[HN Gopher] Show HN: Kindllm - LLM chat optimized for Kindle e-r...
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       Show HN: Kindllm - LLM chat optimized for Kindle e-readers
        
       Author : rexec
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2024-01-15 14:15 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kindllm.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kindllm.app)
        
       | rexec wrote:
       | Made this to not have to constantly look things up on my phone
       | while reading.
       | 
       | It's pretty handy for generating longer essays to read on the
       | Kindle too.
        
         | kccqzy wrote:
         | I have the same problem, namely a constant urge to look up
         | things while reading paper books. My personal solution to that
         | is to copy whatever sentence that triggers my urge to look up
         | anything and then set aside time to do the look up later. I
         | think the value it brings is that I won't be distracted into
         | deep rabbit holes while finishing my book.
         | 
         | I'm not sure what's the end goal here though. It seems like you
         | would like to look up things as soon as you encounter them, but
         | on the same device (Kindle)? Then the benefit is not switching
         | devices?
        
           | rexec wrote:
           | That sounds like a good system.
           | 
           | Yeah I find my phone and laptop quite distracting, so I don't
           | like keeping them around when reading, especially at night.
           | 
           | Another use case I didn't plan for originally but is pretty
           | fun is doing all your Kindle reading in Kindllm by having it
           | write essays on random topics for you.
        
       | yearofmoo wrote:
       | It's a bit unclear how to use it. It's not obvious that you need
       | to visit the same webpage. Maybe make the URL more visible?
       | Autoplay would be nice too.
        
       | tommikaikkonen wrote:
       | The demo video is great, I would consider putting it higher up on
       | the page and possibly on autoplay. I wonder when Amazon will
       | integrate LLM into the native reader. Nice work!
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Thanks! Yeah the landing page might need some work
         | 
         | re: Native LLM: The fact that Amazon just upgraded the web
         | browser shows that they at least have some engineers working on
         | Kindles, so one can always hope
        
           | collegeburner wrote:
           | and yet, there are some obvious things on my scribe that they
           | haven't done:
           | 
           | - no way to disable auto-rotate
           | 
           | - can only write on PDFs from send-to-kindle, but that's
           | limited to I think 50MB so textbooks etc. are not an option
           | 
           | - only works with audible audiobooks, no normal m4b supported
           | 
           | i believe the web browser is also still crazy cut down. i
           | like the device but they're evidently understaffed on
           | software
        
             | rexec wrote:
             | Fair point, yeah it's definitely still cut down
        
       | raimo wrote:
       | Cool! This brings to my mind that it would be cool to have a
       | local LLM chat that is able to point to certain places in a book
       | I'm reading offline and have it recommend portions of the book I
       | should focus on.
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Yeah it would be nice if the LLM knew what you're currently
         | reading - tricky to do with a web app though!
        
           | pbronez wrote:
           | Concur- I'd love to have the book I'm reading -- and anything
           | before/after it in the series -- available to an LLM for
           | quick reference.
        
       | carlosjobim wrote:
       | Congratulations! Very cool stuff.
        
       | CGamesPlay wrote:
       | Off topic, but why is the demo video so much brighter than the
       | surrounding background? The page has a white background, but the
       | video is substantially brighter.
        
         | kindawinda wrote:
         | Off topic, looks better than https://cgamesplay.com/
        
           | CGamesPlay wrote:
           | Aggressive! I'm not saying the site or product is bad. Hope
           | you have a better rest of your day!
        
         | Casteil wrote:
         | Some sort of HDR effect.. very bright on a 14" MBP screen
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Is it night shift on mac doing it?
        
         | dog436zkj3p7 wrote:
         | Most likely the video was recorded with an iPhone. Playing it
         | on an Apple device then automatically turns on some sort of an
         | HDR mode and unlocks higher brightness - commonly seen while
         | scrolling through reddit videos and other social media.
        
           | rexec wrote:
           | Ah I see. Yeah definitely filmed on an iPhone (with a
           | cardboard box and a cutting board as a camera stand)
        
         | Philpax wrote:
         | Apple devices render HDR content at higher brightness. It's
         | actually quite interesting - see [0] and [1] for an intentional
         | use of this!
         | 
         | [0]: https://notes.dt.in.th/HDRQRCode
         | 
         | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36384625
        
       | nickradford wrote:
       | This is very awesome, thanks for sharing!
        
       | jamager wrote:
       | This is cool!
       | 
       | I can't stop worrying about the fact that you only have 27%
       | battery left, thou :)
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Haha oops didn't notice that
        
         | zerreh50 wrote:
         | 27% on a Kindle with a healthy battery is a lot. Especially if
         | this is a latest model paperwhite on the image which I think it
         | is. It's probably their most impressive feature as a product
        
       | skogstrom wrote:
       | Very cool!
        
       | maxlamb wrote:
       | What are you using to run the Mixtral inference?
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Using Anyscale Endpoints, cheap and seems stable:
         | https://www.anyscale.com/endpoints
        
       | yosito wrote:
       | How much is it costing you to run the LLM? Is it OpenAI?
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Mixtral on Anyscale Endpoints:
         | https://docs.endpoints.anyscale.com/pricing
        
           | yosito wrote:
           | Thanks! I'm not experienced enough in this domain to have an
           | idea of what that means for the bottom line. I assume that at
           | the scale of a niche app, the cost is close to negligible and
           | you can pay it out of pocket, but I imagine that if Amazon
           | would pre-install something like this on every Kindle, the
           | costs would go through the roof. Speaking in broad terms, how
           | much scale do you think an app like this could handle, while
           | still being something an individual might consider worthwhile
           | to pay for out of pocket?
        
       | bambax wrote:
       | Nice! (FYI this can be tested without a Kindle by switching the
       | user agent of the browser to a Kindle UA).
        
       | feintruled wrote:
       | Very cool. I've no idea if this is possible without rooting the
       | Kindle, but I wonder would it be possible to highlight sections
       | of text in a book and send it to something like this with a
       | request to summarise/explain?
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | It's a good idea! Amazon doesn't offer an API for fetching
         | highlights but services like Readwise seem to get around this
         | by using a Chrome extension to do it. Not sure how that could
         | be done on a Kindle though...
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | I had the very same idea after the browser update! Well done :)
        
       | brenschluss wrote:
       | Doesn't work on a Kindle Scribe - maybe the user agent string is
       | different?
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | What does it say about Kindle in the user-agent string?
         | https://www.whatsmyua.info
        
       | andrewmutz wrote:
       | I love this, but I wish there was a better way to enter
       | questions. Using the kindle keyboard is not a great experience on
       | my device, and no matter how good the suggested questions get, it
       | wouldn't be able to handle my initial question
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | Agreed, I definitely write shorter questions on my Kindle than
         | in ChatGPT on my laptop
        
       | karmasimida wrote:
       | Looks great, but Kindle is the last device I am looking into when
       | seeking responsiveness if I have to be honest.
        
       | EarthAmbassador wrote:
       | 1. Responsiveness 2. Excellent voice recognition for dictation of
       | questions and device control 3. Web reading/browsing capability
       | 4. Instant webpage to PDF conversion 5. Instant storage of those
       | PDFs for use as custom LLM training data 5. Functionality to copy
       | quotes from web pages or PDFs along with auto-generation of
       | citations 6. Functionality to export of PDFs, quotes, and
       | citations together into PKM app, say, Obsidian or other similar
       | PKMs
       | 
       | BONUS: I know Kindle isn't set up for this, but if the same could
       | be done audio and visual media, using voice control, beginning
       | with podcasts (auto transcript save with cite, clipping with
       | transcripts and cite, export of clips with transcripts and cit)
       | and then YouTube (auto transcript save with site, auto clip with
       | transcript and cite, export with transcript and cite)
       | 
       | IF I could get 1-6, I would strongly consider having this as part
       | of my PKM kit. If I could get 7 too, I would have to buy it. This
       | may be something I have to build, unless someone knows where
       | these integrations can be found today.
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | That sounds like an awesome app, if you build I'd use it too!
         | :)
        
       | skavi wrote:
       | Really cool idea. Unfortunately, the proportions are somewhat
       | broken on the Oasis (the text bar stretches a bit less than half
       | way across the screen). Was the page designed to be pixel perfect
       | for the Paperwhite?
        
         | rexec wrote:
         | I used percentages so the text bar and Send button should fill
         | up the full width on any device. I saw the same thing happen
         | before updating the Kindle version. I wonder if they haven't
         | rolled out the upgrade for Oasis yet.
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-18 23:01 UTC)