Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, and I were at an Orange party tonight. His Amazon Kindle didn’t show up yet (it comes tomorrow) so I showed it to him. He hated the UI, so I turned on my cell phone and recorded him goofing around a bit.
Etch a Sketch is better, huh? Yikes.
Oh, Mike’s always saying my videos are boring (although he admitted to me that he watches them). I wonder what he’ll say about my videos now that he’s been on one?
Oh #2 Ben Higginbotham of Technology Evangelist ACTUALLY HAS TWO SONY READERS and gives us his 12-hour video review of the Kindle and he disagrees with Mike, saying the navigation is “sexy cool.”
Scobleizer 
Still using the N95 or did you get another phone to shoot videos?
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Still using the N95 or did you get another phone to shoot videos?
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Yup, Nokia N95.
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Yup, Nokia N95.
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Ben Higginbotham of Technology Evangelist actually has the original Sony Reader and that other big E-Ink device is the iRex Iliad. I’ve seen it at a tradeshow, I posted a video here http://techvideoblog.com/cebit/caro-irex-iliad-e-ink-e-book/ its Wacom touch-screen and open-source OS community are really cool and I wish the Amazon Kindle had some of that. Having an extra touch-screen Wacom stylus with the Kindle would have been nice to write in handwritten annotations, circle around text to highlight it, and to click on links in the interfaces as an alternative to the cool scroll wheel.
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Ben Higginbotham of Technology Evangelist actually has the original Sony Reader and that other big E-Ink device is the iRex Iliad. I’ve seen it at a tradeshow, I posted a video here http://techvideoblog.com/cebit/caro-irex-iliad-e-ink-e-book/ its Wacom touch-screen and open-source OS community are really cool and I wish the Amazon Kindle had some of that. Having an extra touch-screen Wacom stylus with the Kindle would have been nice to write in handwritten annotations, circle around text to highlight it, and to click on links in the interfaces as an alternative to the cool scroll wheel.
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That was quite funny!
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That was quite funny!
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I’ve had a Reader since the day it shipped, too, Robert… and the Kindle is much much better, mostly because Sony’s software is a total pile. But the Kindle’s UI, even things like how big the Page buttons are, is better in lots of subtle ways.
My review: http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/11/20/kindle-review/ Currently #1 on Google for ‘kindle review’ which seems strange.. Above Stephen Levy, CrunchGear, and PC World. The blogosphere’s gotta get engaged and get my D-List butt outta there :).
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I’ve had a Reader since the day it shipped, too, Robert… and the Kindle is much much better, mostly because Sony’s software is a total pile. But the Kindle’s UI, even things like how big the Page buttons are, is better in lots of subtle ways.
My review: http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/11/20/kindle-review/ Currently #1 on Google for ‘kindle review’ which seems strange.. Above Stephen Levy, CrunchGear, and PC World. The blogosphere’s gotta get engaged and get my D-List butt outta there :).
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Which other feeds are included? I’m curious to see what Amazon views as worthy of being included in the 250ish feeds. It should be quite telling of their expected target audience, I suppose.
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Which other feeds are included? I’m curious to see what Amazon views as worthy of being included in the 250ish feeds. It should be quite telling of their expected target audience, I suppose.
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2 of what? 505’s or two 500’s? He could have 10 million 500’s for all I care, the Reader 2nd Edition is the stuff. Sony, like Microsoft, beta tests on ver 1. And Sony’s software is such a “pile” that it dares to support PDF. From my PW people, they are all saying bigtime ghosting/flicker issues, and still ugly as dirt. But friend bringing over for T-Day, so will get to see firsthand morrow.
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2 of what? 505’s or two 500’s? He could have 10 million 500’s for all I care, the Reader 2nd Edition is the stuff. Sony, like Microsoft, beta tests on ver 1. And Sony’s software is such a “pile” that it dares to support PDF. From my PW people, they are all saying bigtime ghosting/flicker issues, and still ugly as dirt. But friend bringing over for T-Day, so will get to see firsthand morrow.
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Oh, sweet contradiction—Jeff Bezos in open letter to Author’s Guild, 2002:
“When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.”
Amazon Kindle Terms of Service, 2007:
You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.
More great Kindle ironies, hypocrisy and 1984 references at Mark Pilgrim’s page. [Dive Into Mark via Gadget Lab via BoingBoing]
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Oh, sweet contradiction—Jeff Bezos in open letter to Author’s Guild, 2002:
“When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.”
Amazon Kindle Terms of Service, 2007:
You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.
More great Kindle ironies, hypocrisy and 1984 references at Mark Pilgrim’s page. [Dive Into Mark via Gadget Lab via BoingBoing]
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