Missives from the 6th Floor

Since I first read The Diamond Age (1996) I've wanted what the Kindle should be, and after reading about E Ink (pre E Ink, really) in When Things Start To Think (1999) I've been waiting for someone to make it. Eleven years later, and still no light at the end of the tunnel.

It's not an "e-book reader" based on the screen paradigm, it's an honest-to-god book, with "E Ink-like" pages - a hundred or so of 'em, smarts in the spine, and ubiquitous wireless access. It downloads and "becomes" the book you want on demand - and you communicate with it by touch, or maybe by pen.

It's real paper, so it looks like a book, feels like a book, reads well in low light like a book, and (perhaps most importantly) it's gotta smell like a book.

It's got lots of pages 'cause searching with many pages is faster than searching with one, or two. (...where's that passage... I know it was just past the middle [flip, flip, flip]...past this...[flip, flip]...too far...[flip]... ah, here it is.)

It needs to be hi-res, and color, 'cause sometimes I wanna read National Geographic.

It should let me make annotations, in handwriting, in the margins, or over the text, 'cause marginal annotations are sometimes very valuable.

It should remember where I left off reading and be able to make that the second page when I open the cover. (Second, not first, so if I want to backtrack I have a natural way to indicate that - by turning back a page.)

It's got some good ideas in it, but the Kindle doesn't hold a candle (sorry) to what a "real" ebook should be.

I guess it's a start, but at $400 it's nothing I'm going to rush out and buy.