11/2007
Amazon announced their portable reading device called kindle.
The screen works using ink but displays the ink particles electronically.
Although the eInk technology sounds very promising and I like the idea that the screen mimics paper kindle looks “so not sexy”. It doesn’t look very innovative nor does it feel like a traditional book. It reminds me of a white plastic device from the eighties.
I’m not sure if there is a market for a dedicated eBook reader or if it should be a device with more cross-over functionality (eg. web, mail). What do you think?
Wired has a brief e-book readers at a glance
overview or you can find a more detailed review over at PCWorld.
Btw: Great fictions that share advantages of both worlds (traditional/interactive) are the The Daily Prophet newspaper, as shown in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
or the newspaper in Minority Report, both epapers with constantly changing text, video and sound. On the other hand it would get really noisy in our beloved coffeehouses with those “talking” epapers ;)
