The main thing to keep in mind is that the iPad hasn’t been released, has only had a limited hands-on time for a handful of people, there will be a version 2, and most of my thoughts could be somewhat translated to another appliance-like tablet device.

That Really Is The Name. No Joke.

There have already been hundreds of jokes and parodies about the name, some recent, a few in the past. Will we continue to mock it 6 months from now? Probably not, as either it will have failed as a product, or the name will fade into the background as almost every name does (think Microsoft, Bing, even Google for that matter). Sure this name may sound the most ridiculous right now, and there is merit to women being upset that it wasn’t thought out even a little.  But over time it will just be the name and in six months it won’t matter anymore.

Hyper-Hyped Up Beyond Imagination

Is it even possible that Apple’s reveal could have lived up to most of the hype showering the internet? I don’t think so. It may have been short of many reasonable expectations, but the hype was definitely an impossible goal to be reached (especially since Jobs did claim the device to be magical). I think I can safely say that the version they showed off at the event was not magical, and really was just a larger iPhone. That said, I think Apple delivered a product very similar to the first iPod, something that initially is a letdown, but with lots of potential.

My Netbook is Better

Yes, netbooks obviously have more capabilities and power, as they are meant to be a cheaper and smaller laptop. I personally enjoy my 14” laptop over working on a 10” netbook, and anything I want the ultra portability for I have found the iPhone to be sufficient, and I have started even to not bring the laptop on trips. Again, a netbook can do more – much more – in the traditional sense of computing, but really a netbook is a laptop. This is where I think iPad seems to fit nicely between a full laptop and a smart-phone. Whether or not there is a market there is of course another matter.

There will be plenty of people who want a netbook or convertible tablet to work as they always have with a keyboard, USB ports, flash, and most of the features of a modern computer. But I can see myself sitting on the couch using something akin to the iPad while watching TV. I think this is a big part of what the iPad and similar devices will be meant for, the casual computing around the house.

No Multitasking

Being able to listen to Pandora while an app for tracking my run would be nice, I hope they eventually enable this in a future version of the iPhone OS. If you sit back and think about it this really is only an artificial limitation, the iPod can already play music in the background, along with email, and mobile safari, so why not any other app? What if I want an alarm clock app, or maybe a location aware app to notify when I’m near a Starbucks. Do I need full multitasking like netbooks or the nexus one? Probably not exactly, but why not give us some form of a real background app? Maybe limit it to a set small number of allowed background apps. This is probably not a huge deal for me, since I’d have my iPhone with me to play music, video, etc.

No Camera

Not having a camera isn’t a deal breaker for me, but I think that the possibilities that would come with both a front and rear facing camera, or even two front cameras for non-touch gesture recognition, or even object and facial recognition. I’d be surprised if the cost of the camera prevented it from being added. However, there’s possibilities of 3rd party cases that include a rotatable camera, or a stand that is angled for the tablet, with an extended camera above it. I think that a front facing camera  right in the bezel isn’t necessarily the most elegant solution. Also, I’d rather take my point and shoot or iphone to take photos. Sure it’d be nice to have the photo camera for those few times you only have the iPad, but is it really a necessity? I think not.

No Flash

Flash is ubiquitous, so why doesn’t Apple support it? I believe it’s an issue of controlling the ecosystem and elegance of interacting with the device. Some claim it’s due to performance or stability which is likely some part of Apple’s decision. If you use it for video, Apple will tell you to switch to H.264 and the HTML5 <video> tag, or better yet make an app. If you use Flash for animations, games, or an interface Apple would tell you to make an app instead.  They might also have decided against allowing Flash since it was not originally created with a finger touch interface in mind, much less multi-touch.

Advocates of open operating systems allowing installation of any application will of course not enjoy this control that Apple has on their devices, but those who support web standards would like to see Flash be replaced. This will hopefully push development of SVG and Canvas further, and Apple could do its part in this by funding it.

This does not push Adobe out of the way, they just need to share their focus of their developer tools to publish to both Flash and other open standards. They are moving this way with CS5 and will enable iPhone Apps to be produced from their flash tools.

Hulu is probably the most prominent example of flash that I use, but when I think about it do I really care? I might if I’m at an airport, or coffee shop, but really I watch Hulu on my HDTV for the great viewing experience, so I’ll stick to using a media server for Hulu instead of an iPad.

No Deal

If you wanted Apple to include at least one of the missing features and you won’t be buying one because of this, make no mistake, with Steve Job’s claiming this to be one of the key products he’s created, there will be a version 2 of the iPad. My guess is that it’ll be on similar to the change from iPhone 2G to the iPhone 3G with OS 3.0. I hope they include similar functionality as just discussed, but for me these aren’t necessarily deal breakers.

My hope is that the iPad both improves itself overtime, and also improves the usefulness and ease of computing tools in the future.

Glimpse To Future Computing

According to Fraser Speirs people are having Future Shock in the sense that they aren’t comfortable with the likely shift to purpose driven computing – or task-based interface computing. I think I agree with John Gruber of Daring Fireball that the iPad, and similar devices in the future, will be like driving an automatic transmission car:

That’s where Apple is taking computing. A car with an automatic transmission still shift
s gears; the driver just doesn’t need to know about it. A computer running iPhone OS still has a hierarchical file system; the user just never sees it.

There will definitely be a percentage of the population (probably 5%) that will want to have full control and use of a computer. Similar to those people that like to work on their car and use a manual transmission to fully enjoy the driving experience, some people like myself will want to customize and utilize the full power of the Computer we now today in PCs and Macs. Many of these people will be developers, and some will be hardcore computer users who still enjoy building their system hardware, or installing and compiling their own Unix-based kernel, or just enjoy the open nature of the PC platforms.

That said, it doesn’t mean the iPad specifically is the computing device of the future, but rather the idea of more appliance style devices that are intuitive, easy to use, and get out of the way when not using them. Even Microsoft had this idea of a docking device – see video “Microsoft’s Vision For 2019” – that you could hook up to a monitor, carry with you, and is surprisingly similar to this iPad device.

Also, if you think about where Chrome OS is taking us, you might come to a conclusion that the iPad and Chrome OS are on two different paths heading toward the same convergent point. This convergent point will hopefully bring computing devices that will enable you to use the applications you love without configuring every separate computer you use, instead you will access everything from the cloud where you will synchronize and cache data locally allowing you to use the device as a tool. The iPad is bringing us a step closer to this idea of simple task-oriented computing.

The Price is Decent

$499 is much better than $800-1000, and while 16GB isn’t that much space, you could still sync enough content for a week on there. There are more expensive options, with more storage, and 3G/GPS, but the price will only drop over time. Many people will still compare the iPad to netbooks and not buy due to the cost, but they weren’t going to buy an Apple product anyway. If you want access anywhere, it’ll cost you a few hundred more and you currently have to use AT&T (which many people hate) but who is offering the data plan with no contract, which along with the price is a great precedent being set for mobile data access. The pricing will be $15/mo for 250MB and $30/mo for unlimited is actually very good considering most data plans, even those capped, are more like $60/mo. Some people are hearing rumors of Verizon joining the iPhone or iPad, and I hope they are true, but it seemed like Apple is going to continue holding hands with AT&T for the foreseeable future.

Multi-Touch That Just Works

The Nexus and other Android-based devices can support multi-touch and hopefully will soon officially be supported in Google’s apps. However, the experience is much better currently with multi-touch on the iPhone. Partly due to stringent UI guidelines, at this time the SDK for the iPhone supports touch that is better integrated with the default UI elements. There’s also a possible patent issue that Apple might have, but some people are saying it wouldn’t hold up in court. Regardless so far from the phones I’ve used, including the Nexus One, the iPhone is still the superior multi-touch device in my opinion.

It’s All About iTunes – Content and Apps

Finally we get to the last, but not least, item of importance and discuss the iTunes store. While the iPad will definitely have a better web browsing experience than the iPhone, it still doesn’t support plug-ins, and thus there are many websites and applications that won’t work on the iPad in the browser. Also Apple has created the iBook application for ePub format books, and like apps Apple will take a cut of the revenue from all content and applications delivered through iTunes. This is really the success of Apple’s new mobile strategy and focus.

New media content from books, magazines, and newspapers will be available on the iPad device, and it will probably be a very good device for reading and consuming this type of content, and I think is one of the core areas they think the device will be used. Think about the concept video of the Sports Illustrated magazine.

Even without the camera, there are already applications that the iPad will be useful for, including reading reference material like programming pdfs, board games with iPhone integration, navigation tool for hiking, stargazing, tracking stats at an event like baseball or horse racing, photo frame, simple sketching canvas, configurable user input for DJs and media editing, diagramming, editing video, editing photos, there really are a lot of possibilities even with this current version’s limitations.

Developer Story

The iPad uses the same SDK and OS platform as the iPhone, and thus writing an app for both will be relatively easy. There will definitely need to be some changes made to the UI, and some apps and games will work fine with the 2x scaling, but some will want to make an even better version specifically for the iPad. Similar to how there are slightly different capabilities between the various iPhone versions, so will the iPad have some as well. These can be coded in a way that checks the device for the capabilities and allows an app to be run on any of the devices. The iPad does bring with it a separate binary and thus Apple has created Universal Apps similar to what happened with the PowerPC/Intel transition. I also am not a huge fan of objective-c, but as with any language, you just learn the syntax and live with it if you choose to program for the given platform.

There are also some new View Controllers that allow the split screen view, and a popovers view. These are specific to the iPad because of the screen size. Here is another area Apple is going for convention over configuration in that you can’t resize the split views, it’s meant to simplify the UI and learning curve to using the iPad applications.

I do have some issues with Apple controlling the submission process, and the idea that my app might not be allowed is something that I continue to think about, but I believe I will continue to develop as long as they have a large market. I am also going to make sure my apps run on Android, and hopefully HTML5 becomes more ubiquitous so we can get more native-style capabilities within the browser. Also some tools and frameworks have been written to write once – usually using
HTML/CSS/JavaScript – and compile to any device or platform, which I plan to research more in the next few months.

Due to some of these limitations, I expect an open Android device to be better suited for some tasks and applications. It’ll be interesting to see what 2010 has in store for developers with new types of devices springing out of nowhere, and new marketplaces and app stores. As a developer, I am actually pretty excited about the future, even if the iPad is not part of it, and even if it just means making some kickass HTML5 applications on top of the ever more ubiquitous cloud.

60 Days For Improvements

The iPad will probably ship as the same device that people were able to get their hands on at the Apple event. However, they could come out and introduce a new Touch OS (likely it would be OS 4.0) with support for multitasking. It’s possible they even deliver a camera in the device at launch, maybe they didn’t have time to add the camera in the shipment of devices to be ready for the event. I doubt any of this will come to pass and they will wait for the 2nd version to bring anything new to the iPad, but there is an opening here for them to possibly do something before launch.

I Won’t Buy One At Launch

At the moment I have no intentions of buying the iPad, but I will go to an Apple store and try one out when I get the chance, and see if holding it changes my mind. Even though I think the price is reasonable, it is still high enough, similar to the kindle, that it’s a want and not a need. If someone gave one to me I would happily use it, and I think it would fit well as a media and internet device around the house, during short trips, and at a coffee shop or park. For me, a netbook is just too small and underpowered for what I use my laptop for and the iPad would fit quite nicely as the device between my laptop and my iPhone.

There is much more that I could discuss, but there are many others who have already commented on every aspect of the device so I’ll just finish by saying don’t write off the idea of what the iPad will bring us in terms of computing in the future. It definitely won’t be this first version and maybe not even an Apple product, however there will be a move toward appliance computing, even Google is attempting this with their GoogleOS.

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Related Videos and Discussion

Apple

- Apple ReDefines A Market with Demo Video

- Apple’s 1990 Tablet Concept

Microsoft

- Future Home Concept

– Future Vision: Health Care Concept

– Courier Tablet

Other Concept Videos

- IKEA Tablet Concept

- Sports Illustrated Tablet Concept

Humorous Videos

- Keynote In < 180s Using Only Adjectives

- iPad Made Me Poop Bricks

- The Ultimate Browsing Experience

- Hilter’s Reaction To The iPad

- iPad vs. Etch-a-Sketch

Discussion

- iPad Technical Specifications

- You Can’t Multi-Task (Aza Raskin)

- Five Reasons To Wait For iPad 2.0

- Apple iPad Downsides

- iPad: What’s Missing

- Could The iPad Be My Next Trave Computing Device?

- Paul Thurrot’s iDud Review

- Alex Payne On The iPad

- David Pogue First Impressions

- If Flash Were An Open Standard

- Web Developers Can Rule The iPad

- What Features Competitors Should Have

The Zune team was very quick to respond, and gave some relief that they were at least looking into the problem, and official came out with the solution of waiting for Jan 1, 2009 to roll around (Patience is a virtue I guess).

Zune Team’s official update
Some great commentary about this fine New Years Event can be read on a TechFlash article

Price (Purchase Page)
The price with AT&T 2-year contract is now $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB, which should allow for a much wider adoption.  I would consider getting one if it were $100 cheaper for the 16GB.  I really think with a 2-year agreement, Apple should take their losses on the purchase of the phone, knowing they’ll make it up due to their cut on the monthly fees in the required contract.

Features (Apple’s Feature Page)
To quickly run over the features they include: 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, App Store, Exchange support, push contacts, push calendar, push email, instant contact search, VPN, WPA2, MobileMe, email attachments, additional languages, better email management, scientific calculator, and more. All software updates will be available to current iPhone users.

3rd Party Apps (App Store Info)
This will be the killer feature for sure. The new application support will be a great improvement. I’d love to test out development if only I could afford a new Mac right now, or if they supported development on Win/Linux. People have already been putting apps by hacking the phone. The interesting thing Apple decided to do was create a Push notification service that will allow the iPhone to connect only to apple to get notifications for ANY application, and will relay the information from the 3rd party to the iPhone user.  This will allow IM to feel like it’s running in the background, even though technically it is not. I believe this will be a great feature, and will as they claim keep stability and battery life in check.

MobileMe (MobileMe Info)
The last, but not least announcement was the upgrade to the service previously coined “Dot Mac”.  This service allows you to sync Email, Calendar, Contacts, Photos, and more across computers, the iPhone, and the Internet. They give you 20GB of space now to store everything. Finally this is a service that is almost complete enough to merit the price of $99/year. Apple touts it as Exchange for the Rest of us.

There is much more to be found on Apple’s website, as well as many other sites. Check out TechMeme for the flood of information.

It is an interesting technology due to the fact that it could create non-volitile memory that is both cheap and many can fit in a tiny space. Part of the discovery is due to the new capabilities with regard to nano-technology. The uses are not fully known, but it might never see the light of day due to the domination of the transistor and other non-volatile memory that already exists.

Basically a memristor is fundamental a charge-dependent resistance element. This means that the magnetic flux over the element is a function of the amount of charge that has passed through it, simply changes resistance as it is “(dis)charged”. However, don’t take my word for it, as I understand the subject, but have done no research. Instead take a look at some other reports:

• http://www.physorg.com/news128786808.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7377063.stm
• http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080430/full/news.2008.789.html

Under the Hood (Wikipedia Specs)
The Zune 80 and Zune 30 each have a nice display featuring 320×240. The Zune30 is the older model with a click pad, where the Zune 2.0 models have a new Zune Pad ™. It has built-in wireless. Supports MP3, AAC, Zune Marketplace DRM, and WMA for audio;JPEG for photos and WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 for videos. Also supports US and Japan radio. Supports video out @ 320×240, as well as 640×480 on the Zune 80 only.

Note: that with a standard video out cable I had to plug the Red audio plug into the Yellow jack on the TV – basically the Zune switched the wires to make you buy a Zune accessory.

My Experience
I have been playing with and using my Zune for about 4 months now. It is the Zune 30 model which is the first generation Zune. I have found the Zune 30 to be easy to use and I enjoy the clicking sensation when scrolling through the menus and content instead of the dreaded iPod scroll wheel I never could get used to, though the ZunePad does offer a similar touch experience in the 2nd gen models. I have found the battery life to be excellent for music and audio giving me a full 2 skiing days worth of listening (approx 16 hours), with video it’s about 6 hours.

The audio quality is great, the video and photo viewing is good. I have found the size of the Zune 30 to be acceptable, though the newer versions are smaller and more sleek. Finding songs is fairly quick even in long lists as it uses an accelerated scrolling speed where it scrolls quicker the longer you hold the button down. It also shows a big letter which signifies where you are at in the list. This is of course only necessary when scrolling through all artists or albums or songs when the list is very long. The integrated radio seems to work very well and is very clear, haven’t noticed any static at all really. I could see the smaller Zunes being more useful at the gym especially if they support listening to TV over radio, however I have watched video while I’m on the elliptical machine ;D

The podcast support is nice, but it could be slightly better, though it works fine for me. The video support is also a little lacking, but that is hopefully improved over time with customer feedback, again it’s fine for my needs as I have a Xbox 360 which I have already had to convert video for watching on the television. The Zune also allows wireless sharing of music, photos, and podcasts which is a neat feature if all your friends own one too. It does lock the media with DRM which allows you to play it 3 times, this restriction is not enforced on podcasts or photos however. It’s sort of fun, but for me is limited to only testing purposes as I know only one friend with a Zune and they only use it for testing at work.

Quick Tips for first time Zuners
- Make Playlists: you can create a quick list from within the Zune and it works well, but to get the full experience make playlists so you can just take it with you and start playing music right away without having to search for songs.  This is how to best use the iPod as well.
- Turn off wireless: Unless you are going to use it for sharing songs, or for wireless syncing, I recommend saving the battery by turning wireless off.
- Be sure to setup how you want your content to sync up, do you want all content, or do you want to choose what to put on the device like have the most recent 2 episodes of a podcast synced up. That way you won’t sync everything right away. The default settings here are probably fine for most users.
- Try out the neat tip to: Share music w/out DRM
- Enjoy your new Zune experience

Overall I would rate the Zune a very comparable player to the iPod Nano and iPod Video. The content sounds and looks great on the device, and the software goes well with the device. I have to give Microsoft a big round of applause for getting this one right!

DARPA Challenge – Robocars

I recently read up on the DARPA challenge, an autonomous vehicle challenge where teams build real cars capable of navigating the course setup for the competition without the aid of any human presence.  This isn’t your standard remote vehicle operation, but instead the vehicles have brains (computers and software) which perform all functions such as acceleration, braking, navigating, etc. fully autonomously. The major feat of the most recent competition is that six of the contestants actually finished the race. This is a huge step in the field of robotics and control systems. It is something I’d love to work on myself.

Wired Report on the DARPA Challenge
Driverless Cars

RoboCup’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) – RoboRescuers

For my senior design project we attempted to create a robot that could navigate a disaster arena according to the rules for the RoboCup USAR competition. The goal of this competition is to develop robots that can search for victims in a building collapse or other disaster while mapping out the area as it searches. This would enable the rescuers to know exactly where to dig, or remove large amounts of debris. Studies have shown that 90% of rescuers time is spent searching for the victims, while only 10% of the time is actually used to get the victims to safety. This is the reason for the interest in these types of robots. The ultimate goal for the robots is to become fully autonomous while being able to relay video and other information such as states of victims and the surroundings back to a control center.

ResRobo

Along with this competition is a robotic soccer competition which is the reason the organization created this competition. This is their mission as stated on their homepage: “By the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team.” It might seem like a daunting task since it’s well known among the robotic community that imitation of the human form is much more difficult than just designing the best possible form and capabilities. However, there’s something intriguing to me with developing something from scratch that could play in the same league of a sport as the world champions.

RoboCup

Doctor Doctor  – RoboDoc
In the near future mechanical robotic arms and tools might be used to work on you during surgery.

Robot Doctor

There is some fear of using the internet which is amazingly robust, but still highly problematic in connection quality and guarantees. Especially in crucial situations such as performing a surgery where even a 30 second connection loss could be fatal. I’m not sure how long it will be before risky surgery or even anything related to health that has any very short term risks will be common place. However, for diagnostic checkups, non-invasive surgery, as well as assisting roles will probably be conducted in the near future, and in fact are currently being tried in a number of hospitals in North America.

So far this remote presence is mostly restricted to allowing doctors to check up on lab work, performing diagnostic activities, communicating with patients, and watch over surgeries and other labs. I’m excited to see where this is heading, even though many feel that this borders on creepy. It is only going to get more “creepy” because it will become increasingly difficult to understand especially as nano-technology including nano-bots enter into the mix.

Detroit hospital rolls out robotic “doctors”
Robotic doctor marks breakthrough
Robot doctors may shorten hospital visits

The Other Robot Overlords
The Roombot - A sort of silly device to be discussing, since it does not work very well yet, but I thought it would be fun to research and think up some ideas on robotics entering our lives in the near future.

Asimo

ASIMO – This humanoid robot can walk, talk, understand gestures, climb stairs, and even run (albeit slowly) just like a human. It has the shape of a human in a space suit. It is quite fun to see in action.

Killer Robots from Silicon Valley – Soon these robots will replace the front lines, or soldiers on guard duty. Just hope that these robots will understand and have the knowledge to not shoot our own troops, innocent people, nor our allies.

Sarcos

ExoSkeleton - Do you want to have super-strength? I know I would. Well the Sarcos‘ robotic system will allow you to life more weight than you could possibly lift. It could help you run faster, jump higher, and perform similar human functions with extraordinary ease and endurance.

Lego’s Mindstorm – These legos come to life with the use of a computer chip, sensors, and actuators. I used to love playing with legos and even had the set we used in school which was the earliest form of this modern product.  I used battery powered motors along with the standard legos, gears, and a few other simple devices in order to create mechanical models that could move. No there is a computer brain, sensors, and even an SDK and easy programming environment to enable a “sky is the limit” toy.

Update 11/28/07: So I’ve been thinking about this new kindle, and I have to say that I like the concept and am still excited about the technology. However the economic aspects of the device as well as the design are much to be desired as many have stated in their reviews.

Update: Cali Lewis gives her first hand review of the Kindle on her GeekBrief podcast #262.

Update: Tech crunch has two interesting first hand posts about the Kindle, and a short Jeff Bezos interview.

E-Ink is the future!
People have been talking about the paperless office for years, and now the book industry is taking interest. New paper book size devices using an electronic ink technology are entering your personal time and space. Sony and Amazon have finally hit on products that should stimulate the growth in this market shift. The technology and experience of electronic ink systems will be akin to science fiction newspapers, or those similarly found within the Harry Potter universe. We will soon have cereal boxes, newspapers, and then clothing that have embedded e-Ink allowing the reader or publisher to update the content in real-time. Especially with this new partnership between Amazon and Sprint, things are looking to advance into the area of what used to be found only in fiction.

The Shift
The entire printed media industry will be moving to this new electronic format and form-factor. Newspapers, Books, Magazines, and even the written word that already exists online and in electronic form like blogs will invade your space on that plush reclining chair that you curl up in next to a fire in to enjoy the relaxing and intimate relationship with that special book.

The Hardware
Sony has delivered a 2nd generation product with their e-reader. It is light, small, and sleek. It uses the newest e-ink technology to deliver a high contrast display that looks like a real paper page while also allowing a long usage period between charges. Amazon is using a similar technology (seems to use the same e-Ink technology) with their new Kindle service and e-Reader. The reader has a keyboard and looks like an oversized PDA designed by IBM, it is white, plain, and a little too square. However,

Amazon

• Storage: 200 books
• Weight: 10.3 ounces (lighter than typical paperback)
• Battery: 1.5 days / 7 days (wireless on / off)
• Charge Time: 2 hours
• Display: 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 4-level gray scale
• Other: Keyboard

Sony

• Storage: 64MB internal (memory card slot for “unlimited” # of books)
• Weight: 10 ounces
• Battery: Read 7500 pages on single charge (~15 500pg books)
• Charge Time: 4 / 6 hours (AC / USB)
• Display: 6″ diagonal E-ink(tm) with 4-level grayscale
• Other: plays mp3 (not sure why – i guess for audio book – just get an iPod/Zune)

The Services
Sony does offer a service to purchase books from, but it isn’t as grand a scheme as Amazon has devised and just recently released details of their new Kindle e-reader and service. Amazon will utilize Sprint’s national EVDO network in order to bring books and other content to the device from almost anywhere in the US.

Amazon

• 88,000 books, Top Newspapers, 250 blogs
• No Computer Necessary (all downloads are free and wireless)

Sony

• Thousands of books
• Windows XP or Vista

What does the future look like?
As I mentioned before this has more profound consequences than what lies on the surface in relation to how we interact and communicate. Sure you can get books anytime and anywhere you want, however think about other uses and you’ll quickly realize that the always connected everywhere we go future is actually something possible in the near future. Obviously it won’t be perfect, but this is sort of like 1995 with the internet coming into existence. We didn’t know then that we’d be watching video on a little pocket touchscreen phone. We have no idea yet, or just a small idea, of what is to come. People are probably think of the new advertising models, and the ability to get other types of content. However, that’s really already been done as the iPhone is probably currently the best overall e-book of its time. Battery drain is the main problem that the e-Ink technology attempts to fix.

Imagine being able to highlight in the books, have multiple bookmarks, sync this information online, download personal documents to the device, utilize an integrated search both within a book as well as across many different books. Just like we carry around our personal contacts, our music, and our photos (camera phone), we will soon carry around all our paper content including homework, textbooks, novels, magazines, newspapers, references, dictionary, translation books, study guides, DIY guides, etc.

There are so many things that can be done with technology when it is used in new ways along with inventions, and innovations. The e-Book was an innovation in the way we read printed materials, Kindle is an innovation in how we get that printed material. I’m only more excited about the future now, and hope I don’t become disinterested as I get older in the exciting innovations that the world brings to us each and every day.