This is the week that Amazon releases Kindle, their new electronic book reader to the public. We should be somewhat excited — if for no other reason than to see what a progressive company can do with eInk technology. Sony has had a four-year head start on producing electronic readers and distributing electronic books and, not unlike most things at 21st century Sony, they've all but botched it. I'm in my 20s, surrounded by tech savvy and literary types, live in Japan, and don't know anyone (not one person) who owns a Sony Reader — they've failed.

Amazon, despite the publishing industry's love-hate relationship with them (we love them for ship-ship-shipping our books all over the place; we hate them for selling our books for penny-profits thus undermining anyone else [including direct sales from publishers like us] trying to make a profit selling books), you can't deny they've affected the industry more than anyone else — certainly in the online realm if not also in distribution.

So what's up with the Kindle? Here's the shortlist:

- 10.3 ounces
- 30 hours (max) battery life
- Retail: $399
- 167 dot-per-inch display
- Uses typeface Caecilia for body text
- Design inspired by both the year 1982 and the film War Games
- Wireless (not just WiFi but a ubiquitous, work-anywhere (only in America one presumes) network called Whispernet)
- Browses the web
- New releases and Hardcovers for $9.99
- Old books for much much less
- First chapters for free

A quick type-dork note on Caecilia, from the Veer type notes page:

This Linotype typeface was designed in 1990 by Peter Matthias Noordzij (PMN), and named for his wife, Caecilia. Because its shapes are humanist rather than geometric, PMN Caecilia is easier on the reader’s eye and so more useful as a text typeface than most slab serif designs.

Some quotes (and notes) from the Newsweek article on Kindle:

Regarding the wireless connectivity:

'Some of those features have been available on previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.) As a result, says Bezos, "This isn't a device, it's a service."'

'"The vision is that you should be able to get any book—not just any book in print, but any book that's ever been in print—on this device in less than a minute," says Bezos.'

This will allow readers to theoretically buy any book on Amazon, anywhere, whenever they want. And it's important to emphasize that Mr. Bezos isn't talking about renting books — taking a cue from the successful iTunes sales model, they'll be selling to own. The lingering unknown is in what kind of format these books will be provided. Will there be DRM? Will you also be able to read these books on your computer? How many devices will you be able to share them with? We'll find out this week when Kindle comes out, but if the Amazon MP3 store is representative of the Amazon digital sales ethos, then we can assume a nonrestrictive, reasonable license associated with each eBook.

On updates:

Another possible change: with connected books, the tether between the author and the book is still active after purchase. Errata can be corrected instantly. Updates, no problem — in fact, instead of buying a book in one discrete transaction, you could subscribe to a book, with the expectation that an author will continually add to it. This would be more suitable for nonfiction than novels, but it's also possible that a novelist might decide to rewrite an ending, or change something in the middle of the story.

Anyone who has ever published a book knows receiving the first copies from the first print-run is a terrifying experience. You are both overjoyed and, quite frankly, channeling some form of schizophrenia — as you're frantically flipping through looking for printing, editorial and design errors, you're also frantically trying to block out your ability to see said errors. It's like the mother of a convicted murderer hugging her child trying not to let the murderer aspect interfere with her love ... Or maybe it's nothing like that.

And finally, two quotes — one from Mr. Levy (the author of the article) and the other from James Patterson:

Levy: 'That fort [of physical books and traditional publishing] will stand, of course, for a very long time. The awesome technology of original books—and our love for them—will keep them vital for many years to come.'

Patterson: "The baby boomers have a love affair with paper ... But the next-gen people, in their 20s and below, do everything on a screen."

I think Patterson's quote provides a tidy summation of what one in the industry can expect: the fort Levy describes has a lifespan only as long as, and probably much, much shorter than the remaining lifespan of baby-boomers.

In closing, my thoughts on Kindle are that I think the infrastructure of the Kindle system (having the books in a digital format, the collaboration with and support of large publishing houses and having a simple, ubiquitous sales system in place) is more exciting than the Kindle physical object. For a large company, Amazon has been surprisingly generous in opening up its databases and systems for the public to build on top of. If the Kindle system was open in such a way that allowed other devices (and I'm looking at you iPhone and iTouch) to patch into it, then I think we're onto something really interesting.

Other Reading:
- The Future of Reading Steven Levy for Newsweek
- Engadget
- Gizmodo