Amazon publicly announced the Kindle 2 today, which is thinner and lighter, has more storage, and comes with a better display. I have been really curious about it for sometime, but I hate to purchase the 1st generation of anything as it is more of a test product that will eventually be improved based on user input. I may just purchase a Kindle 2 as not only has it been improved in many ways, but it also has several experimental features that look interesting:
Read-to-Me
Now Kindle can read to you. With its new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you. You can switch back and forth between reading and listening, and your spot is automatically saved. Pages automatically turn while the content is being read, so you can listen hands-free. You can speed up or slow down the reading speeds or choose a male or female voice. Anything you can read on Kindle, Kindle can read to you, including books, newspapers, magazines, blogs and even personal documents. In the middle of a great book or article but have to jump in the car? Simply turn on Text-to-Speech and listen on the go.
Basic Web Browser
Kindle's Basic Web browser works well to read simple, text-centric Web sites such as Google and Wikipedia. Need to find a movie listing or look up a sports score? Now it's easier than ever to find the information you're looking for right from your Kindle.
PDF Document Conversion
You can email your PDF documents wirelessly to your Kindle, just like other personal documents. Due to PDF's fixed layout format, some complex PDF files may not format correctly on your Kindle.
Listen to Music & Podcasts
Transfer MP3 files to Kindle to play as background music while you read. You can quickly and easily transfer MP3 files via USB by connecting Kindle to your computer.
Very, very cool. Check out the Kindle 2.