The Amazon Kindle
Some of us in the book-related business have been pondering for some time our future as designers and purveyors of the traditional paper variety. For me, the simultaneously threatening and intriguing front-runner has been the Kindle; an ebook reader that today arrives in its second iteration. Here's a simultaneously comforting and threatening review in the NYTimes, including this small comfort for book cover designers everywhere:

So, for the thousandth time: is this the end of the printed book?

Don’t be silly.

The Kindle has the usual list of e-book perks: dictionary, text search, bookmarks, clippings, MP3 music playback and six type sizes (baby boomers, arise). No trees die to furnish paper for Kindle books, either.

But as traditionalists always point out, an e-book reader is a delicate piece of electronics. It can be lost, dropped or fried in the tub. You’d have to buy an awful lot of $10 best sellers to recoup the purchase price. If Amazon goes under or abandons the Kindle, you lose your entire library. And you can’t pass on or sell an e-book after you’ve read it.