Recently in Kindle Category

Dateline: Mississippi State University, 10 December 2010.

I was honored to have been asked to be the guest speaker at the 10 December 2010 Joint Army-Air Force Commissioning ceremony at Mississippi State. There were four cadets commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the US Air Force and one commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. It was a pleasure to have been asked to speak and a joy to share some of the lessons I have learned with these new lieutenants who are beginning their careers.

After the ceremony I received some very nice complements on the talk and I was appreciative of them. I told several that what I told these new airmen and soldier were what I wished someone had told me when I was an Ensign. The text of my remarks is below.

Reading is, after all, fundamental. Nice interview with the creator of the Navy Professional Reading Program here. This program grew out of the CNOs recommended reading list but I think the Navy was right on the money in devising this particular program. You can easily zero in on either a general topic of interest or a list of books for a particular rank.

Interesting that they are looking at how to integrate Kindles and, I assume, other e-book readers. I maintain that the Kindle is the ideal technology for military personnel. It is light, easy to read, good battery life, and stores lots of books. Hard copy will be good for libraries but I want to have my Kindle with me.

Amazon announced the new Kindle DX today. Engadget did a great job blogging about it during the press conference on Wednesday, 06 May 2009.

I love new gadgets but I will most likely pass on the DX for now. I am still happy with my Kindle 2 and have no trouble reading books or newspapers on it.

"Sony, Google Mount Challenge To Amazon Over Digital Books", Wall Street Journal, Vol. CCLIII, No. 64.,Thursday 19 March 2009, p. B5. By Geoffrey A. Fowler and Jessica E. Vascellaro.

"Read Our Lips: Sony, Google Take On Amazon's Kindle", ChannelWeb (www.crn.com)

Google and Sony may mount a challenge but it I doubt it will be much more than a challenge to Amazon. Let's face it, the Kindlehas taken off. Just over a year old it is already in its second version. This coupled with the tie to the store at Amazon cinches the deal, in my opinion.

The model I use is the iPod. What is the iPod without iTunes? Nothing more than an mp3 player. There are and have been other mp3 players. Know anyone who has a Zune? Maybe, but probably not many. I actually have somewhere a Dell Digital Jukebox. It was heavy and large and lacking in style. I tried it but soon I converted to the iPod and iTunes and have never looked back.

The will be other eBook readers, some will be good, others not so good. But I suspect the Kindlewill be the iPod of eBook readers.

Google and Sony may have teamed but the books available from Google all are pre-1923. Here the Kindleclearly has the advantage. "The Sony and Google partnership isn't exclusive. [Google spokeswoman Jennie Johnson] said Google isn't in talks with Amazon about a similar deal for the Kindle, but was open to the idea." Clearly there is potential here.