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To read or not to read?
As a book lover, when I hear about innovations that will give me access to thousands of titles at the click of a button, I am intrigued.
I wrote a story for today’s Tech page about how technology is making us a more paperless society. During the interview process, I talked to Carl Frappaolo, vice president of the Association for Information and Image Management International, an industry trade association for document and business process management technologies.
Frappaolo told me about a really cool innovation Amazon has come out with called a Kindle. It is an e-book reader with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines and newspapers.
The internal memory of the Kindle can hold about 200 books at a time. Compared to how many books I own, that is a drop in the bucket. But when you think about the equivalent of holding 200 books in your hand at one time, it is pretty impressive.
According to Amazon.com, when you leave the wireless option on, the battery lasts two days. With it off, you can read for a week or more before recharging. Other pluses seem to be that you have more than 180,000 titles available to download and the Kindle only weighs 10.3 ounces, both of which make it a very attractive option.
I don’t think this will ever replace books, at least not for me. I love holding them in my hand too much to ever give that up. Holding a computer screen would never be the same. However, having access to that many books at one time would be nice, even if I do think I would ruin my eyesight even more by staring at it for too long.
Unfortunately, with a price tag of $359, this is one technology upgrade I will not be making for awhile. I think I’ll stick to paying a quarter for books at garage sales and checking them out from the library.
Do you like e-books, or are you strictly a hard copy reader? Share your thoughts by commenting here or e-mail me at lmcfarland@coxnc.com.
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