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Kindle includes a keyboard to aid in searching stored content and browsing the Kindle e-book store. The keyboard, however, looks like it’ll be in the way of reading, which is Kindle’s primary purpose.¹

And now it looks like Amazon has, finally, taken the always-nascent eBook industry to the next level. This week, wrote Steve Levy in a rapturous article in Newsweek, Amazon will release the Kindle - an e-reader that uses E Ink and will have Internet connectivity.²

Will Amazon-sized egos get in the way of allowing the Kindle, via a firmware update in time, to read .epub, the IDPF’s new industry standard? Or will the Kindle rely on Amazon-owned Mobi with some kind of gotcha?³

While the idea of being able to carry a couple hundred books around in your pocket (and it would have to be a mighty big pocket in the Kindle’s case) is attractive, people have a physical and emotional attachment to books. The Kindle is just one plastic device, and while it can do cool things, it cannot compete with the aesthetic appeal of a full bookshelf.⁴

The device has some real advantages over other electronic gizmos. To mimic the readability of a paper book, Kindle uses a system dubbed E Ink, developed by E Ink, that is used in other electronic books, such as Sony’s Reader.⁵

Powering the Kindle is an Intel PXA255 processor, says John Knuth, lead technician at Rapid Repair and one of the first to take apart the Kindle. This processor is part of Intel’s XScale line, designed for use in mobile phones and smart phones.⁶