One Step Closer to Rocket Cars
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
A few weeks back, I was lamenting the fact that, despite the fact that we are living in The Future, very little of the future occupies my home. Since that article, a few things have changed that I thought I might share.
First off, as an aside to all of our kitchen renovations, I also installed a new programmable thermostat. But I’ve mentioned that as an aside to another aside, so that’s really all I need to mention for now.
Then, some time last week, I ordered an iRobot Roomba Discovery SE. It isn’t the exact model that I was pining after, but so far as I can tell it as the exact same features. It’s just a generation behind. And because it was a generation behind, I got it for half the cost of a Roomba 530. It should be here today. I’m more than a little excited to try it out this evening. :) I haven’t swept the floors yet this week in anticipation.
And now, for the grand finale. Yesterday, Amazon announced a new device they’ve dubbed the Kindle. What is it, you ask? Pretty much the coolest thing since Gutenberg’s little printing-press-thinger, it is. It’s the first mainstream (or soon to be mainstream) product to feature electronic paper. It weighs a little over ten ounces, can hold over 200 books in memory, has a battery that lasts for days, and connects wirelessly using cellular technology (read: wireless access not needed) to download new books, newspapers, and blogs. It even has free access to Wikipedia, which is a pretty freaking cool idea. It looks like it has a metric crapton of buttons at the bottom, and for some reason its design reminds me of late eighties technology, but it’s still pretty cool. At $399, I’ll have to wait a bit to get one, but still. The awesome.