Google is developing an operating system of its own, based on the company's Chrome browser and intended primarily for use in low-cost Netbooks. Now I'll tell you why I think Google is doing it.
Like any other commercial enterprise, Google is trying to make money. No secret there. But Google doesn't make money the way other computer software companies do.
(Credit: Google)Microsoft, for example, makes money mostly by selling software (and a few hardware products) to computer users. There are two sides to this plan. Microsoft wants to make computers more valuable, so buyers will spend more of their income on computers; and it wants to increase the share it receives of that budget.
What makes Google unusual is that it wants a share of a different budget: the time people spend in front of their computers. Google makes money by displaying ads on a small part of the display while people view Internet content on the rest. Not all the time, of course, but the opportunity is there, and Google's multibillion-dollar revenue shows how well this strategy can work.
Turning the Chrome browser into the Chrome OS is technically straightforward, though of course it'll take a lot of work. A browser already has most of the key elements of any OS: application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow application software to display content and accept user input, store and retrieve data from mass storage, communicate over the Internet, and so on. Google will have to add a driver model and some other things that don't exist in a browser, but it can learn from how these things are done in existing operating systems, and possibly even borrow much of the code directly from Linux; there's no need to reinvent the wheel.
Existing operating systems such as Windows support a far wider variety of programming languages and provide far more services than Chrome OS will, but Chrome will probably be plenty good enough for Netbooks. (Personally, I don't think Netbooks are good for much, and many Netbook buyers seem to agree as shown by the huge volume of refurbished systems now available from remarketers like Woot.com.)
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So, Google is after your time, not your money. It can try to get more of your time in the same ways Microsoft tries to get more of your money. Will the Chrome OS increase the time people spend in front of the computer? No, quite the opposite. There will inevitably be less to do on a Chrome OS computer than on a Mac or Windows machine. Buying a Chrome-based Netbook means giving up the chance to run most Windows games, Apple's iLife suite, and other popular software.
But for Google, the key is this: once you've got a Chrome system, Google's in charge of ALL the time you spend with it.
I don't think that's good enough, and it looks like Google feels the same way; the company intends to implement the whole Chrome OS environment within the Chrome browser so Linux, Mac and Windows users can also run Chrome applications. This plan is necessary, since Google can't very well hope to muscle aside the incumbents, but it means that Netbook buyers will have no reason to prefer a Chrome-based machine.
Or will they? Linux may be free, but Google can undercut that price if it's willing to cut OEMs in on its ad revenue. In this way, Google could bring to market a subsidized pricing model we usually associate only with 3G-equipped notebooks. Google won't have nearly as much money to throw around as the cell phone operators do--maybe just a few unpredictable dollars per month averaged across all Chrome OS users vs. the reliable $60/month subscription fees associated with 3G cards--but that could still add up. Even a $20 subsidy could amount to 10 percent of the sale price of a cheap Netbook, which could tip the balance in favor of Chrome.
Like I said, it seems to me that Netbooks aren't the ideal platform for this strategy. The Google model can't work as well on a small screen, since users will be reluctant to share what little space they have with Google's ads. But they'll work well enough, and Google has no realistic chance to place Chrome on mainstream notebook and desktop systems except in the same narrow markets where Linux sells today. (And not all of those; for example, Chrome has no shot at the engineering workstation market, where Linux is popular.)
So I'm sure we'll see some number of Chrome OS-based machines on the market in 2010, and then we'll see what happens. My guess is that Chrome will do about as well as Linux has done in the Netbook business: not well. A lot of people will try it, possibly enticed by those lightly subsidized prices and the usual interest in novel computing platforms (the information-technology equivalent of the Coolidge effect, which perhaps could be known as the Glaskowsky effect.)
And then most of those people will return those machines, or give them to their ungrateful children, or just toss them onto a shelf to gather dust, and they won't buy more of the same--at least not until Google spends a few more years building Chrome OS into a fully competitive product, which I'm sure it will do. Google's big enough, and it knows there's a business here. It just won't be ready to take full advantage of the opportunity just yet.
I have tremendous respect for Jerry Lewis. He's a great entertainer, a ferocious intellect, and perhaps the greatest charity fundraiser in history.
I was pleased to see Lewis receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award during the Academy Awards ceremony in February, principally for his work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Jerry Lewis accepts the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards.
(Credit: Michael Yada/Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)I had no idea that the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon had raised more than $2 billion over the years. There are larger charities, but I don't know any that owe so much to the fundraising efforts of one man.
The technical side of my brain was intrigued to hear that Lewis had received a patent for "video assist" technology--the use of closed-circuit television to allow a film director to review scenes as they're filmed.
It seemed to me the story of Lewis' invention of video assist technology would make a good post for Speeds & Feeds. I figured I'd also be able to mention another famous movie-star patent, Hedy Lamarr's 1942 patent (US 2,292,387) on frequency-hopping communications (as Hedy Kiesler Markey), and Walt Disney's 1940 patent on animation (US 2,201,689).
I ran a Google search for "'Jerry Lewis' patent" and found many references to such a patent, including an article by a Mark Adler of VAIdigital offering the title "Closed Circuit Television Applied to Motion Pictures." Adler said Lewis came up with the idea in 1956 and first used it in 1960 on his first film, "The Bellboy."
An article by Michael Frediani titled "On the Set with Video Assist" from an issue of The Operating Cameraman (then the magazine of what is now the Society of Camera Operators) includes a picture of a video assist system, complete with ... Read more
I spent Tuesday at Nvidia headquarters, attending the company's annual Analyst Day.
I've been to most of Nvidia's analyst events over the last decade or so, since I covered Nvidia almost from its inception while working as the graphics analyst at Microprocessor Report. These meetings are always a good way to get an update on the company's business operations, and sometimes--like this time--one provides exceptionally good insight into larger industry trends.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 280 graphics chip
(Credit: Nvidia)Nvidia has had a rough couple of quarters in the market, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang blamed in part on a bad strategic call in early 2008: to place orders for large quantities of new chips to be delivered later in the year. When the recession hit, these orders turned into about six months of inventory, much of which simply couldn't be sold at the usual markup.
In response, Nvidia CFO David White outlined measures the company plans to take to increase revenue, sell a more valuable mix of products, reduce the cost of goods sold, and cut back on Nvidia's operating expenses.
Three things stood out for me in this presentation:
Nvidia is planning an aggressive transition to state-of-the-art ASIC fabrication technology at TSMC, the company's manufacturing partner. Within "two to three quarters," White said, about two-thirds of the chips Nvidia sells will be made using 40-nanometer process technology. (The first of these chips were announced Tuesday.)
White also acknowledged something that I've long assumed to be true: Nvidia receives "preferential allocation" on advanced process technology at TSMC. It's logical that Nvidia should get the red-carpet treatment, having been TSMC's best customer for many years, but I don't recall hearing Nvidia or TSMC put this fact on the record before.
The third notable point from White's presentation: the gross margins for Nvidia's Tegra, an ARM-based application processor--which Nvidia's Mike Rayfield, general manager of the Tegra division, says has already garnered 42 design wins at 27 companies--are much higher than I'd have guessed--at "over 45 percent." That's quite excellent for an ARM-based SoC; it's a very competitive market.
More surprises
The technical sessions at the event contained their own surprises.
For example, Nvidia effectively seized control of an old Intel marketing buzzword: "balanced."
For years, Intel used to talk about ... Read more
Apple's announcements this week expanded the range of the MacBook Pro product line, which now covers starting prices from $1,199 to $2,499.
In effect, the Pro line has absorbed the aluminum-cased models from the MacBook line, which is now reduced to a single model with a white plastic case, a look that debuted over three years ago.
Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro.
(Credit: Apple)Some "Pro" models now have features that used to be hallmarks of the basic MacBook notebooks: integrated graphics and no ExpressCard slot. I think of these as consumer-oriented choices, and I'll throw in the standard glossy screen finish on the 13-inch and 15-inch models. A glossy screen looks better for movies, but it's unacceptable for some professional users.
Consumers should be happy to migrate to the MacBook Pro line, since they can now get features and options never before offered on MacBooks: FireWire 800, for example, and support for up to 8GB of DRAM.
Professional users, on the other hand, are now reduced to just one good choice: the 17-inch MacBook Pro, which includes an ExpressCard slot and can be ordered with an antiglare screen.
So in a way, Apple's newly expanded notebook line is narrower than it used to be -- there's room both above and below, especially if the plastic MacBook is allowed to fade gracefully into history.
... Read more
Disney/Pixar's latest film is being shown in 3D using state-of-the-art Sony projectors in some theaters.
(Credit: Disney/Pixar)I went to an opening-day screening of the new Disney/Pixar film "Up," on Friday. I had a great time and not just because of the movie. There was an interesting technology story, too.
The Camera 7 theater in the Silicon Valley city of Campbell recently installed four new digital cinema projectors. They're the best on the market today: Sony's SRXR220, which lists for about $200,000 with the usual required accessories.
Sony also has a slightly less expensive model, the SRXR210, for smaller screens. What puts these projectors ahead of the competition is their native resolution: 4,096 pixels x 2,160 pixels, a standard known as "4K." That's over four times as many pixels as HDTV, which displays 1,920 pixels x 1,080 pixels.
I wrote about 4K technology back in August 2007 ("After HDTV, what's next?") and predicted that "you'll be seeing it in theaters within the next few years." I'm pleased to say that 4K is ahead of that schedule.
I wrote that post after attending a screening of some of the earliest 4K content at the ACM Siggraph conference in Los Angeles, including "Crossing the Line," a short film by "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. The Siggraph demonstration also used a Sony projector, the much smaller SRXT105.
I was amazed by the picture quality in that screening, and I'm even more impressed by what I saw from the newer SRXR220. As I wrote in 2007, these projectors create smooth, sharp images using LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology, which I think is inherently superior to TI's DLP (Digital Light Processing) micro-mirror chips, which are used in other digital-cinema projectors.
On Friday, we got to see more than just a movie, too. Sony has provided the Camera 7 with a bunch of PlayStation 3 game consoles and configured the projectors to display multiple games up on the big screen so that up to 64 people can play at the same time.
Before the movie, we got to see just one game, Sony's "Gran Turismo 5: Prologue," filling the whole screen. Coincidentally, that's my favorite game on the PS3 (though I must admit to limited experience with that platform since I don't own one), so I was happy with the choice.
Although the PS3's native output is limited to HD resolution, the image quality was very impressive. The movie itself was even better. I don't know what the movie's native resolution was, but it looked great, with bright, saturated colors and good detail in both highlights and shadows.
The movie was presented using RealD's 3D technology, re-branded as Disney Digital 3-D in the advertising for "Up," though the glasses we received were marked RealD as usual. Now that I've seen movies in state-of-the-art theaters using both RealD and Dolby 3D Digital Cinema, I think they're both fairly similar in overall quality.
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to make another comparison: between Sony's 4K technology and the new small-screen "IMAX Digital" theaters that are popping up around the country, generally as one or more screens out of several in a multiplex.
I've seen a couple of movies ("Watchmen" and "Star Trek") in IMAX Digital theaters now, and the quality didn't measure up to my expectations. According to the Wikipedia article on IMAX Digital, these theaters use a pair of HD-resolution (also called 2K) projectors--but I don't think this approach will produce better than HD-equivalent resolution. Two superimposed images can be brighter than one, but the resolution can't be twice as good as a single projector.
In my experience, IMAX Digital theaters fall short of the quality of these Sony 4K projectors...and, of course, they're vastly inferior to real IMAX theaters. Every time I've attended a showing in an IMAX Digital theater, I've heard other customers expressing their disappointment. I don't know why IMAX is diluting its brand this way.
Similarly, I don't know why Sony hasn't established a new brand for these 4K projectors. I know I'm going to be tracking the arrival of this technology in other Silicon Valley theaters, but Sony isn't helping.
Anyway, the new Sony 4K technology is out there. If you can find it, I bet you'll like it.
The annual Maker Faire, which lies somewhere between San Francisco's counterculture tradition and Silicon Valley's materialism, is set for this weekend in San Mateo, Calif.
Now in its fourth year, the event is organized by Make magazine and showcases the work of people who build everything from wooden bicycles to life-size robotic critters.
I've been making some fun things myself since I bought a small milling machine awhile back. Here's a titanium adapter I made to attach a small commercial USB flash drive to my keychain:
A USB flash drive (right) with keychain adapters milled out of titanium.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)
The assembled titanium-reinforced drive fits into any USB jack.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)Not long ago I found some blocks of aluminum bar stock at HSC Electronics in Santa Clara and had the idea to turn one into a stand for my iPhone. I had the standard iPhone dock, but it's not very stable, and I wanted something better. I realized I could mill a pocket into the aluminum block for the dock, plus create a face for the iPhone to lean against. The result was nice, stable stand.
I decided to preserve the original finish on the block for an industrial look:
The first-generation iPhone stand, made from a cylindrical block of aluminum and Apple's iPhone dock.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)After making that first one, I thought of some other ways to apply the same idea:
Another design. The Apple iPhone stand slots into the recess at the bottom, between the "wings."
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)
Another design, polished up a little.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)This one's my favorite so far:
Yet another design, also with wings.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)
A side view.
(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)There's always something at the Maker Faire to inspire more projects. Come back to Speeds & Feeds next week for a review of the event.
If you have an iPhone 3G configured for use in English, open up a new Note or Mail message and type the word "neat."
Your finger missed the "t"--didn't it? You typed "r" instead, for "near." That's OK. Backspace over the word and try again.
Oops. Missed it again, didn't you? Never mind, try again.
Apple's iPhone 3G
(Credit: Apple)That "t" sure is difficult to hit, isn't it? Well, you can always try the tap-hold-drag method of typing. Backspace over the word again, type "nea", then tap the T and as soon as you see the letter appear above your finger (it'll probably be an "R" again), drag your finger around the keyboard.
Pretty amazing, huh? Any letter but "t" can be typed in. That's right. Some iPhones simply won't let you type the word "neat" without using the backspace.
The problem isn't limited to this word or this character. I discovered the problem for myself recently when trying to enter the name of a restaurant ("Quattro") into a new calendar event. Further experimentation revealed many other impossible sequences.
I'm used to mistyping things on my iPhone; errors are inevitable with such a small keyboard and no physical feedback, and I tend to just blaze along as fast as my fingers will go. But occasionally, it seems to me that I hit the key I wanted but get something else instead.
I knew I hadn't missed the "t" because I was typing "Quattro" relatively slowly. I backed up, typed the word again even more carefully, and suddenly realized that some of my typing errors aren't my errors at all!
After fiddling around with my phone for a while, I realized that the iPhone virtual keyboard code attempts to predict what key(s) you'll type next and prefers the more likely keys over the less likely keys.
In extreme cases, when the code thinks a certain letter is pretty much impossible, it'll block that letter entirely.
This works well when you're typing a word like "fish" and you type "fisj" instead. Nobody likes getting fisj when they are hoping for fish, right?
I don't really understand all of the decisions built into the code. For example, "abcf" is not allowed, but any other final letter is fine. Is this because "abc" is most commonly followed by "d" and, thus, "f" is just too close for comfort? But then why isn't "abcs" blocked?
But the real problem is that sometimes--as with the word "neat"--this code doesn't anticipate all the legitimate letter choices.
Oddly, it isn't that the iPhone doesn't like the word "neat." If you accidentally type "neay," it'll suggest that you really meant "neat." So the character-predicting code must be separate from the dictionary.
I also established that there are some places where this character prediction routine doesn't operate, such as when you're typing into password dialogs and short text boxes in Web pages. But when typing into large text boxes, like the Comment boxes on these blog posts, the "neat" problem returns.
I looked around online after discovering the problem with "Quattro" and found very few references to the problem. However, one page on the Mobile Computer magazine site ("Is the iPhone's predictive text too clever for its own good?") has not only an explanation but a video of the problem. That's also where I learned about "neat," which is the worst case I've seen so far--a perfectly good, common word that you just can't type into an iPhone.
I figure this issue deserves wider attention, hence this post. I've also asked a few people I know with iPhones to test the problem. Two people with 3G models saw exactly the same behavior. One person with a first-generation model didn't. If your phone doesn't behave as I've described here, add a comment below to let me know.
I saw the new Star Trek movie in its limited release on May 7, and enjoyed it a lot (although I did think giving the Enterprise the new hull number NCC-90210 was a bit much).
Anyway, the movie includes scenes set in Iowa, which got me thinking about what life is like for the average person in the Federation of Planets. I think it probably isn't very different from life here on our Earth.
(Credit: Paramount Pictures)For example, we don't have warp drives, transporters, food replicators, or phasers, but I don't think these are part of the daily life of the average citizen of the Federation either.
In the new movie, I was struck by several scenes in which the technology of the mid-23rd century seemed to be markedly behind our own. I assume these anachronisms were considered essential for consistency with the various Star Trek television series, but I think this movie could have provided a good opportunity to retcon these awkward precedents and make Star Trek seem more futuristic to today's audiences.
But no. Today we have cellphones the size of Zippo lighters, whereas in 250 years, communicators-- even for intraship communication, as shown in the new movie-- will be larger, and somehow they will lose any kind of display screen.
Indeed, Lt. Uhura sometimes wears the trademark huge circular-finned earpiece from the original series, though most characters get to wear something much more like today's Bluetooth headsets.
In another scene in the movie, a courier delivers a message to a senior Starfleet officer by carrying to him-- likely over a significant distance-- a large electronic clipboard. We've had Short Message Service support on cellphones for over ten years! If you've seen the original Star Trek series, you've seen these clipboards-- Yeoman Rand used to bring them to Captain Kirk on the bridge.
These clipboards-- also known in the Star Trek universe as data slates, or most commonly, Personal Access Display Devices (PADDs)-- shrank over the years; by the 24th century, they were down to the size they are today.
The engineering areas of various Starfleet facilities and even the new Enterprise were even worse; some of those scenes could have been filmed in a 19th-century boiler room (or maybe brewery) with a new coat of paint.
I also noticed a very futuristic forklift truck in the movie, but it turns out that too (the exact product) is an early 21st-century product.
But generally, life in the Federation does seem to be much more relaxed than life on our Earth, and technology presumably plays a role in that, even if it's usually behind the scenes. I wouldn't mind living there.
Actually, there are the occasional planet-shattering alien attacks. I wouldn't like those. Maybe I'd be happier somewhere I can combine 21st-century technology with a mellow 23rd-century lifestyle, like Marin County.
This is the second part to my early analysis of the new Kindle DX large-format e-book reader. In the first post ("Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: Overview") I discussed the physical and software features of the new device. In the third post, "Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: E-textbooks", I'll talk about how the DX will fit into the educational market.
The new Kindle DX is larger than the Kindle 2 with more than twice the screen resolution.
(Credit: Amazon.com)But here, let's talk about the DX's suitability for reading electronic newspapers.
Newspapers are about text, and there's only a moderate need for interactivity. For each story, the reader views the headline and perhaps skims the opening paragraph, and if it doesn't look interesting, moves on to the next story.
Even with these relatively undemanding requirements, the Kindle DX isn't as good for reading newspapers as a real newspaper. We're all used to the ability to glance over a full newspaper page worth of articles at once. You can't do that with the Kindle.
This issue boils down to the amount of time we spend reading articles vs. the amount of time we spend glancing at headlines and turning pages. Call that the "reading ratio." A real newspaper offers a very high reading ratio even if we're not reading much of the paper, because it takes so little time to flip through the pages looking for articles to read.
On the Kindle DX, the ratio will depend very heavily on how much of the paper we're reading. For those who just read through the whole paper, the ratio can be fairly high, probably 90 percent or better. It'll still be lower than a real newspaper because it takes a certain amount of time to turn the virtual pages of the Kindle, and page turning is much more frequent.
(Demonstration videos seem to show that page turning takes about the same amount of time on the DX as on the earlier Kindles.)
For those who read only a fraction of the stories in the day's paper, the reading ratio of the Kindle DX will be much worse than a real newspaper because the experience will be dominated by page turning. Since most of us can't simply increase the amount of time we spend reading the paper each day, I'm afraid that the Kindle approach to e-news will actually reduce the amount of news we read.
It's also worth comparing the Kindle e-news experience with that of the iPhone and a laptop. These devices have active displays with fast update rates, greatly reducing the page-turning delays. I use The New York Times application on my iPhone pretty regularly (once or twice a week, at least), and it's really quite easy to flick through the day's top stories, which appear on the iPhone with the headline, a thumbnail photo, and usually about half of the lede.
On the other hand, the delay to read the story itself is quite long, since the Times' iPhone software is not designed to pre-load the stories, as the Kindle does. The iPhone takes about 10 seconds to bring up a story once selected, but once it's in, there are no further delays. The rest of the story scrolls past as fast as I want to flick through it.
At home, on my laptop, The New York Times Web site is even faster. It's easy to skim the titles and ledes of about a dozen stories on the main page for each "section," and loading a story takes no more than a second or two. Once loaded, again, there are no further delays.
The Kindle DX simply can't deliver that kind of e-news experience because the screen technology is inherently too slow to support scrolling or fast page-turning.
In fact, it looks like the Kindle DX isn't even taking full advantage of its own capabilities. The newspaper interface is very basic: one wide column of text, not the multiple narrow columns that help us skim through real newspapers. I wonder why?
But again, I think the DX will do an adequate job for people who like to read most of the day's news stories. How much of the market that is, I can't guess, but I suspect it's a higher fraction among older, wealthier customers.
(Now, continue on to "Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: E-textbooks", or return to "Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: Overview".)
This is the third part to my early analysis of the new Kindle DX large-format e-book reader. In the first post ("Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: Overview") I discussed the physical and software features of the new device. In the second post, "Early analysis of Amazon's Kindle DX: E-news", I described the limitations of the DX for news reading.
The textbook market represents an even greater challenge for the Kindle DX. There's a lot of variety among textbooks. Some textbooks will work well enough on the DX's display, but most, I think, will not.
The new Kindle DX is larger than the Kindle 2 with over twice the screen resolution.
(Credit: Amazon.com, Inc.)I think the key issues here are how each textbook is used, and what kind of illustrations are present in it.
Textbooks that are fundamentally like collections of stories, such as those in sociology, history, and literature, will likely be most suitable for use as e-books. These texts are read sequentially, so that the reading ratio (the time spent reading vs. the time spent finding the next thing to read or waiting for the display to update) can be high, and they can usually be written so as not to rely on complex color illustrations. (Though complex color illustrations are still valuable, and the Kindle DX doesn't support them.)
Texts for the natural and formal sciences will not work so well.
A biology textbook without color is almost inconceivable, except that if you have a Kindle, it's pretty easy to see how that works. Just download the sample for the Kindle edition of Steven Daniel Garber's "Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide".
Right up front, you'll get a hint that all may not be well. The e-book includes a disclaimer: "Due to the nature of digital conversion, some of the images included in this e-book may lack the detail and clarity of the originals."
And indeed, that's true. Much of the fine detail that would be visible in a printed copy of this book is lost here. Remember, textbooks are commonly printed on offset presses with more than ten times the linear resolution of a Kindle display.
And even if a reader were willing to zoom in to see the fine detail on an illustration (and if the Kindle DX allows it, which the earlier Kindle models often don't), the lack of color is utterly crippling. Biology textbooks rely on photomicrographs of cells in which subtle color gradations are essential to understanding the cell structure.
Perhaps some of these figures could be replaced by line drawings carefully crafted to communicate the same facts without relying on color, but some photographs are irreplaceable.
And line drawings have their own problems. I downloaded the Kindle sample version of "History of the Ancient World" by Susan Wise Bauer and looked at the book's maps on my Kindle. Some are fine, but many have notations that are virtually illegible at a normal reading distance, to the point where I can be sure that 50% more linear resolution isn't going to help enough.
For math, science, and engineering, I think the Kindle DX will also be inadequate. I remember studying these subjects, and what I remember about using the textbooks is frequently flipping back and forth through the pages to compare new material to old and find the applicable explanations and formulas when answering review questions at the end of each chapter.
The Kindle DX simply doesn't support page flipping. Backing up twenty pages takes two seconds with a paper textbook, but most of a minute on a Kindle.
Amazon has made deals with several major publishers to bring texts to the Kindle DX, and with several major universities to support the DX in some classes next fall. These are encouraging announcements, but these are just experiments, not evidence of the DX's suitability.
I'll be interested to see whether Amazon, its publishing partners, and these universities initially limit themselves to the low-hanging fruit in history and literature classes, or go after some of the more challenging courses.
Ultimately, I don't think any e-book reader is really the right answer for educational use. The better solution is to adapt textbooks and other educational materials such as exams to notebook computers, which can support more types of content (including full-motion video) and provide valuable interactivity.
And the even better answer, in the long run, is to develop systems that are even more tightly focused on education, with long-life batteries, rugged construction, and specific software and hardware features that aren't generally found in laptop PCs. I've been studying this problem for a long time (since I was in college myself!) and if there's interest, I'll go into more detail in a future post.
