The Future of Reading

I think this will be a nice adjunct for avid readers, but there are some things about a book you will be hard to surpass with an electronic device. I have certain books that I go back to regularly as resources. I book mark a page and can zoom right to it, no waiting or dead batteries. However, I think the real value in the Kindle technology will be for those of us in the professions that have a constant barrage of new info to keep up with. Why buy a new medical book every year when it will be obsolete by the time it is in the store?

I will keep cerain books 'til they fall apart, but will be happy to part with the ones that I have to replace every 12-24 months and a bushel of throw away journals too.

Frank, California

While I love the idea of a small device that allows me to travel with several books without the added weight, I am still one of those avid readers who loves all the aspects of reading--the feel of the cover, turning the pages, etc. I find it hard to imagine the disappearance of the traditional book in my lifetime (and I expect to be around at least 50 more years...) In addition, what I have not seen addressed in the discussion of "digital e-books" as the future of reading is how children's books fit in. Part of teaching a child to read and to love reading begins in infancy, with the tactile experience of holding the book, turning the pages, as well as looking at the illustrations that accompany the words. That can't be duplicated with an e-book. And from a practical standpoint, who wants their 10-month old drooling and chewing on an electronic book reader??

As an ebook reader who has had previo0us devices Ebooks will never
survive. If the publishers of ebooks ran the pritn presses thye'd
fidn a way to throw you iin jail if you let your mother borrow you're lastest
bookl.

This has the potential to be a godsend for business travelers. Getting to a new city, and wasting time looking for a bookstore once you finish the book you brought is a huge hassle. I for one would love good targeted marketing about titles I'd enjoy - I'd rather spend an hour reading than knocking around a store trying to find something interesting. And brick and mortar stores often don't have the books I want. Also, the newspaper is a great feature. If it is a good reading medium, and they add add a back light, I'd definitely consider buying one.

Some good points here; a book just published (in eBook and print book format) named Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age talks about a lot of these same issues.

http://mykindle.com - Amazon Kindle news, reviews, analysis and special offiers

I understand that product creation is always a compormise but I wish they'd spent a little more of the budget on design...

Jeff Bezos is painted as doing the e-reader community a big service by "only" charging $9.95 for a best-seller. How good a deal is $9.95 really, though? It's great for Amazon and publishers, of course - their production, distribution, and storage costs go to nearly nothing - but the customer doesn't even break even until they've purchased at least 40 "best sellers" (assuming Kindle costs $400 and the user could get the same title in hardcover for $20). If you read 4 titles per year, it will take you 10 years just to just break even! And, of course, way before then, your e-reader will break and you'll have to spring for additional money to pay of it.

If the Kindle could read many different forms of content, including standard Web pages, PDF, etc, it might be worth the $400. Otherwise, it's a waste of money.

I bought Sony Reader for $299 from BestBuy to read 8.5x11 formatted PDF eBooks. It was horrible experience so I returned it because the screen is too small and low resolution to fit an 8.5x11 formatted eBook.. I then bought Nokia N800 for $275 and downloaded Evince PDF reader. It worked much better than the Sony Reader and it has a full featured browser and Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity. But it was weak in one area that a PAPER book allows. Highlighting and writing notes (inking) . My PDF eBooks are 1000 page plus manuals and highlighting/inking was just not convenient on N800. So I went to BestBuy and bought Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC for $749.99 (on sale). This is the best device so far. You can get the software called BlueBeam PDF revu. It allows PDF reading, highlighting, annotation, underlining and all the good stuff. At 1.5 lbs and about 3.5-4.5 hours of battery life and 40GB hard drive, I can take hundreds of PDF eBooks and manuals with me any where, take notes, highlight, underline text right on the screen and hit save button to save the PDF back. This is as close to paper as it gets for a Student right now.

"Microsoft's Bill Hill has a riff where he runs through the energy-wasting, resource-draining process of how we make books now. "

Does Mr. Bill have any idea what resources are drained to make a mountain of disposable digital devices?

This guy is a

I used to be an serial book reader in the sense that I was seldom without a paperback in hand. As the price of paperbacks have risen to over the years, i realized that the economics of the business of publishing was driving me out of the market. Books are published in runs and the ones that don't get sold repesent a reduction in profit. For the e-book this is never an issue, so why are they so expensive? The paperback I read will be given away or perhaps sold at a huge discount for someelse to read. The e-bbok will never offer this return on its value, therefore the value proposition is even more tenuous.

Until the publishing industry comes to grips with these realities and our lawmakers return copyriight law and digital media rights to some sembelence of sanity, Kindle will simply be kindling for advancing e-books.

You know, everyone's been talking about the Kindle for a long time -- but I've never seen a screenshot of what a book looks like on its screen. For $400, you would think that you could get something with a bit more flair in its design (it unfortunately resembles a dot-matrix printer) and a color screen.

Since Amazon's getting into the music downloads business, I think turnabout is only fair play. Apple can start selling e-books on iTunes and come in with an oversized iPod touch with wi-fi, touchscreen, color, a real web browser and RSS, and music and movies at the same price point (or maybe at a $100 premium). And it won't look like a taupe etch-a-sketch.