Why am I skeptic about Kindle 2?

Just finished reading Engadget’s post here.

I think it still looks away from what I would personally consider to be a perfect reading device.

a. Idea: Another personal portable device? That means, besides a music player, cellphone, laptop and a office desktop, I have to handle one ‘more’ portable electronics item when the prior ones can easily help me read books. Also, must mention that Kindle is capable of only presenting information in 16 shades of gray!

b. Interface: No touch-screen, responsiveness, although improved, still leaves more to be desired.

c. Looks: Well they matter, Apple has mastered aesthetics, Amazon needs a lesson or two. For the latest one liberal 7/10.

d. Pricing:  Well, $349 and still books are to be purchased separately. I am a grad student and personally cannot justify to spent that amount on a ‘reading device’ when I already have a laptop and desktop to read books on. Maybe it turns out to be of more value to other people. Although, unlimited wireless for life is something innovative and appreciable.

 Overall, I am not impressed but I must mention that I might as well be downplaying a ‘huge revolution’ – as they call it – here.

Later.

Human Extinction

Bill Bryson mentions Human Extinction in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything:

“Fortunately, that moment hasn’t happened, but the chances are good that it will. I don’t wish to interject a note of gloom just at this point, but the fact is that there is one other extremely pertinent quality about life on Earth: it goes extinct. Quite regularly. For all the trouble they take to assemble and preserve themselves, species crumple and die remarkably routinely. And the more complex they get, the more quickly they appear to go extinct. Which is perhaps one reason why so much life isn’t terribly ambitious.”

And humans as you will probably agree, are terribly ambitious specie, you can see it here, here and here for yourself.