8/14/2019 Kindle Markup

1/2

kindle.html 1 /

August 04, 2009 Crimson Edit

The Paper Chase | Wired August 2009

Steven LevyThe Paper ChaseEven the supersize Kindle might not be big enough to save publishing.

In February, Amazon CEO JeffBezos unveiled the Kindle 2 at New York City's Morgan Library. By all indications (Amazon has yet to offer an API to its own financials), the updateof his electronic reading device defied the recession and sold tons. You would havethought that Bezos would take a rest. But in May he was back in New York, this time atPace University-with another Kindle.

He called it the Kindle DX, but it should have been called the Kindle XL because thenewcomer is all about size. The original model's e-ink screen m~asured 6 inchesdiagonally, roughly equivalent to a typical paperback. The DX has a 9.7-inch screen,

about the size of a hardcover. That's two and half times more reading area. The realtrick is that Amazon has supersized the Kindle without making it bulky-the new guy isstill only about a third of an inch thick. It's very easy to hold.

Amazon is marketing the DX, priced at a gulp-inducing $489, to some specific users:college students, professionals who read a lot of documents, and consumers of newspapersand magazines. One ofthe speakers at the May event was New York Times publisherArthur Sulzberger Jr., who spoke briefly of plans to offer special Kindle subscriptiondeals to people living in places where the paper doesn't deliver. (Aren't those theplaces where people don't care about New York Times?) He then retreated to theluxurious new building the Times Company built before the Internet put it on the vergeof bankruptcy.

But I'm less interested in subscription models than in presentation. The original Kindle-the first truly connected e-reader~ ade me think these devices would evolve into sleek,inexpensive gadgets that could combine the richness of print with the ability to performneat tricks of the digital era, like animate graphics and target ads. If you've seen Minority Report, you know what I mean. You could subscribe to newspapers andmagazines on the first Kindle, but the experience was awful, requiring painstakingmanipulation of a weird scroll bar to find the article you wanted. For the Kindle 2, Ama-: zon improved the software and upgraded the screen to grayscale so the photoS woulllno longer look like fetal ultrasounds. Butits plodding menu-based interface still madenavigating newspapers difficult, and the rich graphic quality that makes magazines suchan indulgence is totally missing. Even the flashiest print publication looks like TheNew England Journal of Medicine. So I was disappointed to discover that the launchversion of the DX handles newspapers and magazines exactly the same way its predecessordoes.

Here's what we really need to make print publications shine: a Super Kindle, made by

Amazon or someone else. It wouldbe an inexpensive (cheap enough to lose), always-ondevice with deep, hi-res color, e-ink, and a touchscreen. You could browse through lushpages by finger-flipping. You'd be able to point at a story on a carefully choreographedfront page to access a gorgeously designed article. Tap an ad and an animated demo wouldbegin.

When I showed the DX to WIRED'S editor in chief, he rotated it to landscape mode to seewhether it was wide enough to convey the experience of a magazine spread-it covered lessthan half the territory. Even the expanded screen could deliver only a shrunkenfacsimile. But then he took the leather binder that Amazon sells to cover the reader andflipped it open. The folio fit the open pages of WI RED almost precisely. Imagine thatbinder crammed full of silicon and liquid crystal-that's the form factor of the futureperiodical.

8/14/2019 Kindle Markup

2/2

kindle.html 2 /

August 04, 2009 Crimson Edit

A device like that is the last best hope paper-based companies have for coping with thereality that paper is doomed. Color e-ink displays and other advances are brewing in thelabs. But progress is slow. Is the Super Kindle five years away? Ten? That may be toolate for some publications struggling right now. But it might be a ground -up launchingPad for the newspapers of tomorrow.

EMAIL: Steven Levy.

Burning QuestionHow do I future-proof my digital media?

You've spent years hoarding digital media, tossing aside those fhmsy tape and plasticprisons after transmuting the information into its purer form. No outdated vessel isgoing to prevent your endless enjoyment of Its contents, right?

Think again, Highlander.

Digital media IS not Immune to the winds of time. In many ways, it's even more ephemeralthan the analog forms it's meant to usurp. Unlike, say, books or photographs -which canbe placed on a shelf and enjoyed decades later-the binary codes of today's mOvi'e, photo, and music collections may not be decipherab e on future machines.

"Most people still haven't realized that digital files require software to render them

into forms that humans can perceive," says Jeff Rothenberg, a computer scientist at theRand Corporation and an expert in digital preservation. Making matters worse, thatrendering software often becomes obsolete as companies go belly-up or stop supportingfile formats.

So how do you keep filling the bit bucket without spilling valuable Is and Os? It'srarely easy. There are already a bazillion methods of compressing and encrypting media,and the number is only increasing. The safe road sticks to open standards and popularformats, Rothenberg says.

For music, your choices are pretty well defined: If you're more concerned about spacethan fidelity, go with the ubiquitous MP3. If you need to hear every nuance and have thegigs to back your play, WAV (the CD's audio format) is a good bet for lossless audio.

When dealing with images, most archivists recommend a raw format (if you've got terabytesto spare) or TIFF. But both can be tricky. Raw files are the unmolested data captured bya camera's sensor. Each manufacturer has its own version, and you'll need specialsoftware to decode it. As long as you keep the program (there's also a Photos hop plug-in), you should be OK, and you'll benefit from the best possible image quality. TIFF, onthe other hand is a high quality compression scheme that has remained mostly unchangedsince 1992. But it's a proprietary Adobe format. If that makes you nervous, use commoncompressed standards like JPEG or PNG; they'll likely be readable for years, though theycan't match raw or TIFF files for quality.

Unfortunately, movies are a bit dicier, as digital video is relatively new to the mix.The H.264 standard seems poised to emerge as a universal format, at least for HD video.But MPEG-2-the native language of DVDs-is the undisputed king of standard-defmovingpictures. Either one should buy you peace of mind for a few years.

It's tempting to seek out a single magic format that preserves everything forever. Youwon't find it. The only surefire way to future-proof is to stay current. If that seemslike too much work there's another option: Keep, your hard copy photos, CDs, DVDs andBlu-rays (plus your old hardware). Have fun re-sorting them on the fly.

BRYAN GARDINER