It Rains In Triplicate

I have headphones. Lots of headphones. All of which I really, really like. A nice pair of bose headphones for the plane and work. A decent pair of in-the-ear headphones that fit in my pocket. Even a pair of over-the-head headphones for listening to music in bed.

Bluetooth headphones have a lot of utility for me. Listening to music from my work desktop without being attached to it would be great. Listening to music in bed without being worried about rolling over and sending my ipod under the bed would be awesome.

However, all I’m seeing on the market is new bluetooth headphones. I want a simple adapter that I can plug my existing headphones into, not yet another pair of headphones.

I have been reading a bunch of non-science-non-fiction on my recent trips. Most notably, Ronald Kessler’s Inside the CIA, Inside the FBI, and Inside Congress books.

Here is my best Ron Kessler impression:

… three hours of interesting discussion …

Now let me tell you how Bill Clinton screwed it up

Each of these books is an interesting view of each agency from an investigative reporter, which means there is a lot of negative mixed in with the factual information. i.e., what each agency is doing / has done wrong.

The problem is that each book ends with a non sequitor, personal attack against Bill Clinton, explaining how he is destroying the agency / institution in question.

I cannot judge the factual basis of each of the books or the personal attack that occurs in the end. However, it is hard to take the entire book as factual or accurate, when there is such an obvious bias in the end. How much else of the book was based on a bias or prejudice?

An interesting post from another blog on the success or failure of the kindle, and how its DRM fits into that equation.

The key question is whether or not the DRM gets in the way, and how it will affect business, not whether or not it is right to have DRM. Too much focus is placed on “it will fail because consumers reject any DRM”, while, as others have pointed out, iTunes is an excellent counter example.

I will make the argument that the digital content producers (authors, composers, musicians) have the right to ask for indemnity from their content being distributed without pay from the digital content distributers (itunes, amazon, etc). DRM is one solution, and not an incorrect one when applied correctly. There has to be a balance between accessing content and protecting content, or there will be limited digital content in the marketplace.

Lots of web traffic about how evil the kindle DRM is (and, of course, how evil DRM is in general). There is a huge “get over it” aspect here. My thoughts:

• The kindle has one file format, the Amazon Kindle format. That makes sense to me. It is cheaper, easier, and lets you normalize features (i.e., indexing, annotations). Trying to support multiple formats is hard and expensive, in my experience.
• To buy content for the device, you need DRM. Amazon could have launched a DRM-free device with Project Gutenberg content, plus a few books from Cory Doctrow (I am exaggerating, but not by too much).
• Amazon provides a free service to convert your stuff into this format. Does that service add DRM? That’s unclear. Apple has both DRM and non-DRM AAC file formats, so it is possible it creates a non-DRM file
• Regardless, such conversion does not encumber your original content, which can still be shared
• The kindle is a write-only device, anyway. It isn’t intended to be a sharing point, so even if the new file was tied to your device, so what?
• The amazon service does not cope with PDFs, but it does cope with Mobireader files, for which there is a PDF -> MOBI converter
• The 10 cent charge that amazon has is for sending your content to the device through EVDO. The free service sends you an email with your new file, which you can upload via USB

It bothers me that many of the vocal arguments against DRM have to do with not wanting to pay for content. When Apple put out iTunes-Plus, non-DRM encumbered AAC files from the iTunes store, there was an uproar that the file had the purchasers name embedded in the file. Why? The only practical reason I can think of is that there was traceability if you were to upload that file or download it from someone else. It certainly wasn’t an issue to casually share it with friends.

I’ll also make the argument that some DRM is necessary. Yes, the amazon DRM stops you from letting your friend borrow a book, but it needs to do that to keep you from uploading that book to bittorrent. To move past draconian DRM, there has to be a conversation about how to avoid the “buy one, share many” model that may be associated with bits.

So I got an amazon kindle e-book reader. I spend enough time with books and my eyes are sensitive enough that the e-ink stuff and “a bunch of books in the same size as one book” makes a lot of sense to me.

A few things done really right:

• Wireless. The device is really nice as a book reader, but the free EVDO, always on, fast network is the game changing aspect. It gets you instant gratification, instant services, and easy access. I can buy a new book, without having to take any deliberate technical action (i.e., find a network, fiddle with settings), and get it immediately. I can look up a word or concept, or cross reference it with wikipedia immediately. That always connected aspect, without paying a 60$/month utility bill, will change the landscape, I think. The daily delivery for the NYTimes is a good example of how this feature may change the landscape
• e-ink. I love e-ink. It is much easier on the eyes and much more power friendly.
• form factor. Small, light, etc
• Amazon integration. My recommendations are available through the device, which is nice for finding a next book to read. Good feature if you are an amazon junkie. Lousy feature if your recommendations are investing in another service.

A few things I wish were different:

• micro-payments (i.e., nickel and dime-ing me to death). Everything costs something. That’s understandable, since I’m sure amazon is paying a good chunk of change for the EVDO connections. However, charging to subscribe to a blog is annoying, and ensures I’ll never use that feature. If you want to have a word doc or another format converted and sent (wirelessly) to your device, it costs money. If you just want to convert the thing and sync it via USB, amazon will do that for free.
• Amazon integration. I am an amazon junkie, and all my recommendations are invested in amazon. I sorta wish the kindle (or amazon) would open that up a little bit more
• e-ink. Not the kindle’s fault, but the e-ink technology isn’t fully mature. Refreshes are very slow, to the point where typing on the device is annoying. The illiad reader, which I had through work for a while, had a touch screen and stylus for doing mark ups, which was a nice idea, but, again, the refresh was so slow that it wasn’t all that usable.
• security. You lose your kindle and the guy who picks it up can drain your bank account buying books. There should be a simple PIN code for purchasing or turning the thing on

A few interesting bits:

• No clock. When was the last time you used an electronic device (palm, laptop, tv, etc) that did not have a visible or easily accessible clock? The setting screen is the only place where one is accessible.
• Single format device. See my DRM rank, but the fact that this device supports a single file format (the amazon kindle format, and provides converters, is pretty interesting, and makes sense from a technical perspective

Probably more to follow.

Seriously, the publishers of guitar hero should have grounds to sue rock band or should immediately fire their IP attorneys. The whole guitar part of the game is identical.

Meanwhile, I’m pathetic on both drums and singing (the latter I think I already knew )

Back home from Omaha. Next trip is so far out on the horizon that I can put my pocket knife back on my key chain.

Google is doing really interesting work with path finding and maps (i.e., http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/road-to-better-path-finding.html), and seems to be outpacing the big players in the industry (telenav, etc). Because the data doesn’t live on my disconnected Garmin GPS, the map and route data is always more up to date.

Ideally, there should be GPS software that would work on a handheld GPS (i.e., TomTom form factor), a cell phone (i.e., my blackberry), or a laptop that use google’s algorithms and database, leveraging them at run-time, or close to, instead of requiring a full software refresh to update.

Ultimately, the major challenge is network connectivity. However, services like onstar use a subsidized GSM modem that is built into the monthly service.

Most of my idle web surfing is now done via google reader, by subscribing to a buttload of RSS feeds, that are either interesting, work relevant, or hobby relevant.

The problem is that there is a lot of information and, more importantly, a lot of volume here. The past week, while I was on travel, I read relatively few feeds and ended up with over 2000 unread items.

The worst part is that a decent number of these items are related or repeated. i.e., a tech item covered in gizmodo, engadget, and crave. My guess is between 10 – 25% of these items are related. These aren’t repeated articles for the most part, but are related.

news.google.com will aggregate related news stories, a story on a specific subject will provide a link to all the other news articles that are about the same subject. It would be neat if google reader did the same.