Cathy Healy

Cathy Healy works with K-12 classrooms worldwide as they make a difference in the world.

Cathy Healy

Advocate for K-12 Global Collaborations

Asks Andrew: Which e-reader should I get? A Kindle?

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My pal Dr. Andrew Laurie, Cambridge, UK, wrote this morning that he’s thinking about getting an electronic book reader. “But which? Kindle?” 
Of course not. iPad is the sun and Kindle is the dark side of the moon. Except…for Andrew, maybe Kindle is a sunny day, because Andrew spends his life saving wildlife in remote parts of the Galapagos Islands, Tanzania, Nepal, China, and Mongolia.

Here’s the analysis I sent him:

“The iPad is far and away the best e-reader. For starters, you can get all of Amazon’s Kindle books on the iPad, plus, you can get more book-looking books through Apple’s iTunes, and you also can get converged news + audio + videos from the major outlets, such as BBC, which have set up special iPad apps, and the US’s National Public Radio.


“Also, more and more magazines offer an iPad app–New Yorker two days ago, has a terrific layout and includes a “video conversation.” In fact, some group just set up a magazine using Wikipedia information, which is very cool.

“(Note: Wikipedia magazine is not so heavy on the juicy news you and I laugh about. The best source for that comes from your fellow Brit, Tina Brown, and her Daily Beast. She only has an iPhone app at this point, so the Beast looks pretty lame on the iPad. Nonetheless, you can also get your e-mail on the iPad and I get the Beast’s “cheat sheet” e-mails twice a day with news summaries and links to the full articles, so I seldom go into the site itself.)


“The downside of the iPad for you is that the iPad would be covet-able when you are out in the world. As my nephew DJ says, in Eastern Europe where he spent four years, no one would desire a black-and-white Kindle. I gave him my old Kindle when I my iPad last April, and he is pleased with it.

“Other Kindle pluses: the battery lasts a lot longer. Some critics also talk about how the LCD light wrecks sleep patterns because not enough melatonin gets generated while you are winding down and going to sleep. The Kindle, with its lowlight screen doesn’t seem to cause this problem. I am not sure. I’ve had a couple of restless nights after reading late, but it may have been the subject matter.

“Reading is slower on all screens then when reading a paper book, according to recent studies. The best speed is with an iPad, the next best speed is with the Kindle, and by far the slowest is with a computer screen. The difference between reading speed on iPad versus a Kindle is something like 2%. In other words, a wash.

KINDLE ELBOW

“On the negative side for the Kindle: A year or so ago I went to a conference in Morocco. I downloaded seven books before I left, because I’m a fast reader, and I think I read 6 1/2 over the next nine days, and I ended up with what I call “Kindle elbow” from using my right thumb to click to the next page while gripping the device in my hands. No one talks about Kindle elbow, but it was very painful and got worse, because the pain semi-froze the muscles in my neck and I needed PT and acupuncture for a couple of months before I was pain free.

“This hasn’t been a problem with the iPad, where you turn pages by flicking the touchscreen with a finger. On the other hand–LOL–the iPad is too heavy to hold up like a book comfortably. But, I cross my legs and rest it on my knee and that works just fine.

“I’ve picked up other e-readers in bookstores, but they look and feel clunky. So, among the e-readers, Kindle is my recommendation. But that’s like recommending a wheelbarrow to build a road when you can get earth-moving equipment.

CONCLUSION


“In my The-Future-Is-Now world, iPads are primitive, but they are the future. Kindles are a stop-gap, and bless Jeff Bezos from Amazon for creating them, for pushing publishers to provide Kindle editions and for proving to the world that there is a deep market for e-books.

“I love reading hardback books, but there is nothing better than hearing about a book, downloading it at once for about $10, and starting to read.”

MY BET

I’ll put money that Andrew will choose the Kindle, and get an iPad in several more years.

Fav Daily News: “The Full-On Assault on Cable Is Underway”

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TechCrunch: The Full-On Assault on Cable Is Underway by MG Siegler, Aug. 29, 2010. 

About an hour ago, I emailed my friend Anne in Florida that “Cable will always screw us. They’ll fight to the death to maintain control of content from Internet interlopers, but the Internet will eventually win, and at that point, it probably will probably be controlled by cable.” 


A few minutes ago, MG Siegler’s TechCrunch piece captured my attention on news.google. He predicted, also, that cable (closed, costly, mostly content you don’t want) would eventually fall. A no-brainer for both of us; of course choice will prevail. 

Siegler surprised me. In my focus on Apple’s Wednesday announcement, I missed Google’s cable assault on Tuesday. Siegler didn’t. He said:

“Just take a look at the big picture. Everyday there is a new story about how one of the aforementioned tech giants [Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon] is on the verge of something new meant to control our time spent watching content — and much of it from the living room. Today’s story is about Google’s big pay-per-view movie plan for YouTube, a new service they’re hoping to debut later this year with full Hollywood studio support. If they land it, it could be huge. But that’s just today’s example. 

“On Wednesday, at an event in San Francisco, Apple is widely expected to debut their next iteration of the Apple TV — which will likely now be called the “iTV”. Alongside it, they’re expected to unveil a new layer of iTunes that will allow people to rent television shows for $0.99 a pop. Again, that too could be huge. 

“But it doesn’t really matter if one of these individual things doesn’t hit it big (and certainly the current Apple TV hasn’t). It’s the fact that all of these giant companies are clearly focused on this one thing: invading the living room and changing the way we consume video entertainment. 

“And they absolutely should be focused on that space. It’s a multi-billion dollar goldmine of potential that is sitting around begging to be disrupted. Consumers want this — even if many don’t realize it yet…. 

“Cable is vulnerable because for far too long they’ve screwed us all with ridiculous prices for a crapload of content that we simply don’t want.  Despite the ever-present promise of a-la-carte pricing, it has never come to fruition. And so our cable bills remain close to (or over) $100 a month. We’re paying for so much stuff we simply don’t want. But we have no choice.  

“Further, the vast majority of consumers would agree that the cable companies have just about the worst customer service imaginable.…And on top of the garbage customer support, there’s the actual user experience of cable. It’s awful. Each company seems to be competing with the others for who can pick the worst cable box with the shittiest software….”

Here’s why Anne and I were talking about Apple TV. The day before the Jobs’ announcement, Anne bought a hi-def TV. However when she learned what cable would charge her to get movies, she decided to return it and continue using her 24″-computer monitor as her “TV screen.”

But, it turns out that while the new, improved wi-fi Apple TV ($99) can stream movies from her computer, it needs a hi-def TV to show the picture. (We think.) She’s checking at the Apple Store tomorrow, and if this is the case, then I’ll bet she keeps the TV, buys an Apple TV, and begins to rent movies from iTunes and Netflix. And then, rent more from Google’s YouTube within the next few months.

So hardware companies will have a double sale from Anne and her $4 rentals will join millions of other $4 rentals to create fortunes.

In the meantime, I wonder what to do with the Roku device ($99) I bought from Netflix a year or so ago, so that I could stream their “Instant Viewing” movies to my TV screen. It uses my computer and wi-fi to capture the movies from netflix.com…however, the movies I can get are mostly old and lousy selections. They are free, in the sense that I can get them as part of my one-movie Netflix monthly payment. As good as Netflix mail service is, I’d be willing to pay to get quick access to good movies

50th reunion…Do today’s meds let you drink and pop pills?

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When my father had his 50th high school reunion, he and mother had a reception at our home in Worland.   I remember hearing them talk about how happy they were that so many of his classmates were still alive. I was surprised, too. They seemed pretty old.

Dad bought cases of Bushmill’s and gin and vodka. What he needed was O’Doul’s, he told me afterwards. Most of his friends were on meds that prohibited alcohol. We may have still had some of the Bushmill’s, et al in boxes in the basement more than 20 years later when we sold the house.

I fly to Worland tomorrow morning for my 50th high school reunion. My friends in DC and my friends in Worland are on meds too and most of them — us — drink: Malbecs, pino gregios, rum…the latter is my pal David, who is on a zero carb diet for his wedding on 10-10-10. I don’t know about all of my classmates, but the ones I see also drink. I assume some are on meds.

What about the rest? I’ll observe at the opening reception at a bar-restaurant on Friday night, Sept. 3.

Actually, I’m not wondering whether they drink or not. I’m wondering whether there’s been a pharmacological shift in meds, or whether my generation has a damn the warning stickers and full speed down the hatch attitude that our parents didn’t have.