Thursday, September 27, 2012
Kindle? India? Rejuvenate Our Elderly?
Permit me to bore some of my Indian friends `who are much more technically adept than me with what is a Kindle. A Kindle is an electronic device for reading books. Yeah, depending on model it can do more, but I'm really not here to give you a detailed sales pitch, I'm here to share with you what the bare bones models do, why you might be interested, and explain it in the simplest possible terms per usual with me. You can look at the pictures to get a better idea of how it looks.
My basic inexpensive model
What it does is hold a whopping 1000+ average size books, while fitting in either a normal size men's front shirt pocket, a man's (western) suit inside pocket, or the back pocket of a pair of Levi blue jeans. Naturally ladies, it fits into almost any purse except a tiny clutch. Some models come with their own power source, I simply plug mine into the USB port of my (or any lap or desk top and it powers up from dead in about twenty minutes.Fully charged, it seems to last about 5 - 7 days (a lot better than a cell phone).
What does it cost? You can look it up, but I think it is about 80.00 USD or about 4400 INR, yah it is not a pittance. But still, it is a great investment for a number of reasons. Outside of the obvious reasons like looking cool in a restaurant or its size (space saver), there are two huge reasons why it is a buy. The first is that electronic books cost considerably less than a printed copy, that's a fact, most run from 25 -50% less than printed, hence your 4400 is recouped rapidly. There is another small, but significant upside in that after you recoup the 4400 investment, not only do you continue to save on each and every book, but if you wish to upgrade for a bells and whistles model, the model you have, holds it value, better than a car or scooter.
Kindle with graphics and keyboard mine lacks
Sure, trust me I was a hard sell too, even after I was told that many books my friends purchase are lendable, and most books I buy are lendable to my friends who have a Kindle. Even the free books (of which there are quite a few, OK thousands) are enticing, but still I did not bite. Nope, the over 1 million books at the India store would not have done it either. What made me bite was something that may seem insignificant to Americans, but it won't to my friends in India.
Americans shamefully often send their aging or ailing parents or grandparents off to a home for elder care to live, The rest of the world and a few Americans (like me, I'm proud to say) keep and care for our parents in our homes, especially after they become limited in their abilities. We all witness the decline of our elders and we, the responsible children, long to make the "golden years" as painless as possible for our parents. We see our elders (at some point) slow down their reading, until the damn small print becomes to burdensome, and then even the most anti TV elder, submits to what we call The Boob Tube (TV). No more reading on the terrace,or with Nature, just the sad four walls and The Boob Tube for our elders. Sad isn't it? Its actually worse than sad, it can be heart wrenching for us to witness helplessly.
Well let me tell those of you who have started your parents on reading glasses at 1.5 and watched them give up at 6.0. Some of us went to the magnifying glass and and sooner than we would like, that too they gave up on. I'm here to tell you that Kindle turned the clock back for my Dad. Even with his Alzheimer's, he can read on Kindle.The solution is simple, on Kindle, like on your computers, you can change the font size. So when your aging parent who loves to read starts squinting, you bump it to a larger font.
it CAN be this big or even bigger....
For me, it is really amazing that Amazon (who owns Kindle) has not promoted this, but maybe they are just too American, and don't see the enormous lifestyle change this is for seniors. Me having Blogged here on Sulekha for almost ten years and living outside the US for a good portion too, I see the massive importance of this. Indians are huge readers, and to give an elderly parent a gift of something they thought they had lost forever, is in a word, priceless.
Many free versions of important books !
From my cheap seats not only is it priceless, I would feel woefully irresponsible if I did not share this with my Indian friends. The other thing with the basic Kindle is they seem to be lit differently than computers, for example, if I try to look at my laptop on the veranda with almost any sun at all, I can't see the words on the screen, it has kind of a glare, just like if you take your TV outside, its hard to see that cricket match. However with the Kindle, I can take it to the beach or pool with direct sunlight and I can read it clear as a bell. I should add that it does not work in the dark like your laptop does, you need some light, even if it is just a florescent bulb.
I should also state that there are other brands, despite Kindle being the elephant in the room. Here at Sulekha, there are many authors, and yep Kindle has a program with Satya and Team Sulekha, but I assure you that is not why I'm writing this, in fact, I do not know enough about Sulekha's relationship with Amazon and the nature of it to recommend it. Indeed I happen to publish my printed books through Amazon's CreateSpace division, and I am very happy there. I also have three of my books on Kindle, yet only two are available in noble India, electronically. You can read about my evaluation of publishers in my three series Blog titled "The Process". Yet I am not plugging this product because I have one, though I do get a royalty for each book sold, I am doing this Blog because I believe in the product and I know the value of it to our elderly. PERIOD.
It has to be a full moon..:-)
On a final note I should mention that the delivery system for how you get the book to your Kindle requires a wireless connection, so if your hard wired you'll have to drop by a local access point for 20 seconds while the book downloads to your Kindle. If you're wireless at home you are good to go.I'm also seeing many Kindle's selling for 6500 or more in India, but that is with WIFI or a keyboard (you don't need either) here's one for less than the 4400 I quoted:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GG93YE/ref=fs_sz
Labels: Amazon, Desi, eBooks, elderly. glasses, India, Indians, Kindle, Reading, seniors, specs
# posted by Cubaking @ 8:10 PM 
