I love Amazon’s Kindle, and the latest version is the Paperwhite. It is a dramatic improvement over previous editions, although they were fantastic in themselves. Paperwhite has background lighting so you can read it in bed, with the lights off, allowing somebody else to sleep, although it is so bright you might be asked to tone down the brightness – which is simple to do.

The other neat aspect of it was every time I opened the cover, on a separate cover that I bought for it, it automatically turned the Kindle on. It also incorporates much more images and certainly has a much longer battery life. The feature that I have left out that most people probably enjoy the most is that it works on touch control – in other words, you just touch the screen to turn the pages or to go to the next article. I probably prefer that but it is not as important a feature to me as the background lighting and the fact that the battery is much stronger.

I think Amazon has a huge success on its hands, and the fact that I could not obtain it at a single physical store while in America in December, as they were sold out, and had to order it online and wait a few weeks, is further evidence of how popular and successful this model will be. Incidentally, and that is just another aspect of commerce, you can choose between a version which has commercials on it, and get it for $30 or $40 cheaper, or you can pay extra and get a commercial-free version. I am sure that most people will take the more expensive version, to not be harassed by commercials, but it does show you that there are always options to put consumer products into the hands of consumers more cheaply by building in features like advertising.