I use the Kindle (Kindle for PC) -- I am the anti-thesis but I can see the use for the consumer of the Kindle device -- a single purpose computer. People want to read books on a screen that can zoom and set background colors at the beach, on an airplane at some other place where you can't bring your bookshelf. Books for the Kindle are also considerably less than the hardback version so I think it's a good value.

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Amazon annual report - 2010 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...xUeXBlPTM=&t=1 [O]ne example is Whispersync, our Kindle service designed to ensure that everywhere you go, no matter what devices you have with you, you can access your reading library and all of your highlights, notes, and bookmarks, all in sync across your Kindle devices and mobile apps. The technical challenge is making this a reality for millions of Kindle owners, with hundreds of millions of books, and hundreds of device types, living in over 100 countries around the world?at 24x7 reliability. At the heart of Whispersync is an eventually consistent replicated data store, with application defined conflict resolution that must and can deal with device isolation lasting weeks or longer. As a Kindle customer, of course, we hide all this technology from you. So when you open your Kindle, it?s in sync and on the right page. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, like any sufficiently advanced technology, it?s indistinguishable from magic. ...