[PLUG] The Amazon Kindle

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

OK, so there is a lot of hype.  But I am *not* an early adopter, and 
this thing interests me *far* more than an Apple iAnything.

The DRM is a Bad Thing, but I wonder if it's realistic to think that a 
non-DRM device would gain any acceptance from the big publishing 
players.  But obviously Amazon has the clout to force them to play for 
now, then maybe back off on the DRM later ala Amazon DRM-less 
MP3_Downloads.  And it turns out the Amazon remembers what Kindle 
e-books you've paid for and you can re-download them at any time.  It 
also sounds like you can connect it to a PC (though this is never 
required for anything) to back stuff up.

I've also seen bits about it being possible to sync over (via USB or 
$0.10 email) plain text (and other formats in more steps), so The Baen 
Free Library, Project Gutenberg(.org), Google Books and more would then 
be accessible.

The only other problem is the lack of a backlight, for reading in bed 
w/o annoying your SO.  Not sure how water/sand proof it is either.

Comments?
JP

Links:
http://amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA	The Amazon Kindle
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983	The Future of Reading
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/21/1931203	Amazon's 
Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/20/1559255	Kindle Versus 
The iPhone
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,139829/printable.html	Amazon 
Kindle Review: Igniting Interest in E-Books?
http://www.mobipocket.com/freebooks/Default.aspx	Free Kindle e-books
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=128	Free Kindle e-books
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/11/e-book-readers.html	E-Book Readers 
At A Glance

----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|        jp{at}jpsdomain{dot}org
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
Microsoft has single-handedly nullified Moore's Law.
Innate design flaws of Windows make a personal firewall, anti-virus
and anti-malware software mandatory. The resulting software arms race
has effectively flattened Moore's Law on hardware running Windows.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug