Electronic Books
from the more-stuff-to-read dept
CNN is running a summary report on electronic books. Interesting stuff, but I still think they’re way too expensive, and too unlike a real book for people to get into them yet. In the meantime, they’ll remain novelty items for wealthy gadget freaks.
Comments on “Electronic Books”
E-books are cool, but not the ones they mentioned
Count me as in favour of e-books, but not necessarily in the form they are sold in today. When I carried my Pilots I always had several chapters of novels or entire novels stored for reading in transit or in the can. Now that I carry a Psion Series 5 I can have several novels on compact flash as well as HTML and RTF documents.
While dedicated book readers can have some advantages (ie: they pay people to add formatting, graphics and/or special features; easier time convincing publishers to try them since they use encrypted/secure formats instead of open ones) I think they’re lack of versatility will doom them. They are usually bigger and heavier than a PDA yet do much less. On the other hand, they are not as satisfying or easy to read as a paper book.
One thing I do look forward to is increased use of active, backlit screens for better legibility (I’m dying to try one of those Casio E-100’s but will probably go back to Palm after my Psion dies)