Patent attorneys are the ticks of the Digital Age.  After quietly applying for a patent they set up their nest on a tree branch and patiently wait – sometimes for years – until a fat cat walks underneath their perch. Then they drop on their victim’s neck and drain its blood.

Over the years we’ve seen many instances of such ambushes. Remember the outfit that sued Amazon for violating its patent on one-click ordering online? And the suit over the BlackBerry that resulted in a $612.5 million settlement? And we recently reported on a patent filed by Amazon – four years ago but never disclosed until now – for a device that sounds exactly like the Nook e-reading device manufactured by Amazon’s rival Barnes & Noble.

And now comes news of a patent application by Microsoft – #20100175018 if you must know – for something most of us think is as free as the air we breathe. Here’s the description, taken from the filing:

A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display… The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page… A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.

Yes, it’s the good old-fashioned touch-screen virtual page-turn, the one you use to “turn” the page on such e-reading platforms as the iPad, Stanza and Android. This is according to Rik Myslewski of The Register®. But he is skeptical that Microsoft would take action against those platforms.

Microsoft’s patent breaks new ground with a couple of features.  One is the ability to flip a lot of pages at once (y0u do it by dragging your finger down the right margin, Myslewski tells us.)  The other is extraordinary. “In discussing input methods, the filing notes that ’sources other than fingers may be used to execute a page-turning gesture.’ Noses? Elbows? If not noses and elbows – what?  We invite you to submit photos (suitable for this family publication) of yourself turning the page of your ebook reader with something other than your finger.

Read Microsoft seeks patent on ebook page flip

Richard Curtis

No need to guess why Kindle Progenitor Jeff Bezos is laughing

R. I. P. “Kindle-killer.”

After posting countless blogs using the phrase we are hereby retiring it – subject to our right to change our minds on the day that a device comes along that truly exterminates the Kindle.  But we’ll want to see a death certificate, because at this point that prospect is impossible to conceive.

This declaration is triggered by Amazon’s recent announcement that sales of e-books have finally surpassed sales of hardcovers on the amazon.com website.  We also cite as Exhibit B Amazon’s  earnings report for the second quarter of 2010 showing a 45% profit growth over the prior year. (Wall Street was actually disappointed that the jump wasn’t higher. Oy!  $207 million earnings should happen to us!) If these developments don’t put paid to speculation on the demise of Kindle, nothing will.

How has Amazon endured against the attacking swarm of competitors and corporate adversaries? Among the many reasons are that it’s an elegant product with superb functionality, it’s backed by first-rate service, its library is all but infinite, its name has become as branded as Band-Aid or Frigidaire, its list price has remained competitive, and, like a wasp laying eggs in its living victims, Amazon has embedded its kindle apps in the bowels of its rivals.

Perhaps the most cogent explanation of Kindle’s enduring dominance – especially vis a vis the most touted Kindle-killer of all, the Apple iPad – was expressed by Megan McArdle in The Atlantic (and the italics are ours):

“Ultimately, I’m not sure how much Amazon cares how much profit it makes on the Kindle – the machine is a way to sell more content, not a profit center on its own. So far, Apple is trying to pull all of its profit out of the device, not the content stream, but I wonder if that will last. The more powerful Apple gets, the more disenchanted the hard-core tech fans become. Meanwhile, they’re getting stronger and stronger competition from devices like the Droid, which may push their margins down the way they pummeled the margins on the Kindle.”

McArdle’s article is worth reading in its entirety despite a headline that was a cliche ten years ago: E-Books: The Future Is Here

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The Atlantic Monthly.

Nook for $149.00. Next: $99.00? And why stop there?

The back page of today’s (June 22 2010) New York Times news section carries a full page ad for Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book reader. The price is $149.00 for a Wi-Fi only version.  But the price of the original model introduced a year ago also dropped from $259.00 to $199.00 according to the Times’s Brad Stone. In response Amazon cut its undercut its rival, dropping the Kindle price to $189.00.

Is this the start of a price war or an adjustment that has bottomed out?  And why are prices dropping in response to the success of Apple’s iPad selling at almost three times the cost of its Amazon and B&N rivals?  Read In Price War, E-Readers Go Below $200 for some insights.

Stone quotes B&N’s CEO William J. Lynch as predicting that within a year the cost of a device will drop below $100.00, the fabled threshold below which appliances become as commonplace as pencils.  But why would prices stop there?  We have long urged the industry to consider adopting the so-called Gillette Razor model: give the device away and charge for the content. (See King Gillette and the Kindle)

A free e-reader?  As of today, we’re only $149.00 away.

Richard Curtis

According to top Penguin executives, writes Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Trachtenberg, the company has reached a detente with Amazon to conclude a price war that lasted about a month. The behemoth retailer, responding negatively to the agreement Penguin reached with competitor Apple, had turned off the Buy buttons on Penguin titles. The dispute centers on the fact that Apple’s business model is vastly different from Amazon’s, putting the latter at a competitive disadvantage. (For background, read Are We Capitulated Yet? Amazon Turns its Guns on Penguin.)

As part of the settlement, writes Publishers Lunch’s Michael Cader, Amazon “presumably” will switch to the same model as Apple, but if experience is any guide, in all likelihood that will result in higher e-book prices that may dampen customer enthusiasm. Penguin presumably understands that and is willing to trade curtailed sales for greater control over the way its books are sold through third parties.

RC

From TechNewsWorld
First Blood Spilled in the New Tablet Wars by Renay San Miguel

“Two in-development tablet devices that seemed intriguing as details were slowly revealed over the last few months have apparently died in the womb. Microsoft said the Courier is not to be, and HP has hit the brakes on the tablet PC Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer showed on stage at CES in January… In a one-two punch to Microsoft and Windows, various technology blogs and websites reported late last week that Microsoft has ended plans to make its Courier dual-screen tablet, and HP (NYSE: HPQ) has hit the brakes on production of the tablet computer that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off in prototype form at January’s Consumer Electronics Show.”

Our Courier dreams are shattered. However, manufacturers including Microsoft feel there’s still time to produce a tablet but they want to get it right. Ace in the hole is Android-based tablets  (See What Would a Google Tablet Look Like? Here Are Some Clues).

So, the first round goes to Apple. If there’s a round #2 you’ll hear about it.
RC

Who can forget the hot war that broke out last January between Macmillan and Amazon, ending with Amazon capitulating?  (See Publishing’s Weekend War: 48 Hours that Changed an Industry)

But if you thought that Amazon had made peace with the publishing industry you obviously missed a posting we ran a few weeks ago reporting that Amazon Launches Spring Offensive.

You’ll remember that the original clash with Macmillan was over the introduction by Apple of a new business model for retailing books on the iPad. When Macmillan defied Amazon’s threats by signing with Apple, Amazon dimmed the Buy Buttons on Macmillan titles.

The quarrel with Penguin is over the same issue, but this time Amazon’s tactic is to sell Penguin’s books far below the prices offered by Apple. It may not be as high-profile as pulling the plug on Macmillan, but it sends an iron-fisted message to publishers who have committed to Apple or are thinking about it.  Gizmodo covered the confrontation with this bald headline: Amazon Stabs Penguin in the Throat With Ebook Pricing for Real Books.

The  skirmish was disclosed by Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg. “In the latest round of the book pricing wars,” writes Trachtenberg, “Amazon.com Inc. has begun selling a number of new hardcover books published this month by Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group (USA) for only $9.99 amid a dispute between the two companies over electronic books. Penguin stopped providing digital editions of new titles to Amazon as of April 1 because Penguin and Amazon haven’t yet struck an agreement on a new ‘agency’ pricing model, in which publishers set the retail prices of their e-books.”

Does Amazon have the right to cut Penguin prices so radically? That’s for Amazon to know and Penguin to find out.

The unfolding drama will make for some prime spectating over the next few months. Meanwhile, check out Trachtenberg’s Amazon Cuts Prices in Tiff With Penguin.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The Wall Street Journal.

“Does the company that makes your toaster get to tell you whose bread you can buy?”

That’s just one of a series of inspired metaphors employed by Cory Doctorow to express his irritation with e-book manufacturers employing Digital Rights Management, those proprietary restrictions on distribution of e-books (“DRM” for short).

His current target is Apple, whose iPad he believes is an “attempt to shackle your readers to its hardware.” His denunciation may  be found in his most recent monthly column in Publishers Weekly devoted to monitoring his thought processes as he prepares his book With a Little Help for self-publication. “Has there ever been an ‘appliance’ with the kind of competitive control Apple now enjoys over the iPad?” he asks (knowing the answer full well).

The iPad’s DRM restrictions mean that Apple has absolute dominion over who can run code on the device—and while that thin shellac of DRM will prove useless at things that matter to publishers, like preventing piracy, it is deadly effective in what matters to Apple: preventing competition.

Though Apple is the object of his ire this time, in the past he’s also taken a stick to Amazon, because what’s really bothering him is not device-specific.  It’s the underlying DRM that places authors, publishers and customers in an untenable position. “Devices like the iPad and the Kindle are a wholly new kind of thing—they function like bookshelves that reject all books except those the manufacturer has blessed…Having too much of your business subject to the whim of a single retailer who is out for its own interests is a scary and precarious thing.”

How scary and precarious? Enough to make him hold his books back from the iPad and urge us to do the same. “Just tell Apple it can’t license your copyrights—that is, your books—unless the company gives you the freedom to give your readers the freedom to take their products with them to any vendor’s system.”

Cory Doctorow is a good old-fashioned freedom fighter, which comes as no surprise given his activism on issues like nuclear disarmament and the environment. Here’s his PW article in its entirety:

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

Do you think there’s enough confusion and acrimony surrounding the “agency” e-book retail model (see Apple Promoting a New (and Radical) Business Model for Selling E-Books?). If you don’t, there’s a new issue heading your way that should satisfy your hunger for controversy.

Michael Cader, influential founder of online book trade newsletter Publishers Lunch, has asked who is responsible for collecting and paying sales taxes on e-book sales?

If you didn’t know that such taxes are payable you’re not alone.  Under the system in effect until the “agency” model was introduced, retailers were responsible for collecting any sales taxes that might be charged on e-book sales. However, under the Apple model, retailers become in effect agents for the publishers, placing the burden of collection and reporting on the publishers’ shoulders. It’s a burden that could seriously hobble a lot of publishers when they have to fill out tax forms in dozens of state venues.

Apple has authorized a number of companies like Scribd, LibreDigital and Ingram to serve as authorized “aggregators” who will in effect process publisher content and deliver it to Apple for a fee or commission. Will collection of sales taxes be part of their services? The answer is murky. “So far,” says Cader, “the aggregators we have spoken to have different understandings of what obligations if any they have in tax reporting and collection.”

Stay tuned for more about this matter, which is certainly going to heat up.

The only certain things in life are death and taxes.  Unless the this matter is addressed cleanly and expeditiously, death is going to begin to look like a viable alternative for publishers.

Richard Curtis

Content and features spun off from January’s Digital Book World conference are being generated by the DBW website, and from time to time we’ll pick up the feed in case you aren’t following its postings regularly (and if you aren’t, why aren’t you?)

Of particular interest this week is a roundtable discussion speculating on how the clash of titans Amazon and Apple will play out as Apple prepares to release its iBook – and the radical retail model that goes with it.  Here’s DBW’s description:

On last week’s Roundtable we discussed Amazon vs. Apple, and the consensus was over the next 12 months at least  that Amazon was more likely to benefit from increased eBook sales via their cross-platform Kindle apps than Apple would via the iBookstore.

If the agency model means books are priced same from all retailers, does it all come down to user interface/experience? And if so, has Amazon already won?

Click here to hear the roundtable.

RC

David Pogue, the wonderful blogger who tells technology like it is for the New York Times, has weighed iPad in the balance and found it not wanting.

He’s also weighed it on a scale and found it heavy compared to Kindle, 1.5 pounds vs. 10 ounces. But that is not a fatal factor in his evaluation.  In fact there are no fatal factors in his evaluation.  His biggest reservation is the fundamental concept of the iPad itself: why does the iPad exist? At first we were mystified by this enigmatic, existential question. But like a koan the answer came the next day.  More on that in a moment.

Pogue’s approach to appraising Apple’s tablet is divided in two: one column for geeks and one for shleppers.  We take umbrage at the distinction, because it doesn’t give much credit to a generation of lay users who are quite conversant with computer specs.  In fact this shlepper didn’t see anything so complex in Pogue’s “techie” section that could not be comprehended by an English major who did his Master’s thesis on Henry James.

Here are some highlights of Pogue’s analysis:

• There’s an e-book reader app, but it’s not going to rescue the newspaper and book industries (sorry, media pundits). The selection is puny (60,000 titles for now). You can’t read well in direct sunlight. At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces).
• When the iPad is upright, typing on the on-screen keyboard is a horrible experience
• Things open fast, scroll fast, load fast
• The iPad can’t play Flash video…Thousands of Web sites show up with empty white squares on the iPad
• There’s no multitasking…It’s one app at a time
• The simple act of making the multitouch screen bigger changes the whole experience
• A great AT&T cellular deal
• 150,000 existing iPhone apps run on the iPad and 1000 specially designed for the iPad’s bigger screen

We said Pogue likes the iPad with an asterisk, but besides cavils like weight and glare, his specific reservations are so modest we won’t bother to reprint them here.  You can read them on Looking at the iPad From Two Angles

Pogue’s glowing bottom line is this: “The iPad is so fast and light, the multitouch screen so bright and responsive, the software so easy to navigate, that it really does qualify as a new category of gadget. Some have suggested that it might make a good goof-proof computer for technophobes, the aged and the young; they’re absolutely right.”

So – what does Pogue mean when he says the iPad is a hit except for the concept? The answer came in an article by Brad Stone and Claire Cain Miller published in the Times the next day. “Many consumers do not understand the device’s purpose, who would want to pay $500 or more for it and why anyone would need another gadget on top of a computer and smartphone. After all, phones are performing an ever-expanding range of functions, as Apple points out in its many iPhone commercials.” A banker commented that “I can do everything on my MacBook Pro, cellphone and BlackBerry. I don’t need any more devices. I already have six phone numbers and enough things to plug in at night.” A Silicon Valley entrepreneur was quoted as saying “But let’s see: you can’t make a phone call with it, you can’t take a picture with it, and you have to buy content that before now you were not willing to pay for.”

But that very same entrepreneur said “The first five million will be sold in a heartbeat.” Not very enigmatic or cosmic, but until something comes along to top the iPad, this would seem to be the last word.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.