Amazon's Kindle Makes Buying E-Books Easy
Companies have failed for many years to produce a successful electronic reader, a dedicated device that would do for books what Apple's iPod has done for music -- allow you to carry around large numbers of titles and enjoy them in a convenient way.
Just a year ago, Sony took another stab at this concept with a product called the Sony Reader. Like the iPod, it was linked to an online store where you could buy thousands of titles that could be downloaded to the Reader. Unlike the iPod, it hasn't been a hit with consumers, partly because the store was hard to use and had a very limited selection.
Now, the biggest name in online book sales, Amazon.com, is entering the fray with a $400 electronic book reader called Kindle that aims to succeed by offering a much better shopping experience.
The Kindle is the first electronic book reader that allows users to download books via wireless broadband, without a PC. Amazon is offering a large collection of digitized books -- about 90,000 -- compared with fewer than 25,000 for Sony. The Kindle also can download newspapers, magazines and blogs directly, and update them automatically. This is possible because the Kindle comes with free, built-in wireless Internet access, using a cellular data network.
I've been testing the Kindle for about a week, and I love the shopping and downloading experience. But the Kindle device itself is just mediocre. While it has good readability, battery life and storage capacity, both its hardware design and its software user interface are marred by annoying flaws. It is bigger and clunkier to use than the Sony Reader, whose second version has just come out at $300.
Like the Sony, the Amazon reader uses a high-contrast, but low-power, screen technology. The Kindle's six-inch screen can display only monochrome text and gray images, and there's lag time and a flash of black every time you turn a page. But I did find that the screen was good enough to make me forget I wasn't reading the book on paper.
The Kindle holds about 200 titles in its internal memory, and can accept memory cards for storing more books, periodicals and blogs. You can also keep and read some types of personal files and photos on the Kindle, but you have to email them to Amazon for conversion to a proprietary Kindle format.
The battery lasted me a couple of days between charges with the wireless on, longer if I switched it off.
Using the well-organized Kindle store, I was able to purchase books like 'Boom!' by Tom Brokaw, 'Stone Cold' by David Baldacci and 'American Creation' by Joseph Ellis. The process was fast and simple, partly because the Kindle comes preconfigured with your existing Amazon account information.
New releases and bestsellers cost $9.99 each, compared with a typical Amazon price of $15 to $20 for the paper volumes. Prices for other books vary widely, but are generally cheaper than the paper versions.
I also successfully subscribed to electronic editions of The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time magazine, and several blogs and news feeds. This was a much less satisfying experience. The layout of these publications was much clumsier and harder to use than on the Web, and they cost more. Blogs and periodicals that are free on the Web cost anywhere from 99 cents to $14 a month.
The Kindle has some nice software features. It includes a small keyboard that lets you make notes in the margins of books and perform searches. There's also a built-in dictionary.
But the device is poorly designed. It has huge buttons on both edges for turning pages forward or backward. They are way too easy to press accidentally, so my reading was constantly being interrupted by unwanted page turns. Plus, the buttons are confusing. One called 'Back' doesn't actually move to the previous page, but supposedly to the prior function. I never could predict what it would do.
The 'Home' button for returning to the list of content on your Kindle is tiny and located at the very bottom of the keyboard. There is no button to take you to the online store; you have to open a menu and scroll. The book-like cover, intended to protect the device, attaches so weakly that it's always falling off. And because the power buttons are hidden on the back, reaching around to use them practically guarantees you'll knock off the cover.
The software interface also is clumsy. There is no way to organize titles into groups or categories, so you have to keep turning pages in the Home area to find a particular item to read. And doing many tasks requires you to scroll a barely visible silver cursor along a narrow side panel.
Also, there is no way to email friends to tell them about books or articles, send excerpts or links, or even buy them a Kindle title as a gift.
Amazon has nailed the electronic-book shopping experience. But it has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices.
多年来，数家公司一直想要推出一款成功的电子书籍阅读器产品，就像用苹果公司(Apple)的iPod可以轻松驾驭数码音乐那样。如此一来，用户就可以随身携带大量电子图书，方便地尽享阅读之乐了。不过，这些企业的努力始终未能收到满意的效果。
一年前，索尼公司(Sony)再次将这种理念付诸实践，推出了一款名为"索尼读书器"(Sony Reader)的产品。和iPod相似的地方是，它也能连接到网上书店，购买数万种电子书籍，并下载到这台设备里。但和iPod不同的是，索尼读书器并没有在消费者中掀起一股旋风，这在某种程度上是因为在线书店使用起来不方便，而且可选书籍品种也十分有限。
现在，最大的网上书店亚马逊公司(Amazon.com)也加入了竞争行列，推出了一款售价400美元的"Kindle"电子书阅读器，该公司希望通过大大改善用户的购书体验来占领市场。
Kindle是第一款能让用户无需通过电脑、而直接通过无线宽带下载电子书的阅读器。亚马逊公司提供了大量的电子书籍供用户选择，大约有9万本之多，而索尼公司的可选书目仅有2.5万本。Kindle还可以直接下载电子报纸、杂志和博客，并进行自动更新。这可能是因为Kindle内置了手机数据传输网络，可以免费免费实现无线上网功能。
在过去六、七天里我一直在试用Kindle，我非常喜欢用它完成在线购书和下载操作，但这款阅读器本身就有些流于平庸了，虽然它在书籍显示、电池续航时间以及存储容量方面都表现不错，但在硬件设计和软件使用界面上都存在一些令人不快的瑕疵。Kindle比索尼读书器更大更沉，后者刚推出的第二代产品仅售300美元。
和索尼一样，亚马逊的阅读器应用了高对比度、低能耗的显示屏技术，但Kindle的六英寸屏幕只能显示单色文本和灰色图像，而且每次翻页时都有时间延迟和黑色闪屏。不过，我觉得屏幕效果好得让都我忘了自己是在阅读电子书籍。
Kindle的内存能存储约200本书，并能外接存储卡来保存更多的电子书、杂志和博客。用户可以在Kindle上保存和阅读某些类别的个人文档和照片，但必须先把内容发送给亚马逊，由其转换成专有的Kindle格式。
打开无线模式使用Kindle时，我隔几天充一次电，如果关掉无线功能，电池续航时间会更长。
通过份类清晰的Kindle在线商店，我能购买很多电子书，如汤姆•布洛考(Tom Brokaw)的《Boom!》，戴维•巴尔达西(David Baldacci)的《Stone Cold》，以及约瑟夫•艾里斯(Joseph Ellis)的《American Creation》。整个过程快速简便，这部分应归功于Kindle已预设了用户的帐户信息。
新书和畅销书的价格为每本9.99美元，亚马逊书店的纸质书一般卖15到20美元。其它种类的电子书价格相差很大，但通常都比纸质书便宜。
我还成功订阅了《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)、《纽约时报》(New York Times)、《时代周刊》(Time)的电子版，以及几个博客和新闻回馈。这类内容的阅读体验要差一些。与电脑上网浏览相比，它的版面设置笨拙得多，使用起来不方便，而且费用更高。那些原本在互联网上供免费阅读的博客和电子杂志在阅读器上却要付费，价格从每月99美分到14美元不等。
Kindle的软件有一些不错的功能，包括一个小键盘，有了它，你就可以一边阅读一边在空白处做笔记。此外，它还提供内容搜索功能，并且还带有一部内置字典。
但阅读器的设计有些难如人意。机身两侧有很大的翻页键，容易无意中碰到，因此我看书时页面经常无缘无故地翻动。另外，按键设置也让人搞不懂，一个名为"后退"(Back)的按键并不能回到前一页，似乎是回到上一功能。我一直没弄清它到底是干什么用的。
用于返回内容目录的Home键很小，而且位于键盘的最底部。没有按键可以直接连通在线商店，必须打开菜单后滚动选择。像书本封面一样的盖子本意是保护阅读器，但盖上后很不严实，经常会掉下来。由于开关键隐藏在背面，因此把阅读器翻过来按开关键时，盖子往往会脱落。
软件的用户界面也很粗糙，无法将电子书分门别类，因此用户得按Home键，然后在内容目录中翻页选择要看的书。许多指令的完成需要用户滚动一个指针，而银色的指针位于机身的狭窄边缘，几乎难以发现。
除此之外，用户既不能在阅读器上发送电子邮件，告诉朋友对一些书或文章的想法，无法发送摘录或链接地址，也不能为朋友购买Kindle的电子书作为礼物。
亚马逊在改善电子书购买体验上做的不错，但它在产品设计方面仍有很多东西要学。
关键字:双语新闻
生词表:
Companies have failed for many years to produce a successful electronic reader, a dedicated device that would do for books what Apple's iPod has done for music -- allow you to carry around large numbers of titles and enjoy them in a convenient way.
Just a year ago, Sony took another stab at this concept with a product called the Sony Reader. Like the iPod, it was linked to an online store where you could buy thousands of titles that could be downloaded to the Reader. Unlike the iPod, it hasn't been a hit with consumers, partly because the store was hard to use and had a very limited selection.
Now, the biggest name in online book sales, Amazon.com, is entering the fray with a $400 electronic book reader called Kindle that aims to succeed by offering a much better shopping experience.
The Kindle is the first electronic book reader that allows users to download books via wireless broadband, without a PC. Amazon is offering a large collection of digitized books -- about 90,000 -- compared with fewer than 25,000 for Sony. The Kindle also can download newspapers, magazines and blogs directly, and update them automatically. This is possible because the Kindle comes with free, built-in wireless Internet access, using a cellular data network.
I've been testing the Kindle for about a week, and I love the shopping and downloading experience. But the Kindle device itself is just mediocre. While it has good readability, battery life and storage capacity, both its hardware design and its software user interface are marred by annoying flaws. It is bigger and clunkier to use than the Sony Reader, whose second version has just come out at $300.
Like the Sony, the Amazon reader uses a high-contrast, but low-power, screen technology. The Kindle's six-inch screen can display only monochrome text and gray images, and there's lag time and a flash of black every time you turn a page. But I did find that the screen was good enough to make me forget I wasn't reading the book on paper.
The Kindle holds about 200 titles in its internal memory, and can accept memory cards for storing more books, periodicals and blogs. You can also keep and read some types of personal files and photos on the Kindle, but you have to email them to Amazon for conversion to a proprietary Kindle format.
The battery lasted me a couple of days between charges with the wireless on, longer if I switched it off.
Using the well-organized Kindle store, I was able to purchase books like 'Boom!' by Tom Brokaw, 'Stone Cold' by David Baldacci and 'American Creation' by Joseph Ellis. The process was fast and simple, partly because the Kindle comes preconfigured with your existing Amazon account information.
New releases and bestsellers cost $9.99 each, compared with a typical Amazon price of $15 to $20 for the paper volumes. Prices for other books vary widely, but are generally cheaper than the paper versions.
I also successfully subscribed to electronic editions of The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time magazine, and several blogs and news feeds. This was a much less satisfying experience. The layout of these publications was much clumsier and harder to use than on the Web, and they cost more. Blogs and periodicals that are free on the Web cost anywhere from 99 cents to $14 a month.
The Kindle has some nice software features. It includes a small keyboard that lets you make notes in the margins of books and perform searches. There's also a built-in dictionary.
But the device is poorly designed. It has huge buttons on both edges for turning pages forward or backward. They are way too easy to press accidentally, so my reading was constantly being interrupted by unwanted page turns. Plus, the buttons are confusing. One called 'Back' doesn't actually move to the previous page, but supposedly to the prior function. I never could predict what it would do.
The 'Home' button for returning to the list of content on your Kindle is tiny and located at the very bottom of the keyboard. There is no button to take you to the online store; you have to open a menu and scroll. The book-like cover, intended to protect the device, attaches so weakly that it's always falling off. And because the power buttons are hidden on the back, reaching around to use them practically guarantees you'll knock off the cover.
The software interface also is clumsy. There is no way to organize titles into groups or categories, so you have to keep turning pages in the Home area to find a particular item to read. And doing many tasks requires you to scroll a barely visible silver cursor along a narrow side panel.
Also, there is no way to email friends to tell them about books or articles, send excerpts or links, or even buy them a Kindle title as a gift.
Amazon has nailed the electronic-book shopping experience. But it has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices.
多年来，数家公司一直想要推出一款成功的电子书籍阅读器产品，就像用苹果公司(Apple)的iPod可以轻松驾驭数码音乐那样。如此一来，用户就可以随身携带大量电子图书，方便地尽享阅读之乐了。不过，这些企业的努力始终未能收到满意的效果。
一年前，索尼公司(Sony)再次将这种理念付诸实践，推出了一款名为"索尼读书器"(Sony Reader)的产品。和iPod相似的地方是，它也能连接到网上书店，购买数万种电子书籍，并下载到这台设备里。但和iPod不同的是，索尼读书器并没有在消费者中掀起一股旋风，这在某种程度上是因为在线书店使用起来不方便，而且可选书籍品种也十分有限。
现在，最大的网上书店亚马逊公司(Amazon.com)也加入了竞争行列，推出了一款售价400美元的"Kindle"电子书阅读器，该公司希望通过大大改善用户的购书体验来占领市场。
Kindle是第一款能让用户无需通过电脑、而直接通过无线宽带下载电子书的阅读器。亚马逊公司提供了大量的电子书籍供用户选择，大约有9万本之多，而索尼公司的可选书目仅有2.5万本。Kindle还可以直接下载电子报纸、杂志和博客，并进行自动更新。这可能是因为Kindle内置了手机数据传输网络，可以免费免费实现无线上网功能。
在过去六、七天里我一直在试用Kindle，我非常喜欢用它完成在线购书和下载操作，但这款阅读器本身就有些流于平庸了，虽然它在书籍显示、电池续航时间以及存储容量方面都表现不错，但在硬件设计和软件使用界面上都存在一些令人不快的瑕疵。Kindle比索尼读书器更大更沉，后者刚推出的第二代产品仅售300美元。
和索尼一样，亚马逊的阅读器应用了高对比度、低能耗的显示屏技术，但Kindle的六英寸屏幕只能显示单色文本和灰色图像，而且每次翻页时都有时间延迟和黑色闪屏。不过，我觉得屏幕效果好得让都我忘了自己是在阅读电子书籍。
Kindle的内存能存储约200本书，并能外接存储卡来保存更多的电子书、杂志和博客。用户可以在Kindle上保存和阅读某些类别的个人文档和照片，但必须先把内容发送给亚马逊，由其转换成专有的Kindle格式。
打开无线模式使用Kindle时，我隔几天充一次电，如果关掉无线功能，电池续航时间会更长。
通过份类清晰的Kindle在线商店，我能购买很多电子书，如汤姆•布洛考(Tom Brokaw)的《Boom!》，戴维•巴尔达西(David Baldacci)的《Stone Cold》，以及约瑟夫•艾里斯(Joseph Ellis)的《American Creation》。整个过程快速简便，这部分应归功于Kindle已预设了用户的帐户信息。
新书和畅销书的价格为每本9.99美元，亚马逊书店的纸质书一般卖15到20美元。其它种类的电子书价格相差很大，但通常都比纸质书便宜。
我还成功订阅了《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)、《纽约时报》(New York Times)、《时代周刊》(Time)的电子版，以及几个博客和新闻回馈。这类内容的阅读体验要差一些。与电脑上网浏览相比，它的版面设置笨拙得多，使用起来不方便，而且费用更高。那些原本在互联网上供免费阅读的博客和电子杂志在阅读器上却要付费，价格从每月99美分到14美元不等。
Kindle的软件有一些不错的功能，包括一个小键盘，有了它，你就可以一边阅读一边在空白处做笔记。此外，它还提供内容搜索功能，并且还带有一部内置字典。
但阅读器的设计有些难如人意。机身两侧有很大的翻页键，容易无意中碰到，因此我看书时页面经常无缘无故地翻动。另外，按键设置也让人搞不懂，一个名为"后退"(Back)的按键并不能回到前一页，似乎是回到上一功能。我一直没弄清它到底是干什么用的。
用于返回内容目录的Home键很小，而且位于键盘的最底部。没有按键可以直接连通在线商店，必须打开菜单后滚动选择。像书本封面一样的盖子本意是保护阅读器，但盖上后很不严实，经常会掉下来。由于开关键隐藏在背面，因此把阅读器翻过来按开关键时，盖子往往会脱落。
软件的用户界面也很粗糙，无法将电子书分门别类，因此用户得按Home键，然后在内容目录中翻页选择要看的书。许多指令的完成需要用户滚动一个指针，而银色的指针位于机身的狭窄边缘，几乎难以发现。
除此之外，用户既不能在阅读器上发送电子邮件，告诉朋友对一些书或文章的想法，无法发送摘录或链接地址，也不能为朋友购买Kindle的电子书作为礼物。
亚马逊在改善电子书购买体验上做的不错，但它在产品设计方面仍有很多东西要学。
关键字:双语新闻
生词表:
- amazon [´æməzən]
n.女战士 四级词汇 - automatically [ɔ:tə´mætikli] ad.自动地；无意识地 四级词汇
- hardware [´hɑ:dweə] n.五金器皿 四级词汇
- annoying [ə´nɔiiŋ] a.使人气恼的；讨厌的 六级词汇
- version [´və:ʃən, ´və:rʒən] n.翻译；说明；译本 四级词汇
- conversion [kən´və:ʃən] n.转化；变换；皈依 四级词汇
- poorly [´puəli] a.不舒服的 ad.贫穷地 四级词汇
- accidentally [,æksi´dentəli] ad.偶然地 六级词汇
- scroll [skrəul] n.卷轴；纸卷 六级词汇
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