Kindle: Amazon's new wireless reading device

[KneeCo]

No eye-strain, free access to wikipedia from everywhere and the ability to just download the first chapter of most books is pretty cool.

I wonder how account specific the books are, i.e. if I lend you my memory card, do you have the books? Share over the internet?

I would want it to be really, really cheap to convert my word/pdf files onto this thing.

I think I want one, but I'm not entirely convinced the romance of the printed word would be as enjoyable. Was anyone else reminded of the essay from Douglas Adams' posthumous "Salmon of Doubt" which he writes on like a palm pilot and concludes by basically saying 'this thing is amazing, I'll never use it again'.

Still it looks cool, but I think 400 is too much to pay, I'll keep my library card thanks.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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$.99 per blog subscription/month

gg

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i would pay that to read baseball prospectus on it

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you can read BP for free (assuming you subscribe) on a smartphone/iphone

[XxGodJrxX]

This looks awesome, but too expensive [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[XXXNoahXXX]

Guys,

obviously the price will go down. agreed that it won't take off until it does, because i love these things and want one, and am someone who usually buys worthless tech crap, and even I'm waiting on this.

If I planned on traveling a lot, backpacking across Europe or something, I'd get one in a second.

[ConstantineX]

No. This will flop horribly in the consumer market, and may be good for academics. People don't consume music like they do books.

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Ron Burgundy: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
Veronica Corningstone: Really.
Ron Burgundy: People know me.
Veronica Corningstone: Well, I'm very happy for you.
Ron Burgundy: I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.


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That example demonstrates a little of the difference between listening to music from any device and the reason and way we read books.

[george w]

wow this thing looks awesome. it would be nice if you could rent books. there are a lot of books i'd like to skim through but i wouldn't do so more than once.

[Benholio]

It seems like they could have made it a little more aesthetically pleasing. The design looks boxy and clunky. I know functionality should be king with this type of device, but I can't help feeling like I'm seeing one of those pictures of the first generation of cell-phones, or a big clunky 80's PC or something.

[mosdef]

One thing I can attest to is that people who love books love books - meaning they actually love the physical book, not just the text. If/when they become cheaper I would love to have one, but I think this is going to play out as a glorified blackberry for now (i.e. it's mostly going to be bought by people that use the internet for news and they'll read the news on this instead of reading it on the internet).

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

george,

you can buy a book and then resell it on amazon and it only costs you shipping and a selling fee. that is a good way to 'rent' books.

[george w]

at first glance the books are too expensive and the selection isn't very good. try searching for hunter thompson