Posted by Eugene Volokh: Need a Good Name for the Kindle, the Sony Reader, and the Like: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_09-2009_08_15.shtml#1250083418
I'm writing the foreword for the forthcoming Michigan Law Review Survey of Books Related to the Law, and I decided to write about how the Kindle and similar products (especially in their foreseeable future generations) are likely to change law books -- textbooks, treatises, other practitioner books, and academic books. I have a bunch of ideas, which I hope to blog about soon. But in the meantime, I'm facing a problem: What term should I use to refer to the hardware? "Electronic book" and "e-book" have seemingly come to mean the electronic texts. "E-book reader" is the common term, but it strikes me as a bit jarring when used in a discussion of humans as readers (e.g., "Readers will like e-book readers because ..."). "Kindle" refers just to one product, and is likely to lead my readers to think about the limitations of the current product, rather than the foreseeable possibilities of the technology more generally. Any suggestions? I prefer something that will be instantly comprehensible without the need for any special definition. Many thanks! _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
