediately asked me what that meant and if Amazon was going to spy on his books and prevent him from loaning them to my mother. I told him it didn’t quite work that way. But yes, technically, Amazon could know what books he has and what devices they are loaded onto.

3) Then he asked what would happen if his brother, a fellow Snowbird and arthritis sufferer, bought a Kindle too. Could he share the books? When I explained the potential snag here (yes, if you add him to your account; but that would mean he could spend your money with it), he matter-of-factly pointed out that if he had a paper book, he could give it to whomever he wanted to.

4) He was concerned about theft. Specifically, that if he left a paperback novel on the deck chair while he hopped into the swimming pool and somebody stole it, he’d only be out about $8. But if he left out the Kindle and it got snatched, he would be pretty upset.

5) The formats, and the idea of being ‘locked in’ to the Amazon store did not concern him. He is not the type to re-read a book and is not concerned with how accessible a title might be to him 25 years down the road. But he did ask about reading library books.

Finally, he seemed to believe that I am endowed with a superior knowledge (this may be true, for now, in this one arena but I certainly think he can learn) and kept asking ‘but could *I* do this?’ every time I showed him something. When he got his camera, I remember him taking a series of classes at the camera store to get himself up to speed. When he got a computer, someone came over to help him set it up. The Kindle, having no retail presence, might suffer with his demographic because a lot of people his age do share his views about purchasing and many would never think to buy something like this unless they could go somewhere and see it first.

To reach this market, absent a techie like me to lead the horse to the water, they’ll need to set up some retail partnerships so people like him can see the readers in action and touch and look before they buy. They’ll need to work out a sensible way to allow the degree of ’sharing’ that an average person might expect (maybe a ‘one device at a time’ sort of thing where I can loan it, but I lose access to it myself while it is out) and they will need to persuade people that it really isn’t that hard and they don’t need their child/nephew/IT friend to help them just read a book.

And finally, they need to make not just more devices, but different ones. We need a reader optimized for kids (plastic screen, stylus-based interface to let them touch and point at words, pared-down feature set to lower cost and increase independence) and one optimized for older people (large buttons, many font choices, text to speech). I am excited to see what the future will bring to the ebook market and hope that my stepfather finds the perfect device for him.

Related: Past TeleRead items on older adults and ebooks.

And it’s especially frustrating when I’m reading dialogue. If you’re like me, wouldn’t you rather that the books look the way they do in the Kindle screen shot to the left?

Mercifully a fix exists for nonDRMed e-books—the Calibre e-book management and conversion program that John Schember has written up in The ABCs of e-book convresion: Easy Calibre Tips for the Kindle, Sony and Nook, as well as in A beginner’s guide to Calibre.

You can download Calibre for Windows, Mac and Linux machines. Calibre’s current 0.6.33 version, just released, even lets you install a dictionary feature within its e-book-reader.

Now here are the easy steps to rid your books of those evil spaces:

1. Fire up the Calibre program, which you can install and get going with guidance from John’s simple tips.

2. Double-click on the Preferences icon in the upper right of the Calibre screen, the one with the hammer.

3. Choose Conversion, which appears on the left of the program’s screen.

4. Put a checkmark ahead of “Remove space between paragraphs. You can also do the reverse and, rather than do this, tell the program to add spaces between the paragraphs in book files where they don’t exist.

If you choose to remove space between paragraphs, you’ll be indenting the first lines of each. And if you look a bit to the right on the Calibre screen, you’ll notice you can vary the indents’ size.

5. Click the OK button in the lower right of the Calibre screen.

6. Next time you get a book into Calibre, use a conversion option even if the book is already in the proper format for your Kinde, Sony Reader or whatever. That way, the change you made will have an effect.

To answer one question, yes, this will work on books you download from Google Books for your Kindle or other machine. Even if you have a Sony or Nook, you may want to skip the default bookstore’s Google Books option and instead download them to your desktop machine so Calibre can fix the spacing.

A related tip: For some e-readers, not all, you may be able to turnall text into boldspacing for better visibility on an E Ink screen, which lacks the best contrast between text and background. While you’re in the screen for conversion options—the one mentioned in Step #4—you can insert some special code within the big “Extra CSS” rectangle:

body { font-weight: bold }

OK, give the above suggestions a try, and let me know in the comments area if you have any problems.

You can see two videos showing off the usual LCD mode and an E Ink-type one.

Gizmodo does offer a caveat: “The LCD colors aren’t as vivid as a plain LCD’s and suffers at some viewing angles, and the reflective mode suffers from the glossy screen’s glare, but in both modes, it’s good enough.”

Notion says it’s working on the problem. Will this kill off E Ink, or can it catch up fast enough? Supposedly E ink can be power-greedy with full motion video, and if true, that would be a problem.

So how long until Amazon respond with its own machine with Pixel Qi or a similar tech, and will it be an e-book only device, or also a video player tethered to the Amazon site. Not bad: multimedia customer lock-in (sarcasm alert).

Related: ‘E-reader makers seek bestseller but may end up duds,’ given all the rivals; $99 model coming soon?