Amazon

Wonderful! Look what Amazon's recommending to me. Not only do they think I'm a vegan but an overweight vegan at that. I'm devastated.

I'm happy to see Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post reporting on books being sold by Amazon through its Kindle Store that are otherwise free and in the public domain:

"Kindle readers, take note: You may have been paying for books you could legally download for free -- in nearly identical editions -- elsewhere."

Kind of ironic that this appears in WaPo under the byline 'Faster Forward' -- since I (and probably a whole lot of other people) wrote about it more than a year ago.

This is so unfair! 'The Great Slump of 1930' by John Maynard Keynes which goes for the outrageous price of 'free' at Project Gutenberg Canada is being offered by Amazon to Kindle users for a mere $4.25. How does Amazon get away with it?

I find it amusing that there's so much buzz (some of it manufactured?) about the Amazon Kindle. The real revolution is all around us (which is what you'd expect for a revolution): it's people using smart-phones or netbooks to text each other, send email and photos, and otherwise access the Internet.

Now we have a report by the Pew Research Center which reflects pretty much what anyone taking a train or bus home can observe every day:

I think Amazon is taking this community thing way too far. I mean, the 'Inkjet Community'?

So remind me again, who's going to pick the utterly drab and uni-functional Amazon Kindle for $359 when they can get this baby for the same price?

Courtesy of MiniNote User.

UPDATE (1/5/09): Not to make this sound like the GadgetBlog but HP just came out with an update to its top of the line model, the HP Mini 2140. Faster chip, bigger lcd panel -- Hoo Baby!

Repeat after me:

• The eReader of the Future will play popular formats without the need for conversion.
• The eReader of the Future will be in color.
• The eReader of the Future will be an "open" networked device.
• The eReader of the Future will allow the user to download and install applications.
• The eReader of the Future will allow the user to mix and match information any way the user pleases.
• The eReader of the Future will not come from a company heavily invested in media ownership or sales.
• The eReader of the Future will boast access not simply to tens of thousands of works but to millions on the internet.
• The eReader of the Future will look a lot like the UMPC of the present.

So every time some new 'ebook' device is announced, we're 'sposed to drop everything and proclaim it a paradigm shift? At least that's the routine.

This week's candidate is the Amazon Kindle -- at least as presented in an article in Newsweek extolling its virtues titled "The Future of Reading" by Steven Levy.