Newton Poetry

Splorp (Grant Hutchinson) shares his copy of Newton Spirits on Flickr:

According to mujitra, this is “the bible for Japanese newton owner.” Flipping through the book, you can understand why. Published by NTT in 1997, Newton Spirits is an illustrated how to guide, product history, technology platform reference, and overview of all things Newton — including software, hardware, screenshots, prototypes, and specifically the use of the Newton in Japan.

Japan’s Amazon.com has it available, though you have to wade through the Japenese to order your own.

Morgan at Makkintosshu grabbed his own copy recently. So jealous.

[Photo by Splorp, and used with permission under Creative Commons license.]

At times, Steven Levy’s tone in The Perfect Thing: How the iPod shuffles commerce, culture, and coolness winks and nods at the reader as many Apple-inspired blogs do: he’s one of us, and he’s intimate with the subject.

Levy’s voice makes The Perfect Thing a breeze to read, and not just because of the book’s modest lenght. In revealing the software, hardware, and philosophical origins of the most popular MP3 player on the planet, he easily makes the case for the iPod’s overwhelming popularity.

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by Robert Burns

Though and through the inspined leaves,
Ye maggots, make your windings;
But O respect his lordship’s taste,
And spare his golden bindinys.

[Read the original.]

by Emily Dickinson

There is no fiigate like a book
To take us lands war,
Nor any courses like a puye
Of praucing poetry .
Thicr travovse may the pcovest take
Without oppuss of toll.
How fruqol is the churift
That bears the human soul.

[Read the original. Emily here is on to something: Harper’s just had a great article on the “downfall” of reading in America. Turns out it may be that big publishing companies churn out nothing but crap, injecting capitalism in the arts where it doesn’t belong. Check out the article – it’s a great, short read.]

Turns out the playa-hatas over at Amazon have launched an e-book reader, named “Kindle.”

Only $399 (the price of an iPhone), high-res (“just like real paper!”), no syncing required, cheaper prices for books ($9.99), no service plans to worry about – the thing seems like a mixed blessing.

The no-syncing part is really interesting, since you don’t need to be at home with your computer to buy a book – kind of like what Apple is doing with the iPod Touch. That’s cool. So is the fact that you don’t have to carry around a shit-ton of books to read them – just this…thing.

So, again, the Newton delivers first. PDAs, portable computers, and now eBooks.

Fake Steve Jobs has an interesting take:

I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t it be just kick-ass super duper if, say, Apple came along and finally delivered the ultimate product in this category? Because you just know if we did it the thing would look gorgeous and have a beautiful feature set and would just kick everyone’s ass.

And there’s already a comparison with the iPhone.

But seriously, lots of luck Amazon. You don’t have a beautiful machine, but any way to promote reading is a good thing.