Not so long ago I would have cringed a lot harder than I am right now at the thought of buying an eReader. I adore books, I love the smell, the feel, and the way they look decorating my book shelves. I’m also one of those offensive people who will write in the margins of my books… especially technical or science/math books. I will be that offensive person you see in the coffee shop marring his books with a pen.
So what the heck am I doing with one of these little (mostly) single use devices?! Well aside from the fact that it is wicked nice to have the next book in a series that you’re reading available at your fingertips (and for less $$$ than a physical copy) or the nicety of having an easy one device carry-all for all the various digital programming reference material that I have; these little turkeys run Java on Linux. Access to the kdk, the cute name that I suspect the Kindle team came up with for their sdk is currently in a non-open beta. I’m currently in the waiting room to see if I’m found worthy to access to it.
In the long term I’m hoping to fiddle with the device and create a few reading/teaching apps for my 6 yr/old niece. My mother-in-law is a teacher and has been wanting something with these capabilities for years as a teaching and reading aid for students whose parents don’t read to them. I think this could be a fun project purely from an academic point of view of exploring the devices capabilities.
The coming eReader wars are upon us. It will be awesome to see what prevails in the coming year with touch screens, Android based tablets, and even the locked down iPad.