The Kindle, 1984, and the kid that sued
For those of you who don’t know, 1984 by George Orwell was removed from Amazon Kindle’s everywhere a few months ago, without any explanation.
Yes, the company did apologize and go through all the motions necessary for a recall.
I’m still laughing at the irony. For those of you who have never read 1984, you should know it is one of the finest novels ever written. It is about Winston Smith, a man who works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, and his job was to rewrite history. Part of it was deleting past headlines and replacing them with substitutes in order to support Big Brother. I’m not going to explain the concept of Big Brother, but Amazon has just taken a step to become it.
To make this situation even more humorous, some kid was doing a book report on 1984 for school, and his notes were on the Kindle itself. When 1984 was officially unbooked, he lost his notes.
Since the Kindle ate his homework, he sued Amazon, and he won. Yes, it’s official. He has to split $150,00 with the co-plaintiff and the law firm, but I think most of his college fund is taken care of.
Asus is not only putting out those awesome Eee books, but it would appear they are doing their own version of the reader. Putting the Kindle in its place, this guy could have two full-color touchscreens. That second display could be used as a virtual keyboard for web browsing, which could easily make it another netbook. Not only does it have all this, but it could be sold at a very low price of $160. 
I’m sure all of you have heard of the famous Asus Eee, the netbook that revolutionized the netbook industry, and it would appear that Asus is going to change the e-reader platform with their own version. 