the Amazon Kindle

Several companies have tried it in the past and they've all pretty much failed miserably. "What if we make a small digital device, the size of a book, with a black and white screen so that people can download e-books and carry around hundreds of books instead of just one?" It hasn't really taken off for many reasons and when Amazon announced their latest attempt, the Kindle, last week many critics had the same old response.

Nikos and I talked about it a bunch too and couldn't get past the $400 cost of entry. I mean, when you look at it - it sounds as though you're paying $400 for a device that is primarily just set up to make you buy $10 digital downloads and nothing more. So cost of entry is more like $400 plus at least $10-100 in downloads right off the bat (because why buy it and just put one digital book on it?).

But today my opinion started to change when I found out that Amazon really screwed something up when they marketed this thing. Here they are pitching this as an e-book reader that allows you to conveniently download and buy books directly from the Amazon website, using a built-in EV-DO wireless connection (provided, free of charge, by Sprint's 3G data network). What Amazon completely failed to mention is that this device also has a built in web browser and the data connection is ALWAYS ON! So in short - you're paying $400 up front for this e-reader with 24hr a day internet access, and best of all you're not going to be paying any sort of monthly fee for the service.

What does that mean? Well, if you've wanted something like an iPhone simply because you want to be able to check websites and/or your email while you're on the go, or sitting in an airport, you don't have to sign a 2-year contract w/AT&T. I'm not saying this thing is comparable to an iPhone, but there are a lot of people out there who would be willing to buy this thing simply knowing that they could have an always-on internet connection on what is essentially a stripped-down PC tablet. Why have the folks at Amazon completely failed to mention this?

Turkey Day & the baby cow

Thanksgiving dinner was in VA and generally awesome.

Today we walked over to Kidwell Farm, taking the dog on a walk, and while walking through the barn we came across this stall. The calf, appropriately named "Gravy," was born yesterday. These are some of its first steps; it was really cute.





Oh, and then we came across the recently pardoned turkey. You may or may not know, that there is a White House tradition of "pardoning" a turkey every year. After that happens, they send the turkey to this farm in Herndon, VA. So this is this year's presidential turkey; pretty ugly, eh?

UPDATE: Nikos passed!!!!

Take that, California Bar!

Finally...

1. Virginia Tech came in 3rd place in the DARPA Urban Challenge this week.
2. I finally got a MacBook and I'm loving it. I'm still trying to figure out all the in's and out's of OS X but so far I'm really liking it.
3. We've got a problem with homeless people in San Diego. To be more specific - yesterday a homeless guy stabbed a random bystander after he asked him to move away from his car. That happened in my neighborhood.