When Will E-Books Become Mainstream? 350
An anonymous reader writes "IBM developerWorks is running an interesting article dicussing the difficulties faced by e-books and what it might take to help them to 'break out'. What are some other ways to give books a 21st-century facelift?"
When will they become mainstream? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, adding to the above list, when you can forget your ebook at a bus stop / park bench / other location, and not worry about it because it only cost you $10 (or less). In other words, not for a long, long time.
Back that up- Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well here becomes the issue- Why is this so? Think about the actual cost to develop and produce a very simple device that will display text. Forget crazy postscript formats. Plain text in a screen about five inches high by three across just like a real book. A couple hardware buttons for forward/back (with an ability to scroll like anything) and oh.... 16-32MB of onboard Flash memory. A display doesn't need to be backlit, as those $5 handheld video games (back when I was a kid...) that run on a couple AA's work very nicely.
So maybe we're all overthinking this. We assume an e-book reader needs to cost hundreds of dollars and be rather complicated. We assume it needs to be backlit and hold hundreds of books. Make them $20-$25 devides with a prev/next button that displays only text in an easy-to-read font adn we're set.
Think about it- Is this something that consumers are driving or manufacturers. Consumers don't need colour displays and touchscreens on their reader. That's why they're heavy. They need plain text input documents and to have a small device with a low-power processor (my XT (8086) and WordPerfect used to run circles around any modern 'tablet'-style e-book reader)- none of this PDF stuff.
So there's my comment on the reader. Now the other thing to ask is do 99.99% of consumers want e-books or is it publishers who want to save the coin and cut out the middle-man?
-M
Re:Back that up- Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Calculators have been photovoltaic for years, so there's no reason why an ebbok couldn't be.
As for backlighting an LED. Why not do the Viewmaster trick? Instead of a battery powered light source, why not make the back of the unit transparent? That way, you could simply hold it up, and any ambient room or outdoor light could
Re:Back that up- Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
And to answer another question, I want them. I want to be able to lug my entire library in my back pocket. I move and travel constantly, and physical books are a pain...
Re:Back that up- Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to liken it to e-mail. When you recieve a hand written letter from someone you get a piece of paper that they have touc
This is EXACTLY the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm saying lets keep it simple. A forward, back, and 'mark' button. Hold the mark button to set a bookmark, press it to go back to it (maybe a confirmation for accidental purposes). Maybe even add the ability to add a few marks. All it needs is a byte, line, or page offset.
Write i
Re:Never? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, the only reasons for electronic books (not e-books specifically) are the reasons software vendors offer them as free downloads: to reduce expense and speed up delivery. It makes sense for me to download the manual for a piece of hardware, or download developer documentation from Oracle. It's free, and it saves me the trouble of lugging a lot of heavy books.
For smaller books, fiction or books I'll want to read away from my computer, the advantag
Re: Never? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm quite sure that Ebooks in their present form aren't suitable for you. But how can you assume that everyone has the same needs, restrictions, and requirements as you?
I, for example, have been reading much more off the screen of my 5mx than off paper for the last few years. In terms of convenience, for me, it beats paper hands down -- my 5mx lives in my trouser pocket, whereas paperbacks would have to be carried separately. I find the screen comfortable enough to read from, and my CF card holds the equivalent of about 3 bookcases full, so I'm unlikely to have read it all in the near future. I don't have to worry about bookmarks, and the backlight means I can read in bed with the lights off. Battery life isn't a problem -- even with the heavy use mine gets, a pair of AAs lasts 20-30 hours (probably more if I was only using it to read books). I can search, and cut'n'paste the text. I can even edit it (e.g. anglicising the spelling).
Of course, most people don't carry such a gadget around with them, so this method wouldn't apply to them; but it works very well for me, thank you.
Re:Never? (Score:3, Insightful)
All kinds of onerous DRM, all incompatible with each other. I can lend a book to a friend or sell it at a garage sale. How will this work with a DRM hobbled e-book? Until the publishers all get on the same page and get over their DRM paranoia, e-books will be toys that might get bought by a few wealthy gadget lovers in special stores, but not at the supermarket checkstand. I think we'll still see a lot of dead trees in the forseeable future.
DRM. (Score:3, Insightful)
When you can publish material without censorship.
http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/pictures/imager
Re:DRM. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, I can't believe the lists of demands. It's like a hostage negotiation, heh.
Several years ago, I had a PocketPC. I downloaded a couple of e-books and found the experience quite enjoyable. The display and form factor were nice. It was so nice that I could hold the unit in one hand instead of using both to force it to stay open. The scroll wheel made page turning nice and
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, display must be non-powered. That OLCD stuff already makes this possible. Either that or the plastic paper that was recently demo'ed.
Second, the battery must be long lasting. Lithium ion batteries will do the job.
The killer is going to be storage, of course, and DRM.
As mentioned if at least one other comment, one must be permitted to lend the "book" to a friend. Whether this means a one-off license that is part of an "uncopyable" file that transfers to the
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is perhaps the biggest issue here, since technology alone won't solve it.
Almost nobody will want to publish without DRM and even then they'll be afraid the DRM scheme will be broken.
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no need to have kiosks selling ram cards. Your book would have internet access, or at least a bluetooth connection to your mobile phone so you could buy them online from an itunes style interface.
Secondly, it isn't a case of getting the finance to launch it. You have to persuade the book publishers that it is a good idea and that it wouldn't lead to rampant so called "piracy" that would destroy their business. At least one of them, Warner Publi
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:2)
afaict the main thing that controls book piracy atm is its a pain to actually make a copy of a book especially if you wan't it bound properly so people only bother copying things like textbooks which are far more expensive than most mass market books for the same size of book.
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:2)
reading on a PC or laptop is just about acceptable but has major power and portablity issues and the current generation of pdas look pretty horrible for trying to actually read a book.
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:3, Funny)
You, with your Apple iLibro, are reading the seventh book of the Harry Potter trilogy.
Here comes your wide-eyed nephew. "Can I read it, please please please?" He's holding up his iLibro eagerly.
"Sure", you say. Smiling, you tap on the "share me!" tab on the top of the iLibro's screen. Nephew's iLibro acks and receives the book in four seconds. MEEP.
Nephew flops down on the grass, eagerly reading his new copy of HP.
I've just made a publisher's heart skip four beats with th
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)
The latest hardcover of the Honor Harrington serise, Honor's War, included a CD with the electronic version of every single novel written by David Weber for the "Honorverse," as well as all three of the Honorverse anthologies.
This isn't the action of someone worried about book piracy. Far from being worried, Baen has made proportio
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are quite a few nonfiction publishers that release their books for free in digital form. See my sig for a few hundred examples of free books, many of which are also available in print.
Re:When will they become mainstream? (Score:2)
When you can use them with an indirect source of light. Having a screen next to your face as the only light source can put a pretty heavy strain in your eyes.
People already do most of their reading digitally (Score:5, Insightful)
If the internet is competing with television in terms of total amount of time people spend recreationally, and the internet is mostly text, then the electronic text on the internet is utterly stomping traditional books in terms of total reader time.
I don't think e-books are going to take off to be anything other than niche. Why would people replace their books with the same thing, but digital? Long established technologies don't get overthrown by slight improvements, but radical departures. A three inch by four inch by one inch square can provide 40 or 50 hours of entertainment... why replace that with the an expensive, multi-step gizmo that provides functionally the same thing? That being said, people would accept their books being replaced by something different. That something different would appear to be the compellingness of news.bbc.co.uk, or slashdot, or any number of interesting sites and online texts. People are probably going to get wireless web-enabled phones, PDA's, and Palmtops, and will do a lot of reading through these devices, but they won't look like an electronic book any more than a PC resembles an electronic film projector.
When? (Score:2, Insightful)
Publishers will more quickly adopt ebooks once someone can not find almost every ebook ever released by forming a proper ebook google search. [tech-recipes.com]
If ebooks are copied this easily without punishment, publishers have no reason to push forward.
Is DRM the answer? (Well, I can't even suggest that on slashdot, can I?)
I buy programming books like candy. I've noticed that recently the quality of the printed texts are going way, way down. More errors in code, more misspellings, cheap
Re:When? (Score:5, Insightful)
One problem I have with ebooks is that publishers want to take all the benefits and push all the negatives on the user, pretty much by cost-shifting to the user.
eBooks require proprietary programs or proprietary hardware, which the user is required to use.
Publishers get away from the costs having to print, package, store and distribute paper, they cut out the middle man of distributors and book sellers and yet, they still often charged 90% the cost of the paper book, and the cost of reading the ebook in a portable fashion is high, one has to own and use a laptop. Laptops still have run time issues, books don't.
Re:When? (Score:3, Interesting)
Books are integral to human learning and we're extremely familiar with them; our earliest memories have books in them.
When we start reading bedtime stories to our nieces and nephews from tablets and electronic paper, then children will grow up knowing that as the way to be.
Because children growing up now are still being taught from and are used to reading books, it's going to take a long t
Re:When? (Score:2)
No. Perfect DRM is a mathematical impossibility. Imperfect DRM will be cracked, eventually, if enough people care about it. It only needs to be cracked once and it is then nearly useless.
I buy programming books like candy. I've noticed that recently the quality of the printed texts are going way, way down. More errors in code, more misspellings, cheaper paper, etc.
I don't think quality is declining -- your standards are improving. I recently reread a few of the C / C++ programming books
Re:When? (Score:2)
Re:When? (Score:2)
i'm studying electronic systems engineering and the blunt fact is most of the students have either never programmed in anything before or have only a very primitive knowlage of VB and nothing else. The last thing they wan't to do is have to teach the complexities of input in java before they teach basic programming.
btw at my university they used a non-standard input unit to simplify input but it wasn't gui. They also used an IDE known as bluej wh
Personally? (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that, reading in front of a monitor at this point in time is not enjoyable. Maybe (hopefully) e-paper will change that.
For me, when I first heard about E-books I immediately thought "no cost of shipping, no middleman warehouse distribution, no physical cost to print/bind, no brick and mortar store paying electricity, rent, stocking risky books at a premium, they'll be dirt cheap!" I was wrong.
Re:Personally? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the publisher looked at those exact same issues and said "I'll be rich"!
75 years from now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Older books (pre UN drug treaty) were printed on hemp paper and can last hundreds of years without too many problems.
Re:75 years from now? (Score:2)
Even good quality (acid-free) wood pulp paper will last for this long. However, the qual
You weren't worng (Score:2, Informative)
New devices as Nokia 770 [nokia770.com] can make read more enjoyable with good 800x600 screens. ePaper may be the future, but not the present.
You can't say that on slashdot!
You have a lot of free (as in beer, as in speech
Huzzah for Dead Trees! (Score:2, Insightful)
why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:3, Interesting)
why do we even need e-books?
seriously, i'm no luddite, i just fail to see any compelling reason to replace something that isn't broken
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do your bit to reduce greenhouse gases, cut down a tree! (And plant a new one.)
Most new paper pulp comes from tree farms, and has for decades.
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently went on holiday, and usually I take 5 or 6 books for a 2 week period, and thats rarely enough. This way I was able to take 200 or 300 books, and save on my airline baggage allowance.
Will ebooks replace books? Maybe not for the vast majority of the public, but for me, tehy pretty much already have.
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:3, Interesting)
With the press of a button I can be back where I was, I can turn pages with one hand so I can hold onto the subway, it glows in the dark if I want (Also useful to find way to the washroom at night).
I can read about 50% of a book on one charge (Li-Ion no usb charge)
Before that I had a Palm IIIxe not the greatest but available for $15-30 bucks and can read two books on 2 AA batteries.
I have an increadible selection with me wherever I go and sin
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
Re:"Cheap iPaq?" (Score:2)
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, I'm reading a hardcover novel at the moment that's about 600 pages long. It's so big and bulky (1.5 inches thick) that I can't easily carry it on trips in my laptop bag and it cost $25.95. Unfortunately it's not available in e-book format, and the books that are tend to be in proprietary formats, saddled with annoying DRM and don't cost much less than their paper versions.
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because on one device, you could carry all your books, instead of lugging hundreds of pounds around with you.
Very useful for those of us with huge college textbooks, for example.
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
why do we even need e-books?
"Real" books are *not* cheap. Production and distribution costs for a paperback book are typically $3-$5 US. Production and distribution costs of an e-book are almost zero, except that the reader needs a display device (~ $50 production and distribution cost). So if the average reader will purchase more than 10 books there are cost savings to be had.
The problem
Re:why fix something that isn't broken? (Score:2)
Why do people go to concerts when they can buy all music on CDs, too? It's about the same reason, I'd say - music isn't just about the songs, and books aren't just about the words. I'
They just don't get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They just don't get it... (Score:2)
2. Ereader.com has fairly 'loose' DRM, in that you unlock the book in their reader and thats it. You can download it to as many systems as you want.
3. Most ebooks are actually pretty cheap if you shop around - most of hte ones Ive bought have been at 50% or less than their paper brethrens.
Remember, not all solutions are best for everyone. If you dont like ebooks, fine.
hmmm... (Score:2)
P2P-"sharing". (Think libPod.) Wonder if Simon & Schuster will go for it...
I do this all the time (Score:3, Insightful)
But the main issue is in the reader. So far, they only work with Palm, Windows CE, and I think one cell phone device (not inluding PC readers, which is silly - I want a handheld unit). Most people aren't going to shell out $100 for a "ebook only" device - especially one that just works with cartridges or has a single purpose.
Most PDA's are a good example - if more phones go the PDA style route, that may work as well. Odds are, as we see more "cell phone/internet access devices", and more support on the INternet for these devices (ever try to surf slashdot.org or most sites with a cell phone web browser? Yeah. Pain.), perhaps ebooks will take off.
Until then, they're a side show, a novelty for people such as myself who don't mind looking at a little screen while I read about the Shaftoes and Waterhouses galavanting about the world.
How I read ebooks (Score:5, Insightful)
*Great story, by the way. King Vikramiditya (Vikram for short) is tasked to carry a vampire a certain distance. Every time he speaks, the vampire goes back to its tree and he has to start again. So the meat of the book is a dozen or so stories told by the vampire in order to get Vikram to react by saying something out loud.
facelift ? (Score:2)
E-ink, price, rights (Score:2, Redundant)
2)They must be priced competitively. 10 cent chapters. $1-2 books. Free content which is in the public domain or put out by individual authors.
3)They must not be so encumbered by DRM that people find them useless. One major f
Re:E-ink, price, rights (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It needs to work everywhere. No proprietary devices, software, or code. Like HTML... or the printing press. Just print out the book if you like.
2) No DRM. That crap is killing everything, and making me consider moving to the bahamas or something. I wish I'd never heard of it. Well, it is hard to kill music with DRM, but easy to kill books. So we need something like HTML... or the printing press. Just print out the boo
Re:E-ink, price, rights (Score:2)
Disagree, but because the iPod did get it right: it supports mp3.HTML is the best format for it.HTML is a lousy format for reading--it isn't prepress. Few browsers make it pretty & an ebook reader should be dumb enough to support it. PDF is my bet: it looks EXACTLY the way the publisher intended on any device. It is well-documented. It can support DRM (so publishers will buy in), but the DRM sucks (so tech
Re:E-ink, price, rights (Score:3, Insightful)
Never. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your mileage may, as always, vary.
When they do what I want (Score:2, Interesting)
Be light enough to read in bed.
have a built in dictionary(highlight word, get
def , in language of choice)
have built in pronunciation, (highlight word or phrase and hear it, in language of choice)
ebooks are erehwon (Score:5, Informative)
Ebook technology is backwards. The article pretty much is dead on (in summary:).
In addition, ebook readers don't feel like or smell like books. I saw Bill Gates give a presentation probably five years ago and he was hot for ebook technology. He described how ebooks would simulate the look and feel of a book to the extent that would be possible electronically. Virtually none of his listed features have appeared (e.g., the ability to "flip" a page with your finger as if it were a paper book).
As for the above listed reasons:
A year later I got the new and improved version, same size, higher resolution and in color! Virtually no improvement in the font rendering, I returned that unit the same day also.
Some things are worse than DRM (Score:2)
eBook Gold [ebookgold.com]
Apple jumps in (Score:2)
IE, when there is a profit incentive. By the time Dell jumps in, the market is already "mainstream".
Put another way: Before Apple's iPod, the big player was Creative Labs; mp3s were popular, but I don't think you can use the term 'mainstream'. Then after Apple jumped in, so did Dell.
So wait until Apple jumps in, and creates a really popular eBook reader/format, and you should be okay. It's way past okay when Dell jumps in.
It's the Library stupid... (Score:2)
So round about... oh... when hell freezes over and people quit using DRM.
Better media (Score:2)
Ebooks are pretty good right now, except for the media that you view them on. When I bought a Cassiopea a few years ago, I found it really convenient to have a number of books with me (MS Reader fomat). But I found it really inconvenient when the darn screen cracked (and its nigh on impossible to buy parts for that kind of thing!)
When you can buy a reader that looks, feels, and wears like a paper book, that isn't going to break from rough handling; when you can load new content easily on said reader; TH
Anyone else hate ebooks? (Score:2)
Price. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, beyond the fact that there aren't many companies putting out E-books as-yet...
- Exportability. Who wants to buy an E-book (that costs nearly as much as the paper version) when it's digitally signed/encrypted so that it can't be exported into other formats? It may not bother you now, but a few years down the line it'd really piss you off if that copy of Harry Potter in
.lit format couldn't be converted to a format that is still in existence. Hell, some E-books won't even let you print your copy out on paper. WTF is up with that...
Just my 2 cents. YMMVWhen E-Paper is commercially availible (Score:2, Insightful)
epaper and html (Score:3, Interesting)
Also the ebooks need to come in an open format, I personally think semantically correct (x)html would be perfect. Easily restyled to your personally preference.
Blind users would also benefit from that as they wouldn't need to wait ages for the book to come out on tape, assuming it does at all.
Firefox in my pocket is what i want.
For Research not for Reading (Score:2)
Ebooks are mainstream (Score:2)
For instance, the Houston Public Library allows you to check out and read certain books online. Rather than hopping in a car and driving around town to find a physical copy of book X at one of the 30 library locations, I can simply fire up a browser and check it out. No need to worry about late
For me, a useful e-book would be like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Give me an "eBook" that's about the size and weight of a standard paperback. Open it up, and there should be electronic paper on both sides. Visible in normal light and bright sunshine. Minimum 300dpi resolution. The two facing screens should display type much like a paperback does, with a nice mat finish (no shiny stuff). And it should be augmented by touch sensitivity, so I can "change pages" with "gestures"... by swiping across the right hand page (top corner down towards center) in the standard "turning the page" gesture. There should be touch sensitive spots along the bottom that allow me to call up the table of contents, an index (that also allows searches), and tools to allow me to highlight and bookmark passages. When I open the eBook it should open to right where I left off. It should be water resistent, shock resistent, and the screen should be flexible enough that I don't have to worry about breaking the damn thing.
New books should be just a pluggable memory cartridge away. The memory cartridges should also store the bookmarks and highlights and "current position" so I can flip through several books at any time without losing my place in any one of them.
Once an eBook experience is like THAT, then watch out, they'll actually start to catch on. Or at the very least, *I* would suddenly be interested in owning one.
PSP Browser + Gutenburg Project (Score:2, Informative)
When? (Score:2)
One reason people like paper is for sharp text and graphics. Low-end laser printer do 600dpi while urrent eReader devices use the lowest resolution they can get away with and that puts most of them under 100dpi.
Add the facts that eReader documents can be DRM'd or otherwise uncopiable/undistributable.
Paper simply always works. Un
When... paper + digital benefits... (Score:2)
Not too tall an order if the players have a mind to give us what we want and not try to force us to accept what they want.
all the best,
drew
--
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/57503 [ourmedia.org]
Personally, I prefer (Score:2)
when you can... (Score:2)
when? (Score:2)
Tungsten E w/ Magicians Nephew (Score:2)
Shown is low contrast I usually use somewhere in the middle, and I find that I can read a page and put it away in about 10-15 secs.
Hitting the button on the front set up for book opens to exactly where I was with just one hand.
It's extremely convenient, for long term use I don't mind looking at the screen either using iSiloX text is easily big enough to keep the unit far from my face.
My only problem has
Changing Documents (Score:2)
Idea (Score:2)
Never (Score:2, Insightful)
Never as long as DRM and time restrictions exist (Score:2)
On a lesser note, unless I can write and scribble "digital" notes
oh, and another thing! (Score:2)
I posted before [slashdot.org] on this and listed a few of my experiences and reasons for the unfortunate premature death of ebooks. Let me add another reason...
As always, I get all excited again when I think about the potential of ebooks and what they could bring. Seeing this slashdot article, I set out to google myself the latest and greatest. Turns out not much has changed.
Probably one of the most egregious and unforgivable injuries visited on the consumers is the lack of a price break. Consider:
For me (Score:2)
In short, e-books will become mainstream when you can treat them as horribly as you can treat paper books. In the meantime, there exists an alternative which is much cheaper and a lot more durable.
Dumb article, dumb discussion (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead, it reiterated the same tired old points pro and con, totally missed the point of the Baen Free Library [baen.com] (and also didn't recognize that Webscriptions, its commercial counterpart, has been doing quite well for itself in e-sales alone), and went on to snark at the very notion of commercially-viable ebooks and talk about various things that don't have a darned thing to do with ebooks, like RFID tagging library books. Um, what?
And the discussion is the Standard Slashdot Ebook Advocacy Debate, whereupon people mostly or totally ignore the content of the article and instead argue about how ebooks suxx0r or r0xx0r.
And here I'd hoped I'd read something interesting. Oh well. Maybe next time.
Besides the more correct answers... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to get a mystical experience from reading some poorly written 16th century manuscript if it's on a computer screen or handheld, but if the same bad prose is printed on the fading yellow pages of a several centuries old stack of paper and wood it becomes a spiritual thing and no amount of poor editing can get in the way.
Do I sound cynical? I have friends who are always complaining that they want to read certain things but can never get around to checking the books out of the library. I point out that I could just email them a copy and they get indignant. It's for this reason that I've taken to buying physical copies of books if I really liked them.
Why do e-books have to be exactly like books? (Score:2)
Nobody is saying that computer documents (like web pages) have to be exactly like books. The Slashdot discussion you're reading right now is nothing like a book. It's not printed on anything like paper. It's not formatted into anything like a book page. The experience of reading it is nothing like reading the "Letters to the Editor" column of your local newspaper, although the length and content is (arguably) similar. Yet people read it.
Things don't have to be in
You just don't know how to cook them properly (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how large the screen is, unless you need huge diagrams or maps. What matters for reading comfort is resolution and contrast. My Palm Tungsten E2 has about the same contrast than average book paper under average lighting and about 30-50% the resulution. On the other hand, a PDA is 100-200 grams, while a book can be 0.5-2 kg. It's physically uncomfortable to read books when you lie on your back, for example. And you won't get proper lighting then, while PDA screen is backlit. The author tried to mislead the readers about squinting - you don't squint because of a small screen, you squint because of small text. And who forces you to read in small font? With a PDA you can choose ANY font.
They're not portable if you have to read them on a desktop computer; if you read them on a laptop or PDA, you can't read if you run out of power.
You can't read an ordinary book if you run out of power too. I probably isn't be mistaken much when I estimate that about 80% of reading or more is done under artificial light. And if you have artificial light it usually means you have electricity, which means you can plug in your notebook or PDA.
There's a number of often incompatible formats that the files come in.
That doesn't affect those of us, who use compatible formats. It's like saying that cars have failed, because Model X is ugly or that Hollywood has failed because Actor Y can't act.
And the user's ability to access the book's content is often restricted by various digital rights management technologies.
Same as above. My ability is never restricted, because I simply don't accept (and will never accept) any DRM curses on my books. I prefer IRC (#bookwarez) to DRM. And again, this doesn't prove ebooks are bad.
The guy doesn't understand the reality of the issue and he is really at the kindergarten level. Just ignore him and he will go away. BTW, everyone who brings up flying cars is dangerous to society and should get a court order restraining him from speaking about future.
He is also clueless, because he thinks that electronic paper will greatly increase the popularity of ebooks. This is not the case, to put it mildly. Yes, in a decade or two we will have paper-thin computers that look better than paper. And at the same time ebooks will be mainstream. But the latter won't happen because of the former. Of course, someone who thinks that reflected light is somehow more pleasing to the eye than emitted light is better ignored (rather than asked to cover "technological issues").
Cory doctorow said it all. (Score:4, Interesting)
First, the article highlight a few common points about the current state of e-books, but then it degenerates into some kind of rant (although it has some good points too).
First, I have a few things to say about the "properties" of e-books.
Fine, that's true. That does not mean they are destined to be a failure. One just has to know the consequences of using one technology (ebooks) or another (paper).
I can carry more e-books in my PDA than I could possibly do with paper (about 20 books). I know perfectly that I'm forced to read from a tiny little screen, but that's something I know, that's the price I pay. If some day I wanted to read from a more "comfortable" medium, I could easily take a paper book from my home library. It's a matter of choices. It might be better for reading reference material, but that doesn't mean it's not workable.
This is related to the point above. You have to keep in mind that you cannot read a paper book either without power (cannot read in the dark). Okay, in the case of ebooks, you need TWO power sources.
He's right about that. That's why standards are important. We've got ASCII text as a las resort, though.
Cory Doctorow [craphound.com] already talked about that. He's right on target. Most of the e-books I read are either:
No need to say anything else.
About books and readers, even if there are no commercially available readers, that does not mean people wouldn't use one. People do read their reference material from somewhere. It would be great if they made that "electronic paper" cheap enough, but even if that level cannot be achieved that doesn't mean ebooks are not good.
Then he proceeds to bash some (IMHO stupid) ideas from marketing people. The author's right about this. Most of these ideas are about trying to sell books to people that wouldn't want to read them (like a video-game-in-a-book).
E-books are probably not successful because of the points mentioned in the first part, especially the DRM stuff. I think they would be a success, even with mediocre reader devices if people realised they have a place, not exactly as the paper versions, but as something not quite the same, more versatile (I'm starting to sound like Mr. Doctorow...).
I think the show stopper is the DRM, that causes that more versatile, yet inferior thing to lose its versatility (thus making it an overall loser), with lack of good reader devices a not so important cause.
Why focus on the negatives? (Score:3, Interesting)
Me, I don't think the e-book is a good format for fiction. If I want to read Lord of The Rings I don't want to be sitting at a PC or holding some device.
How about the positives:
-They can be published very fast.
I wrote an e-book, made the first sale within a week. In the traditional publishing world that doesn't happen.
-They have high profit margins for the writers:
The only middleman is the billing processor. Whats that, 3% or 4%? High profit margins for writers mean you can write a book that has a small audience and still pay your bills at the end of the month -- and maybe even write another.
-The can be easily updated
Forget 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions being measured in years. In the e-book world it can be a matter of days.
-Easier to make an interactive experience
In the e-book world the author can personally work with readers. For example, he or she could charge a price that would sound outrageous on Amazon or in Borders, but makes sense for a reader who needs in-depth and personal support. The author can tie the e-book into a premium/subscription website.
When I hear "e-book" I think positive. Very positive.
Re:when they (Score:2)
Considering you can fit even the largest e-book (no pictures) onto the smallest USB thumb drive, you can. The problem arrises when you want to read it. when you're out and about.
I just bought Victor Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs" from Amazon.com in ebook format the other night.
I was actually forced into buying the ebook version, since the hardcover was over 40$ (even used), and the softcover was overpriced, as well.
The ebook was under 10$
Re:when they (Score:2)
problem is that I had grabbed 2 other books off project gutenberg (albeit, at least a year or 2 ago) and it was riddled with typos and some paragraphs that were nearly indecipherable.
YES (Score:2)
Re:Wrong Question -- MOD PARENT UP (Score:3)
The fact that a few techno-geeks think that ebooks are better doesn't mean the technology will
Re:I know this one! (Score:2)
Re:I know this one! (Score:2)
Re:luddites! (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest is the cost shift issue.
Only when ebooks are priced such that it reflects the fact that the costs are a lot lower to make them. That and there is an affordable large transflective display so I don't have to read on an emissive screen.
As it is, it costs more to buy 50 ebooks + some sort of reader than it does to just buy the 50 books. And those books are re-sellable. The ebook reader is too risky from a damage perspective, I can drop a book on conc