Thursday, 1 January 2009

Sony Ebook Reader

I stumbled upon this device while roaming around at the new Westfield shopping mall in Shepherds Bush. My initial impressions in the fives minutes I spent with it are:
  • Sony have done a brilliant job in removing the glare that infests moden personal devices including the iPhone (which I believe is a generation ahead of its rivals and the its human users). It felt like reading a book. Initially I thought this was a display gimmick but as I scrolled through the pages it became apparent that this was a small revolution in the device. I expect other competitors will try to replicate this technology.
  • It's got an awful lot of buttons. It's frankly a mess. If I am reading a book then why do I need all these buttons. And the buttons for scrolling the pages are unintuitively located.
  • In typical Sony fashion they have tried to tie this down to proprietary formats. This means that I cannot get an any pdf off the web and view it in the reader. This could very well boil down to my ignorance on how the reader works but surely inter-operating with other formats is a powerful factor in the success of this device.
  • My colleague also added that Sony Ebooks are more expensive than its paper counterparts. This HAS to change otherwise it will not go beyond the tech enthusiasts.

Christmas

What is it about Christmas that gets everybody buzzing with energy?

There was a marked increase in joy levels at my work - people were joking, laughing and generally enjoying life. Compare attitudes, conversations and approaches to generally everything in life, and you could lay witness to something subtle but extraordinary.

It could be to do with the four-day break that fell upon us in 2008, or the lack of traffic on the roads and trains, or the gifts that we were about to exchange or simply some magical Christmas spirit that engulfs us at this time of the year.

With Christmas gone, and having entered the New Year, a depression, in stark contrast to the joy of Christmas, sets in as we prepare for the cold February winter. No public holiday until Easter, no excuses for parties or celebrations, time to work hard.