I predict Amazon's Kindle will go the way of any other ebook reader gone and die a quick business death. Reasons:

1. Expensive. For its price I can buy a laptop and use it as an ereader.
2. Books are expensive. $10, although it shouldn't cost more than a paperback...
3. People stoped reading.
4. People still like to hold a paper or a book.
5. Bezos is an idiot, Amazon is still in the red after more than a decade...
6. Inconvenient. If I lose a book, I lost $20, if I lose this, I lost $400.
7. Black and white only.... :(

Time will tell, but I told you so....

I just found out about this Syzygys, it's almost to good to be true! A 400 dollar handheld device I can bring hundreds of books on, that way if I'm lost in Alaska I can just read the whole time :A Truly wondrous, and let's not forget the fact it's so expensive I could make a whole care payment with that money :D So who will buy this? I predict the rich.... only those rich enough will buy the book, hence why those at Amazon already have theirs lmao

One fear I'd have was dropping it, how often do we drop books and pick them up? Alot! If it had some sorta diagnostic menu that might be better, but drop it or something and ur screwed. Until nano-glass comes out that self repairs why bother? I hope the screen is glass and not that cheap plastic that can be scratched cleaning it.

Someone mentioned it should be bundled with the audiobook version so you can read or listen to the book, I agree. Imagine that?! Also I love your comment, if you lose a book it's 20 bux but if this is lost you loose 400! That alone is scary.

Oh wait let's do this, a skit on what might happen:

(Sam walks down the street in chicago holding the Kindle, he is going to the Field Museum)

Jerry "Yo whitey wha up?"

Sam "Umm hey, how ya doin, I'm just goin there."

Jerry "no no you ain't man, u stayin here wit us."

Sam "Umm, hehe sorry guys I'm gonna go now."

Brad "you beotch u gots some kinda fancy shizmo dere."

Sam "no, no I don't.. it's a book."

Larry "no, dat a pc man u nuts carryn dat here."

Sam "Sorry men I'm gonna leave now, thanks though."

All together "you ain't goin nowhere beotch whitey."

(they pull their guns out and shoot, Sam runs and squeals like a pig dropping his book)

Larry "yo man what dis jus some stupid book thing."

A 400 dollar handheld device I can bring hundreds of books on, that way if I'm lost in Alaska I can just read the whole time :A Truly wondrous

Until the batteries run out!;)

About 6 years ago a coworker had a similar device (there is nothing new under the sun) but the company went out of business after a year. I think it required a monthly fee or so.
So basicly he wasted his money on the device, because the business model wasn't viable...

I predict Amazon's Kindle will go the way of any other ebook reader gone and die a quick business death. ....

what's a Kindle?? Do you have a link?

I agree, it's on the way to the dodo.
Along with things already mentioned consider the lifespan of such an electronic copy.
When I buy a book, it can be kept and read for literally hundreds of years, but file formats and storage media types change in years, not even decades.
These things are maybe only good for technical books, manuals, etc.

what's a Kindle?? Do you have a link?

Your quoted sentence included: "any other ebook reader.."

So draw your own conclusions or use google...

OH, Amazon's shareprice just dropped from above $96 to below $70 in less than 2 months...

I don't know what an ebook reader is either.
use google? You sound like angry bs

Avatar what are you talking about? What books do you know that last 100 years? Hell my books binding is cheap and flimsy and basically it's bent badly when I'm done reading, how would that last 100 years? Me thinks you're wrong there.

Unless of course you don't read the thing or loan it out to someone drinking coffee with an unsturdy hand! I mean for crying out loud the ink was coming off on my fingers as I turned the pages of this book I just got, that's how cheap the materials are nowadays!

Well, I don't buy crappy quality books, I try to buy well bound hardcover, if possible.
The last one I bought is printed in 2007 and bound in hard leather.
I also have a few soft cover books from 1920s, as well as a few hardcovers from 19th century and magazines from 1930s. All perfectly readable.

I don't know what an ebook reader is either.
use google? You sound like angry bs

Why do I have to do always the hard work? :shrug:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Laptop-ebook.jpg

And the Kindle up close:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Amazon_Kindle_-_Off_03.png

I held one in my hand and thought "All this for $400?". I would love a small e-book reader, but I would like it to be more comparable to a tablet pc rather than a Kindle.

At least a cheap paperback usually outlasts the business model for a given reader. I have paperbacks that are forty and fifty years old and they are in reasonably good shape. Some of them don't even yellow after forty years.

the Sony is cheaper and better

and also people realize this...the reason its black and white is because it used new sort of technology which goes easy on the eyes

I don't know what an ebook reader is either.It's a single-purpose microcomputer, smaller than a laptop--the idea is for it to be roughly the same size and heft as a real book, but it can hold hundreds. You download books to it and then read them on the screen. Some of them come with scanners so you can scan a book one page at a time into electronic format--boy howdy that sounds like a commercial success waiting to happen! Others have access to (presumably) proprietary libraries of books that are already in electronic format.

I would hope that these things have at least rudimentary formatting controls so you can change the font size, color, orientation, etc. to suit your own ergonomic preferences.

Those of us who do most of our reading on the subway and therefore buy small lightweight paperbacks will have to keep waiting. The Harry Potter books are a pain to carry and hold, even in paper, especially if you get stuck having to stand on the train.

Electronic textbooks are becoming more and more widespread. I suppose it is possible that a Kindle might be helpful to college students for that.

When you can have a very thin and light laptop, why would you get a limited featured ebook reader?

As I expressed earlier this will go in the way of the dodo, because :

1. People read way LESS.
2. Devices with way more features will be cheaper and smaller in size.

If I can read a book on my Blackberry, why would I get a device that doesn't do anything else???

I have to say i will always prefer a paper book, they dont run out of batteries and they are often easier to read than a computer screen. They are also better for your eyes:)

Also, when you run out of toilett paper...

Ten dollars is way too steep for a book that is transmitted electronically and has no physical presence.

I have to say i will always prefer a paper book, they dont run out of batteries and they are often easier to read than a computer screen. They are also better for your eyes:)

its not a computer-like screen...these e-books use different sort of technology

i didnt think a CRT type screen could be made any smaller

Or are you talking about something else?

I think it uses E.Ink technology that only refreshes the screen on page changes or display manipulation (Zoom etc). So battery should last same as Sony's - 7500 pages. Then you can recharge....

Too expensive...should not cost more than $100. A kids computer with wifi and color LCD costs only $100

Absolutes are for the ignorant.
Every time a new technology is introduced, in order to prove itself important, it must belittle the current technology.
There's room for everything, you know?
Illustrations, then print, then radio, then telephone, then television, then online – and still all the formats continue Not all as popular as they were, but because some people prefer them.

And I love the post about how no one reads anymore.
How is she/he understanding this thread?
Silly.

=edellgfx;1761608]Absolutes are for the ignorant.
And I love the post about how no one reads anymore.

So you are saying this device is going to be a huge success? Also:

"A new survey of literary reading in America by the National Endowment for the Arts, “Reading At Risk “ has once again raised the alarm about the cultural decline of America. This one provides the news that we read much less literature, defined as fiction and poetry, than we did some 20 years ago. Indeed, the decline is substantial (10 percent), accelerating and especially worrisome because the malady of literature non-reading particularly afflicts the younger members of society, that critical 18-24 year old group (which shows a 28 percent decline in this survey)."


http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/08/23/lombardi

Kindle's a fizzle. But the concept of visual interface is begging for more creative development, and the technology is near maturity to do some things that will be ever so much more exciting.

I want an eyeglass/sunglass-mounted direct retinal projector, providing high resolution imaging with no need for external displays. Prolonged text would be presented in a scrolling marquis format, something like fast-moving subtitles to our normal vision. Stationary high-resolution graphics would of course be available, too. Selectable opacity in a portion of the physical lenses will be useful when the natural background is cluttered. Basic point/click navigation would be through thought-controlled temple pickups, audio output there, too. Obviously, some training and practice will be required, but with that accomplished, reading may become much faster, and less fatiguing (the words move at your thought-command, not your eyes). Implants eliminating the external headgear will become popular after people become adept and comfortable with the experience of e-shades.

The technology is arriving to leap far ahead of books, Kindle, external displays, and seriously get started with the adventure of our transhumanist destiny. When we work out the right interfaces, we're going to take a revolutionary quantum leap in our effective intelligence and recall- which will change everything.

This has got me pondering transhumanism again, and I'd like to discuss that with you, if you're interested, over here (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1763414).

The problem with Kindle, that it is a BOOK reader. It is not an interacting,webcruising,communicating device. People will read just not books.

Ebook readers existed for 8 or so years. When was the last time if any of us (if ever) saw someone using it?? I never did....

The proprietary format bugs me. That fact that you can ONLY buy the books from Amazon and that other formats can be converted for a certain price, will kill the Kindle. Also, only text? I read mostly only technical books with tons of diagrams and figures.

Perhaps the current version of the Kindle is doomed, but so what? Amazon has managed to take the lead; authors are flocking to the platform.

Julie Ann Shapiro's debut novel Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries is among more than 100,000 digital titles for sale on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. But the author is one of many readers who cannot get hold of a Kindle. "I wish I could tell you I had one," she sighs. "Most people I know are frustrated about not getting one."

Amazon launched the paperback-size gadget to considerable fanfare last November. But prospective buyers who click on the Kindle links at the top of Amazon's home page are informed that due to heavy demand the product is "temporarily sold out."

(Baig (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-03-11-kindle_N.htm))

It would appear, however, that the Kindle is not limited only to text.

http://i.usatoday.net/tech/_photos/2008/03/12/kindlerx-large.jpg (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-03-11-kindle_N.htm)

We'll see what the next generations bring. It's like the iPod in that sense. It's all a matter of whether or not the product evolves properly. In the meantime, authors and publishers seem to be flocking to the thing.

(Sorry to have missed this topic on the earlier go-round, but there's an irony involved. Although I confess it's only significant to me.)
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Notes:

Baig, Edward. "Short Kindle supply is keeping e-book fans waiting". USA Today. March 12, 2008. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-03-11-kindle_N.htm