Sunday, 25 November 2007

Some thing to keep a careful eye on...

I am particularly interested in the new ebook reader by Amazon - Kindle and any potential future success it may or may not have, from the initial brief reports it seems it may have captured in the design some usability?? Although it shall remain open though to capture more reviews and more long term use as points such as the inability to read PDF documents has been raised as some what frustrating.

A selection of some reports follows:


Taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7101392.stm

Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.

The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.

Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers - instead content arrives via wireless.

Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.

New addition

"We've been working on Kindle for more than three years," said Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in a statement.

"Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands -- to get out of the way -- so you can enjoy your reading," he said.

I am particularly for the reason that the objective design was/reads that Amazon wanted the
device to disappear in the users hands - much like a book would ?

- BBC update link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7107118.stm

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out despite skepticism about whether the device will prove popular.

A notice on the Kindle pages on the Amazon web store said "heavy customer demand" for the device meant it would be out of stock until 3 December.

Since its launch on 19 November the device has been widely examined but opinions about it are mixed.

It has won praise for being easy to use but many have criticised the way it forces people to pay for free content.

- The Kindle and its design and its usability will be tracked to capture reviews to understand and gain some insight into its workings as may be helpful to provide some insight ?

- Some more reading
Newsweek story - The future of reading
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

And again a particularly interesting blog post from Erik Stolterman which is most helpful in my own thoughts for my own blog post too.

- The Amazon Kindle

By Erik Stolterman

Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com offers a new digital book reader tool. It is called the Amazon Kindle. Just by looking at the descriptions and videos you get quite a good idea about the design. I think this is a design that deserves examination. The Kindle has some new technology, such as the use of e-ink. I have no idea if and how the Kindle will work as a reading tool. But from a design point of view it raises some interesting questions. It is for instance clear that the design is intentionally not aimed at adding as much functionality as possible. There are several serious limitations, but they are all intentional and based on a clear design idea, which is that this is first of all (and maybe only) a reading device. It is not a phone, a pda,it does not contain a browser, etc, it seems as if it is not even a calculator! Does it have a clock :-) It comes with free wifi but only to the Amazon e-bookstore and Wikipedia. Anyhow, is this a sign of what we will see in the the coming years of interaction design? Devices and tools that are designed for very specific purposes, ignoring opportunities and features that would be so easy to add? Well, we'll see. There are no real good reviews yet of the Kindle, mostly descriptions, so we will wait and see....

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