Amazon Kindle

[boost ventilator]

The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) | diveintomark.org

DUM | daringfireball

[yesno]

So, I bought a Sony Reader today.  (Might still get rid of it.  I often buy things and then return them when buyer's remorse sets in.)

Reason being:  There are MILLIONS of public domain etexts out there.  I already have lots and lots of documents on my computer that I never really read except in quick chunks and/or to print out.

The Reader has the same display as the Kindle.  It is $60 cheaper, but has no internet.  It also has no keyboard, which means it looks a lot better than the Kindle but you can't search inside of text.  Unlike the Kindle, it can view a wide variety of different file formants (.doc, .rtf, .pdf) without some annoying conversion process.  You just copy files onto it like it's an external drive.

I have NO intention of replacing my expensive book habit, and I'm not fully on board the ebook thing either.  But it seems like a practical way to read free stuff and the kinds of boring documents I have to go through for work purposes.  An ebook reader makes a lot of sense for a lot of purposes.

We'll see.

[buffcoat]

Terrible lack of precision on my part:  "Have they made a Kindle that you can read in the bath tub without having to worry about getting it wet?"

Do you laminate your books, magazines and newspapers?

Yeah.  Why?

[Fido]

[Fido]

A huge part of my love for books is my love of (good) book cover design. I'd hate to see book covers go the way of the poster.

[Gilly]

A huge part of my love for books is my love of (good) book cover design. I'd hate to see book covers go the way of the poster.

I doubt it. The Kindle seems to be popular and it's really the first popular e-reader. The Ipod didn't have cover art in it's first generation either. I have a feeling the Ipods will have ebook readers very soon, cover art and all and Kindles won't look so archaic in their next gen form. Although, if ebooks come to the Ipod touch and phone, goodbye Kindle. My dad is a huge e-book fan and he's holding out for Apple to introduce it to their products.

[chrisfoll577]

the kindle's really ugly, but free lifetime access to wikipedia plus rss feeds via bloglines wherever is an attractive feature... with a price point at around $250 to $300 i could see myself getting one, but only after apple clearly states they won't make one.

net guru merlin mann recently got one and wrote an interesting blog post on getting a ton of free (albeit old, public domain) e-books onto a kindle.

[yesno]

Although, if ebooks come to the Ipod touch and phone, goodbye Kindle. My dad is a huge e-book fan and he's holding out for Apple to introduce it to their products.

I'm an Apple fan and I lurve my hutPhone, but e-ink displays kick ass.  Maybe an ultra high resolution tablet could match what e-ink can do, but I doubt it.

I'd bet that some kind of eBook reader is available the day the app store launches.

I would never buy a DRM book.  I've bought DRMd comedy albums from iTunes, but that's about it.  It's too easy to get free stuff onto these things.

One thing.  The Reader, unlike the Kindle, can view PDFs natively, and can rotate its display so you can view the pages 1/2 at a time.  If you're into comics, I can convert .CBRs and .CBZs to PDFs pretty easily.  It seems pretty great.

[senorcorazon]

I think it looks like a digital turd, but the technology behind it is (in theory) pretty cool; small pieces of pigment raise and lower so that what you're looking at is not an illuminated screen but closer to what a piece of paper is, and power is only used when you change the screen (i.e. turn a page). I'll probably never get one, though. On The Media has a pretty interesting show based on the debate: http://onthemedia.org/episodes/2008/05/23

[yesno]

Update.  The Reader, unlike the Kindle, can do landscape-style display.  So that you can view a non-reflowable larger image or page, such as a PDF or an image, and scroll to see the whole thing.  It's smart so that there's overlap between the two displays.

What's the upshot?  You can convert digital comics to PDFs pretty easily.  Bam, portable digital comics reader.  I'd been using a second rotated monitor or holding my macbook sideways.

I would be willing to bet CASH MONEY that I'm in the running for nerdiest FOT.  There are some others that might give me a run for the money, but I think I've got it covered.  Granted, I'm not a big prog rock fan so I might end up losing out.

[Stan]

I would be willing to bet CASH MONEY that I'm in the running for nerdiest FOT.  There are some others that might give me a run for the money, but I think I've got it covered.  Granted, I'm not a big prog rock fan so I might end up losing out.

 Now you can be!

[youtube]esHEPt41Sjc[/youtube]

[youtube]WDmhP6YiN6s[/youtube]

[dave from knoxville]

I am a huge prog rock fan, and a math major. Plus, I wear thick glasses. What do I win? A Kindle?

I can't see that word without thinking of "Kindler".

[Fido]

The name Kindle just simply makes me think of starting fires. 

DFK, I ain't saying you are a nerd, but that is quite an impressive listing of nerdy characteristics.  I really thought I was in the running for this prize. Maybe there is still hope, but I am down a few pegs on the respective prog rock and technology ladders.

I agree, yesno, there's got to be a world of graphic possibilities for next generation devices. (hehe, devices...)  I am willing to give it time, because it sure seems like there are enormous possibilities here. I guess that doesn't make me an enthusiast/early adopter, but whatever. I still love reading a printed book, but I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon.

[ericluxury]

Regarding books, they are great ...

Except for the whole tree thing.

Yeah, but they don't cut down old-growth forests to create books anymore. There are tree farms where they use trees that grow quickly. Plastic devices that will most likely be made to be continuously replaced every 2-3 years as new technologies and features come out won't be much better.

As for book covers being gone, hopefully that won't happen. However, much as I enjoy looking at the artwork for an album, not having that hasn't gotten rid of my enjoyment of music too much. (Though I miss not having the lyrics to albums a lot of the time.)

[Sarah]

But all paper making is immensely polluting, and I'd be willing to be your average tree farm is not friend to the environment, either.  And in my version of a bookless future, reading would not require special devices like the Kindle but rather involve a contraption that would serve many other purposes as well, i.e., a run-of-the-mill computer (obviously lighter and more portable than laptops are currently, but that's bound to come), which people would be buying, upgrading, etc., regardless.