And now....the dilemmas begin.

[temporus]

It appears that Amazon has launched the Kindle 2.

Yow.

The new features are pretty nice.   But I'm still processing.   They've got one cool feature:  Read to Me.  A text to speech converter!  Wow.  I wonder if the voice will annoy me though, because that's usually the deathknell in that regards.

On the other hand, I did just see the new Sony device at Borders last time we stopped in.  Which has touchscreen.   Oy.

Either way you look at it, there are a lot of wins going on in the digital book reader marketplace.   The technology is just leaping forward.

What I'm really curious about is this: Will Amazon leave K1 owners hanging in the breeze?  Does this launch signal that they are not going to continue to enhance my experience, and that my only choice will be to buy the new one?  In which case, I expect there will be a lot of upset K1 owners, who might decide to abandon the Amazon platform, and go with something else. 

Comments

[edhorch.livejournal.com]

I wonder how well this would work for things like 8th and 9th grade textbooks...

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Remarkably well in my opinion.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/090209/20090209005594.html?.v=1

My guess is by next year, there will be an educational version of this device. Aimed specifically to market to the textbook crowd. Probably for colleges first, but I see no reason you couldn't have this for every text book on the market within a few years. Right now, they are still producing greyscale, but I know that color is on the horizon (in the prototype stages.)

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

I've never used it, but I'm pretty sure Word have some kind of text to speech converter too.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I have. It's okay, but the voice isn't enjoyable. I know some writers who use the feature to have the computer read out their drafts, similar to reading it out loud yourself, but then they can concentrate on just hearing it, to see if they like how it flows. I tried the technique, because I think it is important to hear your words, not just read them, however, the voice was too distracting for me to put up with, so I stopped.

[blue-23.livejournal.com]

Various thoughts...

From Amazon's PoV, K1 users who buy Amazon books won't leave even if K1 support dwindles because of the DRM. And those that load other books on the Kindle aren't their best market - that's a single saale, not a revenue stream.

I saw a thoughts about the OLPC (one laptop per child) that it might make a great book. It's a good size, rugged, with good battery life, and currently about $200 each. And a computer on top of it. Of course, it's a more traditional screen.

It looks like they are pushing the same price for the K2 as the K1 ($359 USD).

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Rumor is, that soon, Kindle books will be available on other devices. Whether you'd be able to register those devices to your Kindle account, I don't know.

I've seen the OLPC in person, and played with it. Current model isn't good enough. Yes, it's ruggedized. But it's substantially larger than something like a kindle. It is, afterall, a full laptop, meant to BE a laptop. And, you can't get one anymore, so it's moot.