Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon has announced that it will open up the Kindle e-reader to third party developers, allowing applications, or what Amazon calls “active content”, to run on the device.

What kind of apps could run in the low-fi Kindle? Well, you won’t be getting Monkey Ball, but interactive books, travel guides with locations data, RSS readers and anything that brings text to the device would be a good candidate. This could even include magazine and newspaper subscriptions.

The key is the revenue split. Right now Amazon takes a big chunk of the selling price of Kindle e-books. The terms of the new Kindle Development Kit (KDK) specify a 70:30 split, with the large part going to the developer. This is the same as the iTunes App Store, which is surely no coincidence — with an expected e-reading Apple tablet announcement next week, Amazon may be showing its hand now to pre-empt Apple.

It might appear that Amazon is going head-to-head with Apple on this, but we see it a little differently. Apple sells hardware, and while the App Store brings in a nice chunk of change, it is there primarily to sell more iPhones and iPods. Amazon sells books, and the Kindle is a way to make sure you buy Amazon’s e-books. That’s why there is a Kindle app for the iPhone, and why there will be a Kindle app on the tablet: it benefits both companies.

“Active content” will certainly make the Kindle more compelling, especially against other e-readers, although it will also make the Kindle more distracting. One of the nice things about an e-reader is that you can’t use it to check your email every five minutes. Or perhaps you can. The KDK allows the use of the wireless 3G connection. If the application uses less than 100KB per month, the bandwidth comes for free. If it uses more, there is a charge of $0.15 per MB which can (and surely will) be passed on to the customer as a monthly charge.

This model could, interestingly, also make its way into Apple’s tablet. Instead of trying to sell us yet another data plan, the tablet could have a Kindle-style free 3G connection used only for buying iTunes Store content, with the bandwidth price built in to the purchase. That is just speculation, however.

What we are sure of is that the next year will be an interesting one, and the e-book is set to take off in the same way that the MP3 took off before it. The question is, who will be making the iPod of e-books? Given its relatively low price, its appeal to an older, book buying demographic and its ascetic simplicity, the surprise winner might actually be the Kindle.

KDK Limited Beta Coming Next Month [Amazon]

LAS VEGAS — Everybody is showing off new e-readers at CES this year, and Samsung is no exception. But there is one reason for you to keep reading this post. With Samsung’s e-book, you can write on the pages.

We knew e-books would be a hot item at this year’s show, but the surprise is that there are so many large format readers. Samsung’s small range tops out with a 10-incher, which joins the Kindle DX in its new international clothing, and Plastic Logic’s enormous 8.5 x 11-inch Que proReader.

Samsung’s e-books, the E6 and E101, look just like any other black and white e-ink device. When you’re done reading either of the 6- or 10-inch books, though, you can pull out a stylus and start scrawling. These sticks come in various thicknesses and use “electromagnetic resonance” to draw lines on the page.

The smaller readers also have secret, slide-out controls hidden behind the screen, and an on-screen, soft QWERTY lets you type real text — your stylus scribblings remain just that, and are not automagically transformed into actual text. Still, its a lot easier to jot notes on top of your pages than to do it the Kindle way and tortuously tap out text on the chiclet keyboard.

The readers grab content over Wi-Fi (no 3G) and can display PDF, ePub and plain text files. I played with them briefly at Samsung’s stand (”No pictures, sir. It’s our policy this year.”) and took some pictures. The e-ink screen is much the same as any other, but when using the stylus to navigate, the local refreshing that draws menus is cleaner (but no quicker) than, say, the Kindle.

The navigation itself is clunky, and you never know whether you should be pressing an actual button, touching the stylus to the screen or using a finger (hint: fingers don’t work). Drawing, though, is responsive, and just like using a real pencil.

The e-readers need some work, and feel like the prototypes they are. Hopefully, there will be some additional polish before these go to market, otherwise it will be yet another rushed product hoping to grab some sales from the flawed leader, the Kindle. Also, a quick question to the visitor at the Samsung stand who asked, “Just what is the main difference between this and the iPod Touch?” Are you serious?

$400 or $700, depending on size. And don’t say “Magna-doodle.” The pictured prototype with a hardware keyboard does not yet have a price.

See Also:

• Plastic Logic Aims New Que E-Reader at Business Users
• Video Boxes, 'Notbooks' and E-Books to Dominate Gadgets in 2010 …
• Amazon Kindle DX International: Too Late?

Samsung Unveils Its First E-Book for Reading, Writing and Sharing On-The-Go [Samsung]

Overseas readers who haven’t already paid out their humiliation money to Amazon in return for the “International” Kindle, the e-reader that remains crippled outside of the US, now have a second opportunity waste some money.

Amazon will ship an international edition of its 9.7-inch screen Kindle DX, beginning January 19th. The oversized e-reader will cost $490, and replaces the current US-only unit. The new DX also benefits from the firmware update that gave its little brother better battery life.

The limitations of the smaller reader persist, too, including a smaller catalog than is available in the US, and no real web access through the browser in most countries. Hopefully Amazon will have managed to buy up some non-US power-plugs, which was (and still is) the first and most obvious insult to worldwide buyers.

If you want this, you’ll already know it, and are probably hitting the “buy” butting right now. If you’re unsure, we’d suggest waiting for a little while. Between the crazy crop of e-readers at CES this week, and Apple’s probable tablet announcement later this month, buying this now is probably foolish.

Amazon Introduces Kindle DX with Global Wireless [Amazon]

Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device [Amazon]

See Also:

• Slim, Large Screen E-Reader Skiff to Debut on Sprint
• Hands-On With Entourage Netbook, E-reader Combo
• Large-Screen Kindle Won't Mean Squat if Apple Tablet Arrives …
• Gadget Lab Guide: How to Un-Cripple Your International Kindle …
• Crippleware Alert! International Kindle Gets No Web Access Outside …

As the economy sputters back to life, gadget makers are preparing a whole raft of hardware for you to buy in 2010.

Some of it will even be worth purchasing.

Among the highlights: set-top boxes and TVs that will let you kiss off the cable company, 3-D televisions, increasingly powerful device “platforms” enhanced by massive app stores, e-book readers, a new crop of netbooks, and tiny projectors crammed into everything from cameras to netbooks.

Many of these devices will be on display at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, where more than 110,000 members of the electronics industry will gather to show off their wares and give the world a preview of what gadgets are coming out this year. It’ll be the second straight year of declining attendance for CES, where attendance topped 130,000 last year, but it’s still a major event in the gadget world. And Wired’s Gadget Lab team will be there, bringing you the highlights from the show, complete with photos and video.

“CES has been hit by the one-two punch of the general economic travails and the demise of Circuit City, which has led to further retail consolidation,” says Ross Rubin, an executive director at The NPD Group. However, Rubin says, it’s still a big show — and there will be lots there to appeal to gadget lovers.

It’s unlikely that there will be a single standout star of the show, the way the Palm Pre was at last year’s CES.

“It is such a vast show that it is rare that one product ’steals’ it the way we might see at a small technology conference such as Demo.”

And then there will be the tablets. Most industry observers, including Gadget Lab, expect Apple to release a tablet device, possibly called the iSlate or iGuide, sometime in 2010. Other major manufacturers, including HP, Dell, Intel, Nokia and HTC have been rumored to be working on tablet-style devices. Smaller companies including Fusion Garage, Notion Ink and ICD have announced plans for tablets in 2010. And many publishers, including Wired’s parent company, Conde Nast, are already working on the software to display e-magazines and other content on tablet devices.

But don’t expect much news on the tablet front this week. Whether their products aren’t ready yet or they’re just waiting for Apple to make the first move, most companies rumored to be working on tablets haven’t let any details slip yet (and they aren’t expected to say much more in Vegas, no matter how many martinis we ply them with).

Until then, we’ll have to content ourselves with imaginary visions of what an Apple tablet might look like — like the one above?

Read on to find out what we do know about the biggest gadget trends of 2010. – Dylan Tweney

Illustration: Courtesy Gluepet

So Long, Cable Company

Historians may look at 2010 as the year that gadget technology finally destroyed the cable companies. And it’s the rise of internet video that is making this happy day possible.

If you’ve seen an episode of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long then you know that the web is actually a decent place to get high-quality, original content — much of it free. As anyone with a high-speed connection and a faint knowledge of Google will confirm, in addition to the aforementioned Dr. Horrible, you can easily check out snippets of 30 Rock on Hulu, take in full episodes of The Office on ABC.com, or watch the latest episodes of The Daily Show on Comedy Central’s site.

TV manufacturers have noticed this trend, and have rapidly made web-connected TVs de rigeur. We noticed this trend a few months ago, and the latest crop of web-ready TVs that will be announced at CES 2010 will push the trend even further. Expect streamlined user interfaces, thinner LCD displays and lower prices. And most importantly, more models to pick from. Big-name TV makers like Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Vizio will offer web connectivity over a larger line of their products. We’re calling it: If a TV can’t access the internet directly in 2010, it might as well be sitting next to an exhibit of Neanderthals at the Natural History Museum.

When the free video grows a little tiring, for-fee services, led by Netflix, will save the day. The Xbox 360, the PS3 and a vast smattering of Blu-ray players all have the capability to stream media from Netflix’s catalog directly to a TV. Click a button, watch a movie. It’s that simple. And the majority of Blu-ray players, gaming consoles and media devices released in 2010 will have Netflix streaming capabilities.

The final stone atop cable TV’s pyramid? Video-streaming appliances like the Boxee Box. On it, you’ll be able to watch any piece of non-DRM-restricted media on the internet, share movies or TV shows with your pals, and stream videos cached on your computer’s hard drive. And then there’s the Sony PS3 (read on for our take on that).

For lack of a better word, we’ll call these multifeatured, internet-connected, media-streaming set-top boxes “video boxes.” Expect them to pop up everywhere in 2010.

Unless you like paying exorbitant prices and enjoy terrible service and smarmy service reps, there’s very little reason to keep your cable provider this year. – Daniel Dumas

Updated 12/29 with additional details

Ray Kurzweil, a prolific inventor who is best known for his prediction that machine intelligence will surpass that of humans around 2045, still has a few things to offer carbon-based life forms. Kurzweil has introduced new e-reader software, called Blio, that approaches e-reading from a completely different angle than the current E Ink-based devices like the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader.

Blio is not a device. Rather, it is a “platform” that could run on any device, but would be most obviously at home on a tablet. The software is free and available currently for PCs, iPod Touch and iPhone.

“Everyone who has seen it acknowledges that it is head and shoulders above others,” says Kurzweil. “We have high-quality graphics and animated features. Other e-readers are very primitive.”

Blio is set to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.

E-readers have become a hot consumer electronics product. About 5 million e-reader devices are expected to be sold by the end of the year. Meanwhile, electronic books for the Kindle outsold physical books on Amazon for the first time this Christmas, said Amazon, one of the largest online book retailers.

Kurzweil — who is better known for his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near — has worked extensively in areas such as optical character recognition, speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis. His company Kurzweil Technologies has a joint venture with the National Federation of the Blind called knfb Reading Technology to create reading products for people with disabilities. knfb Reading is the company that has created Blio.

One of Blio’s major advantages over current e-book readers is that the software offers a full color experience. E Ink, which is the black-and-white display used currently in almost all e-readers, works best for text, and even then most e-books still look ugly, thanks to design limitations in the readers.

Blio actually lays out the “pages” as they would be seen on paper, with typography and illustrations copied across. It also supports video and animation. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the interactive magazine applications (also meant for upcoming tablet devices) shown off by the likes of Time Warner, Popular Science publisher Bonnier and Wired’s parent company Conde Nast.

Add to that some nifty features such as text-to-speech and the ability to synchronize things (like bookmarks, highlights and the page you last read) across multiple devices, and it makes for an interesting e-reader.

“We can take a PDF and an audio book and merge the two to get a combination such that you can hear the audio book and see the words highlighted on the PDF at the same time,” says Peter Chapman, an executive at Kurzweil Technologies.

For publishers, says Kurzweil the advantage is that Blio preserves the original book’s format, including typsetting, layout, fonts and pagination.

Though it sounds nifty, Blio is up against some stiff competition. Kurzweil and his team are betting against the trend of dedicated e-reader devices such as Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader.

“People don’t want an extra piece of hardware,” says Kurzweil. “They want to take one device and do everything with it and they want color screens.”

Instead, Kurzweil is betting that tablets that are scheduled to be launched next year — including the much speculated Apple tablet — will be used by consumers instead for reading digital books. Blio could fit well on those tablets.

Blio will also go up against existing e-reader software such as Stanza for the desktop. Amazon acquired Stanza earlier this year, and its Kindle for PC and Kindle for iPhone apps also sync with the Kindle device. Barnes and Noble also plans to offer desktop and smartphone-based e-reader software that will work with its Nook. But Kurzweil says they can’t support multimedia and text-to-speech like Blio does.

Blio creators are also working with major book publishers to port their e-books from the Adobe PDF format to Blio for free. They are trying to partner with Google to make its massive library of free book titles available in Blio.

On its own, Blio looks solid, but it signifies something much bigger: the end of the paper book. Right now, e-books are poor copies of paper books, with a single advantage: convenience. A book is just a container for text, not its natural home.

The upcoming rash of tablets could provide a better place for reading words than these old wads of paper, usurping print the way Gutenberg usurped hand-copied manuscripts.

A chart from Blio shows how the software compares to its rivals:

See Also:

• Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live
• Large-Screen Kindle Won’t Mean Squat if Apple Tablet Arrives …
• Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader
  
• Review: Amazon.com Kindle 2
• Review: Barnes & Noble Nook
• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet

Photos: Blio/knfb Reading Technology