Linked List: November 19, 2007

Monday, 19 November 2007

The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) 

Mark Pilgrim at his best.

The Third Magisterium 

Greg Knauss:

Just as scientists claim dominion over their magisteria, and theologians claim dominion over theirs, a huge and empty space is left for the stupid questions. Who claims dominion over them?

Starting now, I do. I declare myself the world’s primary expert in questions so stupid that they lack any sort of meaning other than reasonably correct grammar.

Frenzic for iPhone 

Best iPhone web app game yet.

Do Canonical Web Designs Exist? 

Outstanding essay by Joshua Porter on the state of web design.

Droid Font Family From Google and Ascender 

Damien Guard on the Droid font family included in Google’s Android SDK, including examples of the fonts rendered on screen in Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Seth Godin on Kindle 

Seth Godin:

My thought was to use it, at least for a few years, as a promotion device. Give the books for free to anyone who buys the $400 machine. (Maybe you can have 1,000 books of your choice, so there’s not a lot of ‘waste’.) You’ll sell more machines that way, that’s for sure. And the people willing to buy the device are exactly the sort of people that an author like me wants to reach.

Or what if Amazon gave you a free Kindle e-book version of every physical book you’ve ever purchased from Amazon?

Amazon Kindle Store 

Now available for sale, alongside a few demo videos. The most interesting technical aspect is the wireless data plan — you get free unlimited EVDO networking (but only EVDO networking) with no monthly plan. You buy a Kindle and you get free wireless EVDO for life, apparently. The weight and battery life seem impressive. There is no computer synching, period. It’s a wholly independent device. All content comes via the EVDO network, and if you lose or damage your Kindle, your purchased material can be re-downloaded from Amazon.

The on-screen typography seems crude. Interesting reading device — maybe. But replacement for the book? No way. The other thing they advertise is the ability to read “blogs”, where by “blogs” they seem to mean one of 250 pre-selected weblogs. Update: And you have to pay a few bucks a month to read them. So, uh, Kindle lets you pay money for something you can read for free everywhere else.

Also, the device is white, not beige as early mock-ups indicated. But the industrial design strikes me as very ’80s nonetheless. Maybe they should have stuck with beige for the retro vibe.