An example of this occurred in the mid-1970s. I worked at Citicorp and had been a member of the team that invented the modern ATM, which we called CATs (Customer Activated Terminals). We saw these machines as a way of substituting capital for labor, replacing the need for branch tellers and shifting the work load from the bank to the customer. I was in line at the headquarter branch waiting to use one of the ATMs. It was Friday afternoon and the line was long since we all wanted cash for the weekend. There were no lines in the teller area and four available tellers. I couldn’t use a teller because I didn’t have a check with me. I could use the ATM because I had my Citicard. The tellers could not give a customer cash from his Citicard. We had succeeded in changing customer behavior thereby unbalancing demand in favor of the machines. Citibank eventually fixed this and today tellers can work with a customer’s card.

Recently, People’s United Bank changed their ATMs to add a question when one first interacts with the machine inquiring what language would we want. This is a good change, except that I don’t feel I need to answer this question more than once. People’s should program their systems to remember my response since it is highly unlikely I will ever answer that question differently. Perhaps someday someone at People’s will wake up and implement the change. This is a small thing but an annoyance brought about by a change that should be changed again.

It is great that our computers can multitask. In the early days of personal computers this was not possible. You either worked on a word processing document or spreadsheet but not both simultaneously. Have you ever worked on something, perhaps a document, and the computer pops up a message from another application, stealing the system focus, breaking your concentration and frustrating you. There should be a way for us to tell our computers to not do that. Perhaps someday we will be able to mute these responses just as we can turn a cellphone to vibrate rather than ring.

I can think of many innovations that lead to annoyances that I would love to fix. I use many Google services, Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Maps… It would be nice if Google spent less time creating new services and integrated what they have so that I don’t have to have so many Google tabs opened in my browser. (iGoogle is not the answer.)  Update 2009/10/15 7:01a: A Firefox add-on Integrated Gmail addresses much of this issue. It does not seem to work with Google for Your Domain, e.g. rhftech.com.

Another example is that my Kindle can play audiobooks from Audible. Both Kindle and Audible are parts of Amazon. The Kindle reverts to a standby screen after a certain period of inactivity. Unfortunately, it does this while I am listening to an audiobook because it does not recognize the audio playback as “activity”.  I then need to move the “power” button to the right to wake up the Kindle. The power button is not easily moved. This is like having the standby screen popup while I am reading a page. This should be reprogrammed.

I can think of many more instances of a need for change brought about by change. I’ll bet you can too. Add a comment to the blog post and tell me what you want to change. Perhaps we can get some of them made.

Jeff Seaver’s website is http://seaver.com

The new one needed to be charged and registered with Amazon. Charging took an hour or two. Registration was relatively quick and painless. Then the “fun” began.

The broken Kindle 2 had two purchased books, an issue of Atlantic that I had purchased for $1.49, sample chapters of books I was considering buying and had downloaded, several audio books I had uploaded, and some PDFs I had converted to MOBI format, the Kindle’s eBook file format, and uploaded to the device.

The new Kindle’s contents were sparse. The two purchased books showed as archived items. This means that Amazon is keeping a copy available on their servers to download when you want. None of my other items appeared. The two purchased books would not download.

After two calls to technical support and waiting several hours, the purchased books showed up on the Kindle. The issue of the Atlantic was more difficult. Amazon issued a credit for the original purchase and now I can re-buy the magazine. Amazon’s support personnel were easy to reach, pleasant and extremely helpful.

The rest of the original Kindle 2’s content is gone. If I want it back on the new Kindle 2, I will need to replace it myself. This means finding the content, registering the device with the various software applications and then synchronizing the device. I probably will not try.

Ironically, I was able to read my purchased books on my iPod Touch 2G even while the Kindle 2 was useless. This is a far better experience than I imagined. Reading fiction on the small Touch screen is surprisingly easy and pleasant. However, non-fiction suffers from the small screen. Diagrams and illustrations are often too small to read.

The Kindle 2 is an expensive way to read. Navigating books is unwieldy other than page forward or backward. Screen changes can be sluggish. Battery life is awful when the wireless is on. This could be fixed if we could schedule wireless connectivity so that it turned the wireless on/off on a user created schedule. Currently this is a manual exercise only. Most importantly, the device is too fragile.

The corrupted screen is an indication that this device is not as rugged or dependable as the books it intends to replace. In my 50+ years of reading, I never needed technical support for a book. Sure, librarians have helped me locate books but not fix them so that I could read them.

My opinion is that eBook readers are still not ready for primetime. Borrowing or buying books and storing them is not as convenient. However, using a book is a much better experience.

Until then, here are the two photos of the busted screen, in standby and showing the Kindle’s table of contents. Note the garbled area at the top of the screen. Note the vertical lines. Note the dark cast over the lower 80% of the screen.  

Kindle 2 defective screen in standby mode

Kindle 2 defective screen, device TOC.

Yesterday more evidence that Amazon is not a benevolent despot appeared at  Amazon invokes DMCA against Kindle e-books from other vendors -

…This week, an e-book Web site said Amazon.com invoked the 1998 law to prevent books from some non-Amazon sources from working on its Kindle reader.

Amazon sent a legal notice to MobileRead.com complaining that information relating to a computer utility written in the Python programming language “constitutes a violation” of the DMCA, according to a copy of the warning letter that the site posted. MobileRead.com is an e-book news and community site. …

 

Here is the process:

1. Click the Menu button
2. Navigate with the joy stick to the Turn Wireless On/Off menu item
3. Press the joy stick
4. Click the Menu button again.

This is hapless design. A keyboard shortcut would be welcomed.

The Kindle 2 has the potential to permanently alter and destroy consumer rights with regard to written material.

My initial reaction to the Kindle 2 was overly positive. The whole system—the hardware, the software and the wireless connection—are well done and compelling. The Kindle 2 is like having a whole library of books in your hand, almost instantaneously available for a price. It works and it works well.

But I am wary of Amazon and think caution is advised on adopting this device. All the material you purchase, books and magazines, are DRM’d tightly. They cannot be read anywhere else besides your Kindle. [UPDATE: Amazon released an iPhone/iPod Touch application for reading Kindle 2 books on those devices. I tested sync'ing and it worked perfectly. You can switch between devices and keep your place without having to remember where you left off.]  You cannot share or lend them. You cannot sell them. You cannot print any part.

The second reason I mistrust the Kindle is the change Amazon announced with regard to the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech feature. The original advertisement/press announcement for Kindle explicitly said that any book or magazine would work with this feature. Then the Authors Guild complained and Amazon did an about face. Now Amazon will let the publisher decide if this feature will be enabled on any book. This is a form of bait-and-switch. This is unacceptable.

If Amazon can change this service at will what will stop them from changing other terms later, without user recourse?