Kindle Demo Video

I’ve been watching Amazon’s Kindle Demo video while impatiently waiting for UPS to deliver my Kindle. I’ve also purchased three books, while waiting, to see how Kindle handles the automatic download. Gadget arrival day will certainly try your patience.

It struck me while watching the video, how similar it is to the early Tablet PC videos, and last year’s Origami videos – a guy walking around carrying a small tablet, using it in personal places – an extension of himself.

Another thing I picked up on is how much the scrolling wheel is used to select, navigate, etc. I can already tell that the lack of a touch screen and an active digitizer is going to bother me. Isn’t a logical extension of reading a book being able to annotate it and mark it up using your own handwriting? Taking in to account the known battery life and outdoor screen readability issues, Tablet PCs certainly have the leg-up in the annotation department. Amazon would have really scored a coup had they implemented personalized notetaking and annotation. Maybe version 2 of Kindle will bring us that. Microsoft needs to get Amazon on the horn and begin talking up ink.