{"id":779,"date":"2006-09-12T01:49:13","date_gmt":"2006-09-12T01:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=779"},"modified":"2006-09-12T01:49:13","modified_gmt":"2006-09-12T01:49:13","slug":"amazon_looks_to_kindle_appetite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/12\/amazon_looks_to_kindle_appetite\/","title":{"rendered":"amazon looks to &#8220;kindle&#8221; appetite for ebooks with new device"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"amazon_kindle.jpg\" src=\"\/blog\/archives\/amazon_kindle.jpg\" width=\"425\" height=\"299\" \/><br \/>\nEngadget has uncovered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2006\/09\/11\/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader\/\">details<\/a> about a <strike>soon-to-be-released<\/strike> upcoming\/old\/bogus(?) Amazon ebook reading device called the &#8220;Kindle,&#8221; which appears to have an e-ink display, and will presumably compete with the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sony_Reader\">Sony Reader<\/a>. From the basic specs they&#8217;ve posted, it looks like Kindle wins: it&#8217;s got more memory, it&#8217;s got a keyboard, and it can connect to the network (<em>update:<\/em> though only through the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Evolution-Data_Optimized\">EV-DO<\/a> wireless standard, which connects Blackberries and some cellphones; in other words, no basic wifi). This is all assuming that the thing actually exists, which we can&#8217;t verify.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"kindlespecs.jpg\" src=\"\/blog\/archives\/kindlespecs.jpg\" width=\"353\" height=\"448\" \/><br \/>\nRegardless, it seems the history of specialized ebook devices is doomed to repeat itself. Better displays (and e-ink is still a few years away from being really good) and more sophisticated content delivery won&#8217;t, in my opinion, make these machines much more successful than their discontinued forebears like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gemstar-ebook.com\/ebcontent\/devices\/default.asp\">Gemstar<\/a> or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.franklin.com\/ebookman\/\">eBookMan<\/a>.<br \/>\nEbooks, at least the kind Sony and Amazon will be selling, dwell in a no man&#8217;s land of misbegotten media forms: pale simulations of print that harness few of the possibilities of the digital (apparently, the Sony Reader won&#8217;t even have searchable text!). Add highly restrictive DRM and vendor lock-in through the proprietary formats and vendor sites made for these devices and you&#8217;ve got something truly depressing.<br \/>\nPublishers need to get out of this rut. The future is in networked text, multimedia and print on demand. Ebooks and their specialized hardware are a red herring.<br \/>\nTeleread also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.teleread.org\/blog\/?p=5478\">comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Engadget has uncovered details about a soon-to-be-released upcoming\/old\/bogus(?) Amazon ebook reading device called the &#8220;Kindle,&#8221; which appears to have an e-ink display, and will presumably compete with the Sony Reader. From the basic specs they&#8217;ve posted, it looks like Kindle wins: it&#8217;s got more memory, it&#8217;s got a keyboard, and it can connect to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,548,1010,1238,1468,1515,1546,1742,1743,1861],"tags":[2359],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-ebook","category-kindle","category-multimedia","category-pod","category-print_on_demand","category-publishing","category-sony","category-sonyreader","category-the_networked_book","tag-ebook-kindle-sonyreader-publishing-amazon-sony-multimedia-print_on_demand-pod-the_networked_book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}