rigorousintuition.ca

aka Kindle. From Amazon.

Jeff Bezos was talking to Charlie Rose about it last night. It uses real ink, not a computer display:

Utilizing a new high-resolution display technology called electronic paper, Kindle provides a crisp black-and-white screen that resembles the appearance and readability of printed paper. The screen works using ink, just like books and newspapers, but displays the ink particles electronically. It reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting, eliminating the glare associated with other electronic displays. As a result, Kindle can be read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room.The screen never gets hot so you can comfortably read as long as you like.

Neil Gaiman, author of Stardust, "It's like paper and it’s very interesting. It’s very, very crisp. Very functional. Very readable."

But how do you buy used e-books? I doubt people can resell their copies due to piracy concerns. Of course there are ways to do it, but Amazon probably doesn't feel like cutting into e-book sales, at least not yet.

The future of reading. Since the original post I have come to learn that Kindle is a despicable device that nobody should buy.

jingofever wrote:The future of reading. Since the original post I have come to learn that Kindle is a despicable device that nobody should buy.

Wow, all very good points brought up in that article.

Books will never be replaced, there's such a beautiful tactile quality about them and they look so nice on the shelf.

monster wrote:Wow, all very good points brought up in that article.

Books will never be replaced, there's such a beautiful tactile quality about them and they look so nice on the shelf.

Of course, since writing this, I have obtained an ebook reader (Foxit eSlick) and am ga-ga over it. (I've had some technical problems with it, but when it works, it's awesome.)

One of these days I'm going to get one, if only so I can grep the books I read. How is the battery life and text search on your reader?

jingofever wrote:One of these days I'm going to get one, if only so I can grep the books I read. How is the battery life and text search on your reader?

Battery life seems decent, though I haven't used it too much yet (I've had quite a few problems with the firmware, have been trying to fix those.)

I don't see any text search, so it might not be available in my firmware version, though I'm going to upgrade tomorrow - hopefully fixing all the bugs. I'll report back (those bugs are the only reason I would not recommend the eSlick at this point, if they get fixed, then I would recommend it.)

So, just to update, I finally did get the firmware issue sorted out, and am back to loving my eSlick.

I got kinda frustrated with email support - there's only so much they can do over the internet - so I phoned them, but there was a language barrier. So, I asked on their support forum if I could just come in person to their offices in Fremont. They said sure, come on by. So I did that, and they gave me a new eSlick, which I've had no problems with. Great service.

Text search is the killer app for me. That and being able to read downloaded books of course. I guess I'll have to stick to the real thing for now.