Those of you under twenty-five may have never heard of DIVX, and apparently the folks at Amazon.com haven’t been keeping up with their I love the ’90s marathons, because they recently launched Kindle.
First, allow me to say how glad I am that Amazon came out with Kindle. Someone had to make a bold, expensive, ironic statement about how frivolous technology has become. I’m relieved that Amazon is poking fun at how boner-town everyone gets over something because it’s digital, or wireless, or in Kindle’s case, both; regardless of whether or not it actually does anything.
This brings me to DIVX; a piece of technology you’ve never heard of – well, you’ve heard of the DIVX Codec, which is so named because the original item called DIVX was so lame that they’re not even protecting the trademark.
Essentially, DIVX took something extremely simple, like renting a DVD, and for quite a bit of money, made it extremely complicated. See, first you’d buy a DIVX enhanced DVD player, which cost about $200 more than a plain ol’ player. Then, you had to go to the store and buy DIVX discs of the films you wanted to see, like Dirty Work, for $6.99 each. That price came with 24 hours of “unlock” or “rental” time – but you always owned the disc. So, if you wanted to watch Dirty Work again, you could unlock another 24-hours for $2.00 or something. You could totally-unlock the disc at any time for the price of a standard DVD, but it would still only work on YOUR DIVX player, which, by the way, always had to be hooked to phone-line.
Like I said, complicated, expensive … useless.
Kindle is the future of books, or specifically “e-books,” because the word “e-book” is almost as retarded as the Kindle. Is it a book or is it electronic? It really can’t be both, I’m sorry. Sometimes I read stuff, like literature or blogs on my Laptop, but it’s certainly not a book. We don’t call MP3s “e-cds,” because we’re not morons, or communists.
I’ll let Amazon tell you about Kindle in their own words; the following are direct quotes from their video advertisement.
“Kindle is a wireless reading device with no computers, cables or syncing required.”
Now, try it this way,
“A Book is a wireless reading device with no computers, cables or syncing required.”
Hmm … maybe we should add to that;
“A Book is a wireless reading device with no computers, cables, syncing, batteries, chargers, memory cards, WiFi or four-hundred-dollars required.”
Amazon goes on to say, “Kindle’s digital ink reads like paper,” which I don’t even have to swap for you, and makes me wonder if Amazon’s marketing department says things aloud before they print them, or have opposable thumbs.
So, Amazon wants to sell us a book, with a screen to break, a battery to run out, another charger to lose, that we can’t read on takeoffs or landings for twenty times the cost of a first-edition hard-cover. Oh yeah, literature not-included.
Thank you Amazon.com; until now, I had to use DIVX as the pinnacle example of a frivolous use of technology for technology’s sake – and no one had ever heard of it.
Yeah, but it has a bookmark feature so you don’t lose your place.
And it’s got Whispernet, which i hear is like electrolytes for electronics.
Also, it’s white. You forgot to mention that.
*sigh* more blogangst foolishness on this article I see.
My last vacation I took with me 5 books. This is because I wanted some light reading for the air port (Alan Dean Foster book I was re-reading), something engrossing for the plain ride (Early American History), something educational I could annoy my brother in law with (series of articles on finer aspects brane theory and journal articles on mrna transfer seeding) because he’s got degrees in the fields, I don’t, and it annoys the hell out of him I know more about them than he does, and finally something I could relax with at the hotel (a biography of John Adams by David McCullough — shoulda waited 8 months and watched the movie, sue me).
POINT is, ~3.5lbs of reading material to ferry around when I could have had that plus whatever else I wanted to keep along “just in case the mood struck” in one little convenient case. And one that I can flip though conveniently without having to hold open at odd angles or with an aching wrist (have you 750 pages is frickin’ heavy after a while).
That is the point of the little beastie and if I had any confidence in them I’d have nabbed one a while back — I prefer to let others beta-test new devices for a year or three lest I get betamaxed (or HDDVD-ed).
Nothing against real books, I’ve a collection of > 1200 and love them dearly because books are more than just information, their shape, feel, even smell (for older books) are part of the experience of the story.
But convenient? Heh, you try looking cool at a business conference luncheon table with Issac Azimov’s Guide to the Bible (beat the hell out of the lame sports talk the table always has)
Added bonus, you could be reading the latest tech manual from IBM or the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and no one would be the wiser.
I can se your points V, I’m sure there are some folks for whom Kindle is the missing piece to their big O. However, unfortunately you’re in the miniscule minority by carrying that much quality literature with you.
I spend a lot of time on airplanes, and I can count on one finger the number of hard-bound editions I’ve seen being read on a plane. Honestly, I would love it if our culture raised more travelers who thought, “this trip … Arabian Nights,” but what I see on planes is a copy of Grisham’s new paperback tucked into a Prada, a couple bottles of sun screen and USA Today.
DivX (producer of DivX codec) is not DIVX, and it is not “so named because the original item called DIVX was so lame”. In fact, Circuit City named used DIVX infringing “DivX” brand name. This technology was never associated with DivX, Inc.
I’m not in the US so can’t boycott the Kindle even if I wanted to, but I did take the time to check the last twenty or so books I read on Amazon.com, and just two of them were available for Kindle. That makes the decision for me really.
@ Perlamourte – Hint: If the word “lame” is used in a sentence, that sentence is most likely involved in some sort of humor apparatus, aka, a joke.
Some of your arguments make sense; others just seem like cranky old Mr. Wilson pissing and moaning about ‘kids these days.’
I love to read. I love the look, feel and smell of books. I don’t see a Kindle ever replacing that love I’ve got. But I do see a day when I’ll buy one–when they get the price down further, some of the design issues improved (I read a number of complaints from Kindle owners about some of the button placements causing accidental page turns) and the selection increased.
That doesn’t mean I’ll suddenly turn my back on book buying. It just means I’ll be more selective about whether to buy a book I want to keep forever, or a digital copy I’ll read and move on. Given what I spend on books each year, I’d break even on the kindle in 3-4 months. Then, after that, I could buy new bestsellers at half the price of a regular book. Whenever I want. And start reading immediately. Perfect? No. But much better than divx.
@ Scott – I was born in the ’80s.