Lots of movement in the news today about Amazon’s new foray into an attempt to replace the hard-back with an electronic gizmo. The device, named The Kindle, has been announced by Jeff Bezos and is said to be the future of reading. It can be used to read books, newspapers, even blogs; so you now have a choice of reading Pride and Prejudice, the Financial Times or the SEO Exeter blog all in one place. The question, of course, is whether it will catch on.
Here’s a description of the device from Newsweek:
the Kindle (named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge) has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book’s binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle’s six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while, he adds, since there’s nothing sadder than a book you can’t read because of electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.) And, to soothe the anxieties of print-culture stalwarts, in sleep mode the Kindle displays retro images of ancient texts, early printing presses and beloved authors like Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen.
So, would you use this ugly device to read your books with? Would you switch from buying a real book to buying one through your Kindle. Will the Kindle become a household name in the future? Time will tell!
