Yes, it would be blasphemous. Speaking of comics, I just remembered why I don't go to Forbidden Planet - horrible store layout. Nothing's organized.

Back to the subject - how about some leaky goodness in the form of gadget pr0n.

OMG! Ponies!

I like Business Week's suggestion of incorporating audio books and e-books seamlessly. I also like the idea of carrying around one slim package with hundreds of books, vs. even a couple books/magazines (which can quickly add up to the weight of a small laptop) in my daily satchel.

Textbooks are obviously a good idea for Kindle; incorporating Audible even better (Busines Week):

In a multi-media world, Amazon could provide an experience to let consumers purchase a book or other copyrighted work, along with the rights to consume it in multiple ways. So if you start reading the book on your Kindle at night, you could pick up where you left off during your commute--having the book read to you via Audible. It may sound trivial, but I think this would enable far more people to actually read and finish far more books. That'd be good for Amazon, and just plain good, in my humble opinion.

trendspotter

Then again, how can I question the product when "Amazon's hired a guy frog design for the next version"

Zlevee

Come on. That thing is still way too expensive for a book reader. It's a $100 gadget selling for more than twice that. And I still have to pay for books on top of that price tag. Until this thing drops in price it'll be one of those gadget that gadget blogs just love but you won't know anyone in your real life that actually has one.

mrwolf710

@chrstphr: Only thing though, it would seem like a pain to read on that because it's a fully illuminated display and is smaller. This thing would look more like a page than the touch, so I can see the appeal, especially if you'd be more likely to read than use an audio device.

Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish

If you can't highlight or make notes on this thing, a digital textbook will have some disadvantages to printed ones.

Zlevee

I'd rather use something like an iPod touch so I don't have to carry another thing around.

chrstphr

Im sorry to be an asshole but... I would rather buy the book.

DarkHavoc99

"Amazon's hired a guy frog" ??

Using Speech recognition, I see.

awemaker

@dlomax: What about (e), who would say that having an actual book makes you more attractive?

Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish

Please, please, please let them be released in Canada. I have a Sony Reader, but I'd ditch it in a second to get the much better selection and the instant-buy goodness of a Kindle. You can even make it ugly.

Now, cue the nitwits (a)who call for it to be scrapped in favour of Ebooks on the EEE PC, (b)say they'll wait for colour, so they can read books that way, (c)say it's too ugly to read on, or (d) say nobody has bought any and give as evidence the fact that they haven't seen any. I wonder how many iPods they had seen ten months after that release, around this time in 2002?

dlomax

I guess it would be sorta blasphemous to wish for one that can be used to view comic books, but I wannit anyway.

Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish

I think there could be a market for something like this if the major magazine/newspaper publishers would collaborate in developing a technology that would save their business model.

First of all, the screen has got to be in color. This may not be possible today, but it will be soon enough. If this thing is priced right, magazines and newspapers can sell you a subscription and just email/send you the link to the ebook file.

If you could carry 10-15 full color magazines and newspapers along with whatever books you are currently reading with you at all times I think you'd see a boom in "printed" media. Blogs are great for up-to-the-minute information, but its nice to read something that has some real editorial oversight and layout design.

Price this thing around $100-$150 and it'll be the next iPod.

Secret Agent Man

I swear, if they offer an education edition and allow kids to buy their textbook and store it in a Kindle. I'd be there!

Although, I won't be able to highlight

NeoXY

I own a Sony Reader and I recently test-drove Kindle and let me tell you, the Kindle is much less comfortable to hold then Sony Reader and further more Unicode/Cyrillic fonts are not supported on it(which might not be a consideration for most of you).
What it has going for it is real-time wireless book delivery. If Second Amazon is more comfortable to hold and more open architecture, to allow cyrillic fonts, Id consider it. For now, its going back

vladgur

What would suck, as a student, about relying solely on a digital reader for your school work would be the inability to quickly flip back and forth between two pages on opposite sides of the text. At least I think that's hard to do on one of these; I've actually never used one before.

rcast1986

Having the first generation, I can tell you that it is very easy to highlight sections and make notes. The highlighted portions become "clippings" that can be viewed separately.

I think that the biggest drawback is that you can't share or re-sell anything you purchase for it. ALL of my college friends had standing appointments at the university bookstore to sell the textbooks that they never opened anyway.

I haven't had any problems with my kindle with daily usage for the past 6 months. But the store doesn't always have the books I want. And I can't borrow anything from my local library to read.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a lot lighter than the huge organic chem texts that cause back trauma for all those science nerds. :-)

Pianoman1a

I was looking at the Kindle Store and most titles are under $6 (sci-fi, anyway) - though of course those aren't hot off the pres.. er.. download server.

My buying philosophy is: buy a book if you want to keep it for a very long time, show it off on your shelf, and if it means a lot to you... i.e. a collectible.
For Kindle, I would use it to 'consume' books that I may or may not want a copy around the house... especially if I can't get it at the Library. I kind of like the idea of stocking 10 or 20 books on there and either: read 2 or 3 simultaneously based on my mood or keep a stock if I go on an extended road trip, vacation, pilgrimage, odyssey, whatever.

Though - i don't know - can you store the overflow on some other kind of device (even if you can't read it on that device) - that would be a big if (i am sure its mentioned somewhere but i don't wanna look for it)

designguybrown

Stop charging $10 for a book and I might be interested.
Explain to me why on earth I would buy a DRM encoded $10 e-book when in most cases I can find the actual book for slightly more than $10 or sometimes even less than $10. Then I have a physical copy I can do whatever I want with, like loan to a friend or eventually resell later for whatever. The e-book needs to be cheaper. Try charging $4 or $5 a book and then we'll talk.

Jesse Mrozowski

Oh my... I was going to get the Sony PRS-505 (they are offering a $100 credit if you trade in the original PRS-500, which I own) because I don't like the current Kindle at all.

BUT, with a redesign, I may just hold off for this new stylish Kindle. Hopefully they get it right and get rid of the 1980's styling and not make the entire sides of the device one big page flipper. Wowzers, I'm excited!

berribrand

@Zlevee: It could be very useful for students if you could get the electronic versions cheaper or if you could "borrow" a friend's. That way you wouldn't have to lug the books around to class as well. Highlighting and writing in the margins would seal the deal.

Optimus-Prime

How about a decent update to the software on the current version. I have had the Kindle for several months, consumed a good number of books, purchased from amazon and from free (legal)sources. The things that need help are the file system - basically there isn't one and its a pain when you have over 100 texts and can't organize them. Secondly, there needs to be a way to see actual pages numbers regardless of the font size - E-reader on the palm has handled this for years with no problem. Finally, I would like it to natively support rtf and a number of other formats.

operator99

@SAN66: Don't forget having removable media so you don't lose everything if the hardware breaks.

Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish

Still too expensive save for the academic crowd.

Give the ability to highlight and put in handwritten notes on any page in a textbook (no need for handwriting recognition) and this thing would be amazing for school. Make it so you can load all your course notes and textbooks onto the thing, give you the ability to pop up a blank page to write on at any point and offer a slight discount on textbooks as well.

Until this thing is less than $100 and I can buy my books for less than the paperback price of the book I'm reading/ a slight premium if its not out on paperback yet, its just not worth it.

SAN66

I agree with James ^^ err, Pierce. Whatever.

rcast1986

I want the kindle really bad, but I just know the 2nd gen will improve in every way that I want, except for having a color screen. I can't wait to see. I think this Fall seems a bit soon and current owners will be pissed.

LittleBigPlaneteer

I think textbooks have huge potential in the eBook realm, but the publishers will be very hesitant to transition from the racket they have got going. The key is to get a device in the hands of everyone and then pose the question of why the textbook publishers are not using eBooks.

The reality is that most americans dont read a lot of books in a given year, and the price would be prohibitive if you only get through 2-5 a year.

This is why i think that magazines/newspapers are the ones who really need to push this technology. If you can sell it to the soccer moms and their teenage daughters, you can sell it to everyone.

I think if it had more easily digestible media, and could be used on a daily basis by most people, then the thing would be priced fairly at $250.

Secret Agent Man

College students? Holy @**!! I'd have to say that if this rumor is correct, then it's freaking brilliant. Getting college textbook publishers on board may be difficult, since they absolutely LOVE raping us with textbook prices, but if anyone can push the digital textbook, it's Amazon.

Now, if only there was a way to do digital mark-up/note-taking on the Kindle, it'd be a college student's best friend :)

DW

A lot of people commenting on price.

I understand why $250 might sound like a lot for a device that fascilitates a historically cheap activity (with libraries, borrowed books, half.com, etc.), but I consider the Kindle to be a great deal. It really makes reading and buying books a lot more convenient, resulting in me reading a LOT more. The satisfaction of getting through books I promised I'd get into eventually has been more than worth the cost of the Kindle for me.

saturdaysaint

The Boston Globe had an interview with a children's book publisher today (Barefoot Books). She happened to mention she has a meeting scheduled next month with Amazon regarding a Kindle with a color display...

"Next month Traversy will meet with Amazon.com to discuss the possibility of adding color to the Kindle electronic book reader and producing Barefoot e-books."

nocar

@Jesse Mrozowski: I agree. It makes no sense that these eBooks - with no paper, printing, distribution, etc. costs - are about the same price as a paperback. I think they are missing their price point and killing the market.

T-man

that's what I want to buy one for, to put every comic book I can find on it, I'm just waiting for a cheap color ebook reader. when is it coming out?!?! Comics look so much better in color..

kllngtme

@Secret Agent Man:

Many national newspapers and magazines already have subscriptions available with the Kindle.

[astore.amazon.com]

They don't send you an email or link to the ebook though. The Kindle has cellular EVDO wireless access so the newspapers are automatically delivered to the device and ready to read when people get up in the morning.

You are also able to download free book preview and make purchases directly on a Kindle.

It's true that color would be nice, but seeing a co-worker's Kindle when he first got it, I have to admit that the screen quality is really amazing.

SScorpio

@Secret Agent Man:

What would prevent them from bring the same 'racket' to the kindle? Actually it would be even better for them there, no secondary market for people therefore more profits.

datafox

@SScorpio:

I was thinking more along the lines of the tabloids/women's magazines. Those are largely dependent on vibrant color photographs. I think without full-color displays, they won't be a viable alternative.

@datafox:

That's probably true, but a lot of the justification for the costs, as I have heard them, is the cost of printing and shipping. I'm not saying that prices will come down, (and its likely it will take some federal heavy-handedness to fix), but it will be much easier to lug the heavy things around for students. I think you'd see more push-back with textbooks than you do with digital audio because its $300 vs. $10 and people will want to see more drastic reductions in price now that they don't have the physical media in hand.

Secret Agent Man

Eh, Baen Online and my N800 = a hundred DRM-free books in a multifunction device.

AmishJohn

Don't need it, got the iPhone and Touch.

Ken_Darrow

@Zlevee:

You can highlight, clip and save.

Camperton

If they release this in Canada I'd buy two without even thinking about it. iPhone/touch sucks for reading books.

Camperton