Amazon Kindle

Amazon has launched its e-book reader, Kindle. While the electronic-paper technology looks very cool, and the Sprint partnership sounds like an interesting way of delivering the content, I just can't believe how ugly the thing looks. It's been getting grief in a lot of corners for not accepting pdf formats and for being generally expensive, but I just can't believe that somebody would design it to look like this. Now, Amazon is not Apple and doesn't have much experience with designing products like this, but they spent enough time and money that they should have got it right. It looks like something from another era. A lot of people wouldn't think about paying such a steep price if it were a flashy piece of kit, but in the iPod and iPhone age it's just plain hideous.