Smell of Books
Ha! So last night I had a conversation about the Kindle that went the same way most of my conversations on the subject go: We all debated the merits of an e-book reader and explained how we loved the look, feel and smell of physical books. I’ve been having a debate in my head over whether I should get a Kindle since it came out (my answer is yes, once the small one has native PDF support). While I really love having books around, I really hate illogical nostalgia.
Anyway, this is all a long-winded introduction to an internet joke that (although we hadn’t seen it) happened to be the second half of last night’s conversation: Smell of Books.
If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.
But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.
It comes in New Book Smell, Classic Musty Smell, Scent of Sensibility, Eau You Have Cats and Crunchy Bacon Scent.
Hi, I'm 
Smell of books? Whatever will they think of next – I thought the Chocolate Inhaler was bad enough :) http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2009/04/lewhif_chocolat.php
I don’t suppose there is ANY logical reason to avoid the Kindle now :D
Hi Noah
Pontifications on paper versus electronic aside, I just get a strong feeling that the Kindle is one of those technologies that is not going to reward the early adopter. I suspect it will advance quickly in features and design, spawn a series of “Kindle-compatible” devices from other brands and have a really fast cycle of obsolescence.
In a way I feel it’s ironic to not support a cool piece of breakthrough technology because you know it’s going to lead a fast revolution, but more and more we’re seeing product life cycles as sort as 6 months (phones, MP3 players, computer hardware, software) and it then becomes a equation of desire versus patience. The recession will add a few weights to one end of that scale for many people I guess.
I’m still giggling at “Eau You Have Cats”.
=) Marc
I guess my hesitation about the Kindle is whether its one function is enough to warrant buying it. I mean if you can make the non-glare screen for a small tablet PC then you could use that for reading and doing everything else a fully-functional PC will do. I just hate the idea of carrying around yet another device. However, I guess carrying a book is the same thing for now.
The OLPC laptop has a great non-glare screen.
It is a fully-functional PC, just with a pitiful amount of memory.
@Marc – Hey Marc, thanks for the comment. I think you’re probably right, which I find quite unfortunate since most of the opportunity to enhance the device should be with software not hardware. We’ll have to wait and see how Amazon handles that piece of things.
@Wayne & Harris – While I don’t disagree on the netbook thing … I do like the idea of a device that does one thing really well.