Slashdot Mirror
When Will E-Books Become Mainstream?
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 you can roll them up and stick them in a back pocket. When you can sit for six hours under a tree somewhere reading it and not worry about your battery. When you can browse them in a store and load them onto your reader without worrying about multiple formats. In short, when they're as easy to read, carry, buy and keep as a paperback book, and not until.
... Do they really even *need* a 21st-century facelift?
Make them as light, as reader friendly and as durable as normal books...
When will ebooks become mainstream?
Publishers will more quickly adopt ebooks once someone can not find almost every ebook ever released by forming a proper ebook google search.
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, cheaper paper, etc. When you combine the decreasing quality with real books along with ebooks features of easy storage and searching, it'll happen.
I'll start buying E-books when the price of mainstream ones is substantially lower than their physical counterparts. Why bother taking risks with proprietary readers and formats when I know my trusty hardcover -- short of disaster -- will be readable 75 years from now?
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.
Frankly, the feel of actually holding a book one's hand, being able to carry it around, pick it up and put it down at leisure, is a lot of what makes books worth reading. Additionally, not having to worry about whether it will actually "work" (let alone trouble from any kind of protection that might prevent you from accessing it short of the language its written in), just makes books a no brainer. There's just something pleasant about having a stack of books (not to mention its easier on the eyes to have pages to flip), and I for one am perfectly happy with the current system and would not mind seeing it continue in perpetuity.
real books require no power, are cheap, have excellent contrast, great form factor, are durable, and last a long time
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is completely stupid. The reason I read books is to give my eyes a break FROM the screen, so I can sit outdoors and breath some fresh air. I read so that I'm not sitting in front of a monitor all day, bathing my eyes in radiation and making my eyeglass prescription worse by the second. I think THIS is the point e-book retailers are missing - most people would simply rather sit down outside on their front porch, or maybe just lie down in bed with a REAL book. That's why I never caught onto e-Books. Then again, you have the piracy protection issue. Most you can basically only download on ONE computer, and if something crashes, or you upgrade your mobo and have to reformat and reinstall - too bad. The e-book is tied to THAT particular computer, and you basically have built a new one. Theres $15 bucks down the drain. Theres another point - the price of e-books. You can't sell electronic data for the same price as a real physical object - albiet, prices HAVE gone down on them a bit, but not enough to entice me. Of course, it isn't the price that bothers me, its the first reason I listed.
"Potpourii doesn't taste as good as it smells." - Dark_Link2135
Who wants to read? What our lazy generation needs are audio books. There's nothing lazy about reading.
P2P-"sharing". (Think libPod.) Wonder if Simon & Schuster will go for it...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Using my Treo, I been reading one book after another on travel - Quicksilver, Harry Potter, Ulysses, etc, etc, etc. Good number of modern books and classics over at ereader.com.
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.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I thought that fad was already gone... Oh well... maybe it'll return.... If that ePaper or whatever it was doesn't feel like a PDA. Because curling up to a PDA isn't like curling up to a good book (iBook included).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
would be a bloody good start.
I actually have quite number of "ebooks." Years worth of reading material, in fact.
Funny thing is they're all, every one of them, public domain ASCII text files.
Kill the DMCA, then we'll start to talk.
KFG
I have recently started reading a lot of ebooks on my Kyocera 7135 PDA/phone. The first was Burton's Vikram and the Vampire*, which I couldn't find in a print copy. I used iSilo as the reader. It turns out to be a wonderful way to read books. I now do maybe 50% of my reading on the Kyocera. I never thought I would find myself saying this, but I actually prefer it to paper.
*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.
If facelift means DRM'd time/copy/read/etc-limited electronic versions, then I don't really want any of that facelift. If it means books would also be available in some electronic form on reauest, with and without DRM, then I'd say probably okay. Generally I think I'd welcome much much more a solution where pritned books would be available as they are now, but a vastly enourmosuly huge electronic library with online access would be made available for a subscription fee where we could lend electronic versions of printed books, should the need arise.
I, personally, would never ever prefer buying an electronic-only reduced rights book over a traditional paper edition.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Perhaps with the correct plugin and peripherals it can.
- "There is nothing quite like an ineffective solution to an nonexistant problem"
... when they display PDF documents, when I can easily load all my own PDF documents on them, and when I'm not required to BUY books at outrageous prices to get ANYTHING on them.
I compulsively save web pages to PDF files and I've built up quite a collection over the years. It'd be great to have them on an E-Book. But until the vendors stop with the bulls***, I'm not going to buy.
1)They must be comfortable to read. E-ink devices, like the Sony Librie can bring this. These devices have high contrast displays, use little power, and work in broad daylight. They are about the size and weight of a standard pocket paperback, but they store far more information.
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 flaw with the Librie was that, like most Sony products, they used a proprietary format developed by Sony. Until recently, it was hard to put your own content on the devices. A lot of the content you could buy also exprired & they were extremely feature-limited (you couldn't copy, search, read on other devices, etc.).
What we need is the iPod of eBook readers. Something which is well-designed & allows us to read PDF, html, and plain text (in addition to any restricted formats.
When they are the same shape, weight, and feel of a paperback or a hardback book. When they can sit on a shelf and look great. When they can hold onto the story for the same length of time that a book can. When they can be read over and over, shared with others freely, and take ink from a pen for notes.
In short, ebooks will come of age and take over when they become paper books with ink on them. Or is there already something on the market that can do this?
Seriously, between audio books (which take up no space at all and are completely compatible with both the listening technology and habits of listeners) and actual books (which again fit the habits of readers) where is the niche for ebooks? I'm not saying that there isn't a niche. I just can't think of it.
Of course, I never saw the need for the walkman either. I'm not exactly a visionary.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Massachusetts recently figured out that public documents in a certain unnamed company's proprietary formats may not be readable or usable in ten years because the software company has "moved on." Individuals are usually MUCH brighter than governments, and most of us have already figured out that closed formats may not be readable in six months, never mind thirty years. I'm very big on e-books, but I'm open formats only.
When publishers stop trying to "lock ebooks down" they'll be ready for takeoff. I have it on reliable authority that Baen books (open formats only) already makes more money from ebooks than they get from all book sales in Canada, and the ebook sales drive treeware sales as well, even the pirated ebooks.
They simply don't work as well as books. Books don't have screen glare. Books don't have DRM. Books can last hundreds of years in the same piece, whereas formats come and go. Books don't need batteries or recharging. If you drop a book it'll be more or less fine, unless you drop it in a puddle or something. Ebooks just seem like a pain in the ass.
Your mileage may, as always, vary.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
An e-book should;
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)
Technologies with certain characteristics --such as being easily sent over a network-- lend themselves better to distribution.
Paper and ink are so much a part of our culture they are not popularly seen as the technology that they are and their technical advantages --their inexpensice durability-- are thus missed. Aiming for a digital replacement of books is barking up the wrong tree.
When is the electronic book going to be as useable as the old-fashioned kind? How do technologies need to change to bring e-books out of the geeky, early adopter ghetto and into digital bookstalls everywhere?
Answer: as soon as an electronic book will last several centuries in some clay jars in a cave and still be functional.
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.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've used e-books before, and if I ever go back to China to work then I'll probably have to convert to almost entirely e-books. It has a major advantage in the size - you can carry many books with you without having the size/weight being any sort of issue. While I prefer real, physical ones more, the system isn't bad... the only problem is that you don't have any price incentive for buying them - you're just giving the publishers a huge profit margin.
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.
This is the wrong question. Why do books need a 21st-century facelift at all. The form of a book, no power required, any sufficiently bright light (even funny colors), makes it uniquely portable, and gives at a versatility and durability not found in any modern electronic device.
Then there is the issue of format readability. The book format has proved to be readable for millenia.
E-books will be an adjunct, an additional form for static text and pictures in book format where space is at a premium for large amounts (like lots of textbooks and references in one place) in highly technologized places (where power outlets are plentiful and the right phase, frequency, voltage, etc. etc).
But think about it, for reading while commuting, a single novel, such as a Grisham bestseller isn't much bigger than an e-book. There's no initial investment in an e-book reader device required, and you'll still have to pay to get the text, whether electronic or paper (it's probably easier to borrow a friend's paper copy, at that).
Probably when Apple jumps into the market.
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.
GPL Deconstructed
When you can goto the library checkout an ebook for free. Swap with your friends, and resell. ... on a reader that you can take anywhere, replace a battery on never (solar), and costs about $3.95...
So round about... oh... when hell freezes over and people quit using DRM.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
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; THAT is when EBOOKS will really take off.
These ePaper screens will be a great advantage.. Make eBook readers in various form factors like paperback books, large paperbacks, hardbacks and large hardbacks.. throw a microdrive and some electronics in the back few 'pages' which would be fake, the middle of the book would all be real pages except for the middle pages which would be ePaper.
It might be a little weird, but it would be the closest thing to reading a real book.
About the only thing wrong with physical text books is the missing ctrl-f feature. Index works all right though. I've used a few of these so-called ebooks for university and these online and cd-rom features and it's all useless. I like my physical text book. Nothing beats it.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Seriously. Where? I see _loads_ available on usenet (pdf and chm) but I can't find them to buy.
Personally I love CHM ebooks and would love to buy them. They are so small and light on the system (unlike PDF although I don't really have a problem with PDF).
Can someone tell me where I can buy ebooks in either PDF or CHM?
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. YMMV/dev/random
See the title. Plain and simple when they are put in an e-paper format I can see them being useful but till then they will be more a novelty or not as useful as paper (because of DRM)
Maybe this is exactly what printfu (http://www.printfu.org) will either LOVE, or on the other hand HATE!
1. Get Apple to produce iPrint, or iEbook, or some other product starting with "i" that acts as an ebook reader.
2. Hire Harold Ramis to promote it.
3. Profit!
(Wait, there's not supposed to be a step 2...)
One reason most peoplel like paper-based books is because we've experienced it and can make comparisons to eBooks. Once everyone who has experienced paper are gone and the cost of creating ebooks is far below that of a regular paperback then we'll see eBooks flourish. As much as I like electronics the feel of paper is better than an ebook.
I believe that the rise of ebooks will correspond to the development of a device that mimics a real book.
I want a device that is:
Hardback about two inches longer and an inch wider than the standard paperback, 25 plastic pages, Pen input for notetaking. Palm Pilot like battery life. Under $500.
When I say plastic I mean the stuff that's currently used for backpacking maps, feels a lot like paper but basically impossible to tear. I'm assuming that any processor/memory/storage that fits in the hardback cover will be good enough. If apple can do it with the nano then someone can fit the hardware in a book cover.
I've been following the development of electronic paper with great interest since it was first announced in 97. I think it was all the Inspector Gadget as a kid but I'm obsessed with a computer book.
When we have nice portable epaper to read them on. If epaper really does require little power it could be solar powered.
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.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
It's NOT about the medium but the content. That said, the book is possibly the only medium we have today that will still exist in X50 years. The book is a rock of a medium. It *is* immortal, since the invention of the printing press.
DVD will be play another format soon enough, and circular optical mediums are probably about half-way through their lifetime. We'll have a different internet and a different web. We can't even speculate. Broadcast media is probably on it's way out. Personalisation of content is in.
The book will live on. For use as recording fiction. Reference, perhaps not. The web is far superior. But nothing we have now or ever is close to as absorbing as a 'good book' (sorry to use cliche).
As far as e-books are concerned, the issue is already pretty much dead. However, I do see an awful lot of people carrying unwieldy newspapers with them on the way to work and back. I wonder which is a more valuable resource, trees or the energy used to power the readers?
I think they are the number one best reason to own a PDA. You can carry a library in your pocket! However, the DRM and file format bullcrap is what kills the whole concept for me. I've run into selveral problems trying to read books that, yes, I have bought. Sometimes I can't buy a book because it's only for Palm. When I do buy a book, I run into problems tranferring it to other computers without the DRM pitching a fit. Plus, books in paper form have the obvious physical advantages other than how many you can carry.
As a college student in grad school who is writing lots and lots of papers, I would love it if all the books I have to buy for class were available as ebooks. That way I could cut and paste a quote without having to figure out a way to hold the book open and in a place I can see it while I type it in. Moreover, the ability to keyword search for a word of phrase in a book is invaluable whenever you remember the phrase and can't find it and it isn't listed in the index. I can't tell you how much time I've spent searching for something in a paper bookbecause whoever mad ethe index didn't feel like indexing the term that I just happen to remember. (google print and amazin's look inside the book are helpful in this area, but not every book is in those yet).
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
How about printing them to paper?
But seriously - reading books on my screen, although a very good screen, is a real pain -- after a couple of hours my eyes just hurt like hell.
Nothing, these days, can replace the good-ol' ink-on-paper. Perhaps developing a much more easy-on-the-eyes visual device (portable too!) would be the real booster.
|| Geshem ||
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Admittedly, I wouldn't buy an ebook. I might consider it a nice piece of added value if it was shipped with a paperback book, but I wouldn't waste money on an ebook alone. Ebooks do have other valid uses though.
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 fees. If I forget to check the book back in, it happens automatically.
they come in as handy as a real book does when you are camping and run out of TP.
I've always decided that the main problem with eBooks was the form-factor and display.
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.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
The browser available with on the PSP makes a fantastic e-reader. Combine it with free books in available in html format from http://www.gutenberg.org/ and you've got all the classics you can want.
Only when you can write notes and deface them. When they're not copy-protected, for sure. When you can lend them to your friends.
y /19.jpg
When you can publish material without censorship.
http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/pictures/imager
Books are way too expensive. In addition, the actually writer gets so little of the money, like music artists. By moving to electronic books, it will kill the paper backs. What will remain will be hardbacks and leatherbounds. But they will be nice and will last for eons. In addition, the price of an e-book will be in the range of $2.00, rather than the $8-10 for a paper back that it is currently. But that is due to SOOOO many middleman (publisher, advertiser, distributer, and the endmarketing, being somebody Tattered Cover, Barnes/nobles, King Soopers, or Walmart).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Answer: no.
On the bridge of the first real starship enterprise, captian Kirk will say, "Hmm, where are we going today" and he will pull out a notepad and a pen and look at his notes.
The printed word is as much a part of humanity as freedom itself. Paper books will never go away.
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Give me a relatively inexpensive, rollable, 11x17 display with 200dpi or better resolution, fast updates (at least as fast as flipping pages) and then I might start being interested.
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. Until eReaders allow people to do everything they can do with paper just as freely and intuitively, paper will remain a preferred reading medium.
BTW, I hate scrolling and tabbing through indexes... given the choice between a free online document and a $40 printed version of the same, I often go for the printed version after verifying that the book covers enough interesting/relevant topics.
When They give me all of the benefits I get from a paper book now PLUS all te benefits that can come with digital, searchable, shareable text.
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
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
eBooks will get big when there's a compelling reason to use them. What ADVANTAGES do eBooks bring? That's the very simple question that will determine more than the disadvantages, which people are likely to overlook if there's a good reason to use an ebook.
Right now the advantages are - immediate access (don't have to go to the store), if you're taking your laptop/palm/etc anyway you save space, and you can have a trillion pages on your harddrive but not on your shelf. None of those are really great reasons, which is why ebooks aren't really great.
What could change that? How about taking ADVANTAGE of the digital form - share notes with other readers while reading the book, include metadata and links for more information within the book (web-ize it, especially non-fiction with footnotes), dictionary lookup for strange words, etc, etc.
I have a PostScript printer, I love e-books, just make those printers commonplace, you'll see.
The fact that a few techno-geeks think that ebooks are better doesn't mean the technology will ever take off (or over or whatever).
.nosig
I read the paper variety all the time, reading a book on the computer is only for desperate times. I have a couple of eBooks on my Palm for when I'm on the bus or waiting, but no matter how I try it's just not no match against having a cheap pocket book with me instead.
I agree with the overall seniment...paper books are still superior. However the one killer feature that that I wish ink and paper books had...grep!
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
my books to be provided on a non-volatile storage medium. After the Great Collapse of 2027, with electric power scarce or nonexistent and our vaunted technology useless, at least some of Civilization's hard-earned knowledge will still be accessible to the survivors. You know, books with titles like "Farming For Dummies", "Fishing for Food" and "How To Skin A Wabbit".
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
read them as comfortably as a book. remember that looking at black text on a white screen is like staring at a light bulb. it fucking sucks! also, why even bother, paper books are so much more convenient, cost effective, long-lasting, and personal than an 'e-book'...
when Windows Vista and DRM become common place so there's nowhere to run?
I don't feel like it...
http://level4.org/images/articles/2005041402274793 0_1.jpg/ is what mine looks like and I love it!
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 been with poetry, I like nice line formatting for poetry or computer code.
I don't want to go back to a book sized format for that though, with my palm I can keep it in my pocket all the time, not so with a book.
Where did you find a "cheap" iPaq?
Barring physical destruction, the text in a printed document will not change by itself and as long as the document remains in your posession you can be reasonably assured that what was in it ten years ago is still in it verbatim today. Depending on the technology and purchasing scheme, Ebooks allow the author, or anyone else with proper access, to make changes to the content without your knowledge or consent. The power to alter the record of history will be like a magnet.
Most books are printed on wood pulp paper. Wood pulp paper is slightly acid (the process uses sulphur dioxide) so the book will start to crumble appart after a few years of usage, I'm not quite sure how quickly they degrade, but from some experience 75 years seems to be pushing it. (I've had books a lot younger fall appart like they were moth eaten).
Older books (pre UN drug treaty) were printed on hemp paper and can last hundreds of years without too many problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Lets put eBooks on some sort of read only memory that is physically DRMed, its hard to copy, and be checked in and out for security. Also, having a contiunuous colum of text is intimidating, make dividers, call them pages, to make the text graspable and easily split into smaller sections for brief reading. Perhaps a convient package small enough to fit into a large coat pocket or bag would boost popularity. Find a cheap material to make them out of, perhaps something biodegradeable. Cheap manufacturing methods should be sought, and today there is nothing cheaper than the lithography method for making complicated electronic devices like this. Perhaps two or more levels of eBook should be designed for budget and top end buyers, call them "paperbacks" and "hardcovers", which would be more attractively packaged. It just might work.
Don't forget some ebook readers that have the author looking over your shoulder at everything you read (and when & where). I once bought one, but was so creeped out I forced a refund from my cc company.
eBook Gold
they come with a free printer and a lifetime supply of paper and ink.
The curl up under a tree, leave it on the bus arguments are spot on - for novels.
The ctrl-f comment is spot on - for tech books.
While people flog away at the first problem, why not enjoy a great solution to the second? Oreilly's Safari.
Sure, DRM, rent-not-buy, etc etc, but online errata, search, and 15 bucks a month for 10 books on the shelf is pretty fantastic. Am I really going to treasure that copy of "Javascript: The definitive guide - 4th edition"? Also, it's great for books you may not want. Am I going to use this technology on this project? Lets look at these 3 books on it. No? Oh well, let's drop them and get some others.
http://safari.oreilly.com/
People can read, right now and for free, 16,000 titles at Project Gutenberg http://gutenberg.org/ but they don't. Simply, people prefer to hold the parchment, crease the pages, and bend the spine. If they were going to pay money for ebooks, they would have started by reading the classics for free.
You can't say that on slashdot!
You have a lot of free (as in beer, as in speech) eBooks: Project Gutenberg, Wiki Books, or you can search it on Creative Commons. And there are a lot of books in HTML, PDF (without encription), txt format...
My city: Barcelona.
Even the geekiest of us use manuals etc in paper form...The fact is, reading several hundred pages of text off an LCD just doesn't feel natural to me, and probably never will.
I'm sure some material scientist can make a plastic type wine bottle with a screw cap that keeps wine as well as glass and cork. The missing element will be romance. The pop of a cork, the red scarecey visible through green is as much a pleasure as ethylic induced silliness. I'm afraid the finest lcd screen lacks the rustle of pages, the dog eared charm of an old favorite or the faint thumb marks that remind us of a favorite passage. I'm not replacing my old Philip K.Dick - Even geeks are sentimental at times
I hope ebook's never become mainstream because I know the publishers will employ stupid digital restrictions management functions which will for example only allow the ebook to be read during a certain time (e.g. one semester). This was covered previously on /. The user who whoever is providing the license will have to re-purchase the book for another extended period of time. I would hate to live in a world where RMS's parable becomes true.
On a lesser note, unless I can write and scribble "digital" notes in the ebook at the same resolution as I can with a 0.5 or 0.7mm mechanical pencil on regular book paper, I won't be able to get used to the idea of an ebook
I posted before 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:
So, for an ebook where they don't have to print the book, transport the book, pay the middleman bookstores, etc., they're going to charge $3 frigging more? Ya, right!
When they can safely be taken into the bathtub, or pulled out of my pocket after four or five days of hiking with no recharging. Or I can leave it on the back seat of my car in hot weather during the day at work with no ill effects.
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.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
No practical device that can make reading ebooks a confortable experience exists yet... But I do believe it's going to change with the new e-Ink displays.
E-books will never become mainstream. They just don't have enough advantages over paper books, and have too many disadvantages.
The e-book idea came about because some people looked at the great success of the walkman and thought something similar could happen with books.
The problem is there are whole host of differences between listening to music and reading a book. You can listen anywhere and while doing many different things, like exercising or fixing dinner. For books you have to sit down and concentrate, and most people have only one or two places where they want to read regularly.
Also, people have many different pieces of music they like to listen to over and over again, and so it makes sense to carry a whole bunch of them on a portable player. With books, most people read only one at a time, and each book only once. People read that one book at home, or can easily carry it with them, so there is no need for an e-book.
Then there is the expense. Books are easy to get for free at the library. Also, many people live near a used book store where they can pick up a whole stack of books for almost nothing. You can also get books at a big discount like at half.com. E-books, on the other hand, mostly cost money. In fact they typically cost nearly as much as a new book, because publishers don't want to undercut their paper book sales.
Another problem is copying. There are people like lawyers who would like to have portable electronic access to a whole library, so they can research and copy. E-book publishers disable copying on their their devices in order to protect their copyrights, and this makes them less useful.
In fact, an e-book is basically a crippled handheld with a high-quality display. Rather than carry around two devices, it would make more sense to sell handhelds that could display e-books, but publishers won't allow that because they know how easy it would be to hack the thing to permit unlimited copying.
There is one area I can think of, though, where e-books could be a big success. That is for students. Unlike most people, they carry around a whole stack of books, and they read in many different places.
There is a lesson here. A of people think that because some cool idea is technologically possible, it would be a huge success, but that is not true. It would be quite possible to make a computerized, motorized doorstop--a little wedge on wheels that would jump off its charger when you yelled a command, skittered across the floor, and jammed itself under a door. However, it would have few if any advantages over the old-fashioned rubber type, and some major disadvantages, like cost and malfunction (imagine it got confused and you had to chase it under a coach).
Think about how Amazon has been a huge success. That's because the people running it looked at how people use books, and figured out how the internet could help readers get what they want. That is the lesson: start with human beings and how they actually live, and then design the technology, and not vice-versa.
I had thought that being on an IBM site, it would actually have some insightful commentary and discussion on the issues facing ebooks.
Instead, it reiterated the same tired old points pro and con, totally missed the point of the Baen Free Library (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.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
10-15 years ago there was no C++ standard and nothing like the present standard library. There was no choice but to target a specific implementation. Things are different now.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
I predict that in certain respects, ebooks will continue to have commercial difficulties and a lack of popularity until the formats are more universal, and security and copyright protections are better developed and especially better respected by the general public. There's a culture of consumers that see electronic media sort of like a liquid commodity without the same kind of value as a book or a cd. mp3s are still exchanged and shared for free all over the place and until that culture and that way of thinking changes, i don't think that commercial ebooks (like commercially available mp3s) will be as successful as the markets would like them to be.
I believe we're dealing with a very different kind of product (digital products) whose form really isn't compatible with our current consumer culture. I just don't think it's a good match and it will continue to have problems indefinitely unless something in the market or the consumer culture itself changes.
You also have to realize that some people enjoy holding dead trees in their hands. I know a few people who read *lots* of books and, to put it simply, they're complete Luddites about literature.
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.
Direct away from face when opening.
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
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Buncha people said this already, but: they'll become mainstream when they're not burdened down by cumbersome features that nobody wants, chief among them being oppressive DRM. Cory Doctorow's got some very nice words on the general subject of unwanted features in section 5 of the talk he gave at Microsoft, and he talks about e-books specifically in section 4: "The hardware-dependent ebooks, the DRM use-and-copy-restricted ebooks, they're cratering. Sales measured in the tens, sometimes the hundreds. ...when you're selling copies by the ten, that's not even a business, it's a hobby."
They are mainstrem - in Japan. People there read ebooks on their mobile phones on the way to work.
when the contrast ratio matches that of paper (10000:1) and resolution reaches 1000 dpi.
Why do e-books have to be exactly like books?
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 the form of paper books to get read.
For the same reason, I say that e-books can be completely different from books, and we should celebrate these differences. Exactly like audiobooks. Different format for different people.
The good points of e-books have probably been said in this discussion, so I'll compress them down into this paragraph. Can carry lots of them. Can carry them anywhere, and read them in 5-minute bursts. Can search them. Can download and read them without having to go to a bookstore.
But the good points (and the bad points, of which there are more) mean that e-books shouldn't ever replace paper books. Rather, they should be in addition to it, for those times when you wouldn't otherwise read a paper book - and there are lots of those! Having half a dozen books on your PDA or phone, for instance, means you'll find a lot of reading opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have.
For this reason I say, play to the strengths of e-books. They don't need to be high-res, or huge, or use little battery, or simulate the paper experience exactly. If I want a paper imitation, I'll take paper. Make it so we can buy and download books on-the-fly from mobile devices. So we can find-as-you-type, or mark up pages with voice content. Give us text-to-speech. Give us a way to collaborate on books or read other opinions. You know, all the stuff you can't do with paper.
Who the hell wants to stare at a rubbish screen any more than we do already? When will we get to rest our eyes? I hope they never catch on. I hate them. Books are cheap, smell nice, feel good, I can put them on display at home. They are easy to access lots of them at the same time and look for bits to read again. Wheres the fun with 'another screen' to look at. And - I don't have to carry one around with me if I don't feel like reading one - but can buy one later if I do. I don't have to cart a screen around.
When I can buy an English version of this:
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/333/C2658/
at my local electronics store for under a hundred dollars.
And when I can download non DRM'ed books for a buck each to read on it.
People like a book they can carry around, and read without squinting at a blurry, flickering monitor.
On a computer, people would rather read a good article than a good book, and most information is found via search engine.
If not for the above, if people actually wanted to read eBooks, they would change their minds quickly after a DRM prevents them from taking their eBooks with them when they get a new computer or laptop, or after the developer of their favorite third party eBook reader is arrested under the DMCA.
I used to do the dead tree thing. However, this all changed when I got a cheap small (486/75) laptop, weighing in at about 1Kg, and with a 8" screen. Before that I would occasionally read a book on a monitor, but it was rare. The laptop (now upgraded to a PII300 10" 1.1Kg) was light enough to hold in one hand while reading, and easy to read from in most lights. 80x25 suits for most occasions, whether I'm lying down with the laptop open on my cnest, or the laptop is lying on its side on the bed. Combined with a trivial script to take any format of ebook and throw out a html document hyperlinked so that names not occurring in the last 50 lines link back to the first definition, this makes it vastly easier for me to read than trees. I don't have to worry about storing the books. I can take the next book in a series, and use the back referencing hyperlinks to refresh memory. There is no hand strain due to the compromise between breaking the spine and reading easily. If I want to read at a greater distance, I just bump up the text size. Combined with a wireless mouse with a scrollwheel, this makes it easy to read in bed without having to have a hand outside the covers, or to read while excersizing. Oddly, a tablet might not suit quite so well. I find the keyboard at a right angle to the display to be very convenient when it comes to resting it on things. Power is an issue of course. If I was without power in many locations, my attitude may be different.
I would buy more ebooks if reasonably priced ebook readers hit the market. I read a lot of technical/design ebooks as it is, but for novels, textbooks, and magazines it would be nice to have something bigger than a PDA but smaller than a laptop to read on. I think a lot of the old ebook reader designs were great, but the prices were insanely expensive.
What publishers need to do is learn from the video game industry. Sell us the reader at a loss, and then make back money with huge margins on books. I doubt that's going to happen, though, because big publishers make a ton of money from people browsing in Borders and B&N stores, and are loathe to risk pissing off either of those companies.
With the interactive book in The Diamond Age"
Until that technology reaches the mass market, will there ever be a popular ebook format?
"I forgot my mantra."
NT
I had previously used my Palm IIIxe as an ebook reader. Then I tried to use my Zaurus. I've given up. The screens don't have high enough contrast & they suck batteries too much. They don't work well in sunlight. I would really like to see e-ink take off. Perhaps people won't buy a special "ebook only reader," but I don't see that many people using their current handheld devices as one right now either.
E-books don't deserve to become mainstream so long as they are implemented in a way that makes readers lose the freedoms they have with paper books, which appears to be the main concern for publishers who push for e-books. The publishers and proprietary software development businesses are hoping you'll make this decision on price and forget about what you're losing along the way.
RMS has postulated that some publishers would prefer to get us used to e-books where lending, copying, reselling, and other freedoms are not allowed. Then, after we're used to e-books being available, paper books can be discontinued leaving only e-books. Thus a new regime can be established where people become used to the lesser freedom they have with e-books without really noticing the switch and people will be less likely to question that loss in freedom.
Digital Citizen
I've already plugged it before, but a device like the Sony Librie would be great if they fixed the whole Sony proprietary BS nature of it.
It was specifically designed to be the same size and weight of a paperback book & it uses a high-contrast E-ink display. Only significant battery use is on page turns.
You're reading this, aren't you?
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.
The ______ Agenda
I'm suprised no one here has mentioned this, but as a Java developer, I need all the CPU time and memory I can get for my IDE, compiler, app server, etc. when I'm working.
In addition, at most of my jobs I've been lucky to get the bare minimum resources I need to be productive.
Once I have all my development applications running, any eBook reader (*especially* Acrobat Reader 7.0) is not going to respond so nicely, which gets old quick.
That said, I do like my reference books as properly indexed eBooks (makes 'em much easier to search, although I usually exhaust Google before I resort to this.
As for pleasure reading, I'm far from a luddite, but I much prefer not having to worry about battery life and airport "security". I'll stick to the readability of dead trees for now.
The deal is, copyrights are not workable in the information age and currently DRM is just a technological attempt to keep the same old system in place even though it is not tenable. IMHO, that attitude shows a mis-understanding of both free markets and the information age.
When they put artificial restrictions on what people can copy and manipulate for the sake of distribution profits or royalities, they are inhibiting others from getting the most value from that information and thus making themselves an obstacle to be knocked down rather than a service to be embraced. With content creation, the content market is not driven by publishers desire to make money, or even creators, it is driven by people's need or desire for given information. If that need can be satisfied without some distributers or creators locking in controll over profit, then that's just tough luck for the content industry. Times change.
For example, sure, maybe Gates is making more than Linus, but it would be a mistake to assume that will cause M$ to be on top. It would also be a mistake to assume that the profit from the M$ distribution monopoly is driving the software industry or the market place.
Contrary to popular belief, the information age demands releasing controll over how people use information once the cat's out of the bag and not micro-controling how everyone uses and gets every little piece. While DRM will have its places, one place it will not have is to lock in revenue streams for content distributors or creators. The future in that aera will be in services, not in control.
1. when they have built in wireless internet.
2. cheap.
3. You can use it in the sun (Sony's ereader).
4. Long batteri life (Sony's ereader).
Why 1. ? You can subscribe to a newspaper, and every morning it will automatically download the newest version.
More and more hotspots are turning up so when you are outside you can get the latest news (like the movie Minority Report).
I guess it will go mainstream in 3-4 years.
LIT files are just html -- use a tool like http://www.convertlit.com/index.php. That's why I actually prefer Microsoft e-books to. say, Adobe, even though I don't even use Microsoft Reader on my PDA (I use uBook)
When Playboy and Penthouse are available in ebook format with live video and Product Placements (free ebook-paid for with ads)
That wasn't too tough, now about that asteroid heading for earth..
Plain and simple, starting at computer monitors/tvs/other electronic outputs hurts our eyes.
That and the price. It's not broken, why invest in some (useless) tech?
Because I LIKE the paperback format. Cheap, easy to carry, no big deal if lost.
If your vision occurs, the authors will get even less of my money...unless I like a pirated eBook so much I buy the hardcover.
Blar.
Rip a page out of a book, put it under plastic, backlight it with a dim glow you can't see in daylight, make the screen smaller than the page size and scroll, scroll, scroll...! No. A book sits in your lap. Anakin Skywalker's supersized Sony PSP in Star Wuzz Three is closer to ideal. The print has to be ON the surface, though, not under it. And it should feel like parchment. Ah ha! How about VIRTUAL books with direct eBrain implants applied at birth?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
agree with all points. libries kick ass.
Baen books sell lots of ebooks, through the Webscription web site. The e-books they sell are available in multiple different, unencrypted formats. Oh, and they also make a fair number of their books available for free download in the Baen Free Library - usually the first book or two in a series, so you can get properly hooked and then start buying the rest, of course.
They also, on occasion, ship CDs filled with e-books with hardback editions of certain of their books - and these CDs are explicitly OK to distribute and copy and share (as long as you don't yourself try to make anymoney off them). There are even web sites that offer CD images for download.
I usually read Baen's e-books on my Palm Tungsten T3 with the MobiPocket Reader, but the books are also available in HTML, RTF, and Rocket Ebook format, so you should be able to read them in one of the available formats.
And just to say it again: they're not encrypted, DRM:ed, or anything else.
That is how e-books can become mainstream.
I've read a number of books to my kids using my Fujitsu Stylistic and have several GBs of ebooks and texts on it. The kids like it, and it's very convenient (no wondering where the book is, or what place I was at since the reader (I use ybook (.txt) and mu-book (.html) and the Adobe (formerly Glassbook) eBook Reader (.pdf))
/ leonardo/Review%20Leonardo%20da%20Vinci.html for a more even-handed review (it's not a perfect experience, and I really wish it wasn't hard-coded to run in 640 x 480)
Take a look at sites like http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/ and you'll find lots of people using tablets for lots of reading and studying.
And look at John Mark Ockerbloom's Online books page for an exhaustive list of what's freely available.
It's unfortunate that innovative things like Corbis' Leonardo CD-ROM w/ its cool translating, mirror-imaging magnifying glass didn't stay the course for when tablets became available (reading the Codex Leceister from this on a tablet is an amazing experience). For a glowing review see: http://www.businessweek.com/1996/49/b350428.htm c.f. http://www.mmi.unimaas.nl/people/Veltman/articles
Voyager had the right idea with their ``Expanded Books'' it's just that they were a couple of years early.
William
(who really needs to find the time to get his wife's copy of _The Manhole_ running in a Mac emulator on his tablet)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
- its thickness
- its weight
- the size of the characters
- the paper thickness.
However, when I read an e-book, I'm a bit at a loss. Will it take me one hour to read or 10 days? It's a major turn off for me. I know I can see the number of pages but nothing beats the intuitive feeling I have with paper book.I also prefer traditional speedometers or clocks rather than digital ones by the way and yet I consider myself geeky and computer literate.
For a bookworm like me, e-books suck. You have to read them on tiny screens, with crappy battery life, and you lose the entire feel of an actual printed book.
:)
As someone else stated, if they could make an e-book reader that you could just roll up in your pocket (flexible LCD?), and that had good battery life, it would be much more appealing. Go one step further and give your reader a paper-y texture and look, and you might just attract a book-loving geek like me.
Hell, it might not be bad to make an e-book store like Barnes & Noble, where you can have the nice bookstore atmosphere, and shop around for (cheap!) readers, customized for the book(s) that are pre-installed on them. They could have special textures and fonts just like an actual printed book, but they could hold entire libraries worth of text. In theory, they could also slel for a better price than the printed version once the tech got popular enough.
Alas, I doubt the major publishers would go for it. Often they are just as stupid as the RIAA and MPAA when it comes to embracing infinitely reproducable content possibilities...
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
A few hundred KB of ASCII characters is dirt cheap. Too cheap for (much) profit. From traditional publishers, anyhow.
I'm with you - if there were a sub-$50 device that looked decent, then I'd pay a buck or two for a book, but no more. I mean, how much can it cost to email me some text?
Until then, I can buy $4.59 paperbacks at Costco and not stress about losing them, I can lend them, and finally, trade them in 2-for-1 at the used book store.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
First off, let's discuss my vision of an iBook. The iBook is a hardcover book, thin though, in the cheaper editions. The more expensive editions might run to hundreds of pages enough to cover Neal Stephenson's work or even Jo Rowling's, but the average book is going to be much shorter. The cover is thick and contains the flash memory and batteries that make the book work. How bendable the cover is will depend heavily on whether they can make bendable memory and batteries.
The inside cover tends to be where a lot of the action occurs. You can summon up a list of all the books that the iBook contains. Once you do that, if the iBook isn't large enough to display all of the pages of the book at once, it offers an option to specify where you want the iBook to start. Once you've finished reading through that section you switch to the front of the book and tell the inside cover to move on to the next section. The inside cover has a global/local search engine as well, allowing you to search the library as well as just searching inside a book or even a subsection of the book.
There. Something that has pretty much most of the benefits of a book. The main difference is that the book doesn't automatically have a page count to match the contents of the book that's being displayed. This is a minor point, as people don't read a whole book at a time, they only read a couple of pages at a time. Still, people like flipping through pages, and so the iBook accomodates that. It has a search engine and an updatable list of keywords that can be used as an index as well.
iBooks would logically come in a range. A small portable hardcover that fits into a pocket is one model, and then there are the big models that you keep at home, both in regular hardcover size as well as the oversized models that are used for displaying photographs. The number of pages an iBook has is also going to have a range. The ones that are kept around at home are likely to be heavy on the pages so someone can have the luxury of not having to go to the inside cover to scroll the book forward.
And yes, I can see this catching on and becoming mainstream. The ability to have an entire library of books in something with the same appearance and form-factor of a book, with more or less all the same benefits of a book, would probably catch on quickly. The main issue would be the availability of books. That's where Old Ways and New Ways collide with one another.
The iBook would do to the publishing industry what MP3 has done to the music industry, created an age where the electronic distribution of books and the potential for piracy becomes commonplace. Of course some publishers can refuse to put out books in electronic form, but someone with an automated scanner setup can defeat that. Buy one book, disassemble it, feed the pages through a scanner setup and then compile them into the right digital format.
Now as for mainstream acceptance of the iBook, I see it coming up from the bottom end. What is the bottom end? Newspapers and magazines. Newspapers in general spend a huge amount of money producing a few pieces of paper that get tossed after a day. A few sheets of e-paper in everyone's hands and they can save a huge amount of money printing newspapers. Even better, they don't have to worry about overprinting or underprinting a run. Magazines are also in a similar position. If people buy a blank magazine made of e-paper people can download their magazine every month for a lower price than the print edition, what do you think most people will do?
In time, people will be quite ready to accept the idea of e-books once they've accepted e-newspapers and e-magazines. The publishing industry will fight it for longer than the general public will, but in the end they'll have to go along.
RIght now the biggest obstacle to ebooks is the book publishers themselves, just like it was with music before Steve Jobs.
Some of the publishers are just as crazy as the music publishers with license terms like "You can't lend this, you can't re-sell it, if our DRM keeps your from reading it too bad boo hoo hoo!"
Right now eBook customers are for the most part treated as thieves out on parole with extreme conditions on their paroles.
Rather than take advantage of the new capabilities of the digital format to benefit customers: we can replace your ebooks when your computer dies or was soaked by Hurricane Katrina, But instead we get DRM that keeps you from loading it on your new computer, as they'd rather just sell you a new copy. As you get older your eyes get weaker, but rather than support changable font sizes for older readers they'd rather just turn that feature off. Rather than focus on customers needs they'd rather focus on things like "For years book buyers have been ripping off authors by lending or re-selling their books." now the authors (and publishers) can get theirs back for centuries of abuse at the hands of immoral book buyers!
For years publishers have been doing first runs as "Hardback editions" and charging 5 to 10 times as much for these editions. Readers were supposed to rationalize this as needing to pay for the extra expense of a hardback vs a soft book. So along come ebooks and they want to charge $15 to $20 for "first release" editions and folks like Gem Star would never reduce that "first release" price and would try to keep charging $15 to $20 for the ebook forever! Then their ebook division was killed and sent a chill over the industry even though they died for very good reasons that they did unto themselves.
Amazon the seller will sell an ebook for MORE than the paper back version!!! That always makes me NOT want to buy the ebook from them when I catch them doing that. So some times even the 3rd party ebook sellers are asinine. Once I asked Amazon how they could sell a downloadable ebook for more than a paperback they'd have to deliver for free (if I bought $25 worth), they never even bothered to write me back.
Blame the technology if you want, but publishers could solve technical issues as well if they weren't standing around pissing their pants in fear of how everyone whom has been ripping them off for centuries: "criminals" that lend books to friends, "criminals" that sell books rather than burn them after reading them, "RICO" organizations like libraries and Universities could really steal everything if they're stupid enough to release their catalogs as ebooks.
My other favorite are clueless publishers that can't decide what format to release ebooks in. So to figure out which format to use they take a trilogy and release book 1 only on MS Reader, book 2 only on Adobe, and book 3 only on Mobipocket. Absolutely clueless! That kind of thing really helps launch the ebook industry.
And of course, just like with audio, you have authors that get up on the ol' soap box and make public stands again ebooks: J.K. Rowling for example. She also says her books are about getting kids to read, yet while she won't release her books as ebooks, will release them as audio books (including to Steve).
The problem is a Steve Jobs to stand up to the publishers, stare them in the eye and tell them you can't treat your customers like criminals and you have to give customers the perception of a fair value for their hard earned dollars.
I'm hoping that when Sony brings the Librie to the US they will take their recent corporate revitalization about open formats and DRM and be the Steve Jobs of ebooks. Just please fix the AAA battery hungry nature of the Librie please? I know you all make AAA batteries but the Nano has proven you can put a rechargeable battery in a thin format, no need to get greedy eh?
Honestly, why do we care about e-books. Isn't audiobooks better in all respects?
Maybe its just me that thinks that.
But I prefer listening to audiobooks over reading. And it is cheaper to build an audiobook device over a good e-book reader. An audiobook capable device is basically just an mp3 player.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
E-books can be physically uncomfortable to read (whether you're sitting at a desk looking at a monitor or squinting at a tiny PDA screen).
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").
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
It's very simple. eBooks will become mainstream when they are more like books. In particular:
--It's about availability of titles. eBooks won't take off until any book that you read a review of in the mainstream press, and could buy at Borders or Barnes and Noble, can be bought as an eBook. Last time I checked, of about forty books on Oprah's list, more than thirty were available as audio books. But only six were available as eBooks. And of those, only three were available in the GEMStar format my eBook readers requires.
Several of my favorite authors, including Barbara Kingsolver and J. K. Rowling, to name two off the top of my head, are simply not available in eBooks in any format.
--It's about usability. Half the pleasure of reading a book comes from sharing it with others. An eBook that's locked to one specific serial-numbered device isn't a book. I can't even share it with my wife. Not even if she had her own identical eBook device.
--It's about durability. A hardbound book lasts easily fifty to a hundred years. A paperback lasts easily ten to twenty years. The $300 worth of books I bought for my Rocket eBook are less than five years old. They will die when the device dies (and battery life is now down from an original 20 hours to about three hours, so that won't be long now). eBooks that are in a nonportable format, and rely on DRM authorization that can be obtained only from a company that may not stay in business, don't hack it.
None of this has anything to do with hardware. Hardware is not the issue. The first-generation hardware like the Rocket eBook and the Softbook were more than good enough. The Franklin eBookman was more than good enough and cheap enough.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Well, I didn't RTFA because I wanted to give a fresh and unbiased consumer opinion on what ebooks neat (yeah, that's it, that's why i didn't read the article before spouting off, really...)
Two things in my mind: choice, and ruggedness, are the two main factors. I've been reading a whack of old classics on my iPaq lately, and it really does inspire me. I have a wealth of inspiring reading in my pocket, when I'm waiting in line, taking a coffee break, walking the beach, or otherwise have time on my hands. There are times I will read when I wouldn't before, because I didn't have the book on me. Now it's on my PDA (which I use for scheduling, reminders, work, etc.), I will read.
However, 1) the choice of books to load on the PDA is very limited still, and 2) there are places I wouldn't whip out my PDA, that I would whip out a paperback. With some more ruggedness, water (and sand/dust) proofing of the reading device, and better selection, I'd be all over it (and pay for the books).
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Dead trees are the near perfect ADM. As long as people continue to do illegal things with digital things. Then eBooks will not take off in a big way.
... cold dead hands!
/., but I just ain't giving up real books, no way no how!
Look, I'm about as "geeky" as the next Joe
Real books:
- No format problems -- I will always be able to read them
- No external power needed to read them -- Sunlight is fine, otherwise your lighting source of choice
- No F*CKING DRM! -- I will be able to read them as often as I want, share them with anyone I want, sell them to anyone I want, copy them for fair use, etc.
- I can WRITE ON THEM with anything I want: Pencil, pen, highlighter, crayon, blood.
- I can relish them as objects and pass them on to my children.
e-Books:
HAS NOT A SINGLE ATTRIBUTE from my "Real book" list! NOT ONE!
The fact that I *may* at the publishers discretion be able to copy *some* of the book via a clipboard or extract facility is NOT a compelling feature when I can choose to copy an ENTIRE printed book via scanner+OCR. If I keep such a copy for personal use only then that is within my fair use as I am backing up the material!
eBooks are just BAD! Don't buy them, don't endorse them, don't use them!
IM*H*O
- Make a dedicated reader that is lightweight, easy to use, and with sharp text (e.g. with these `electronic paper' displays). Low refresh rates and puny processors are no problem.
- Make sure that mainstream text formats work on it: plain text, html, pdf,
.doc
- Add support for optional DRM
- Sell in quantity for a reasonable price
- Profit!!!
Any vendor following this path will get my money: I have lots of electronic texts that I would like to read comfortably, and if the readers are cheap enough I would even be willing to buy more than one, so that e.g. I can have several reference books ready at the same time. And what about different display sizes? Sometimes a small display is better, sometimes a large one is more effective.The problem is, vendors are always tempted to stray from this path to success: they make it a fullblown (and expensive and heavy) computer; they skimp on display quality; they make DRM compulsary to get a captive audience.
I truely believe that the first vendor to get a clue can make a killing. Apple would be a good candidate; they have followed essentially the same recipe with the iPod.
"The deal is, copyrights are not workable in the information age and currently DRM is just a technological attempt to keep the same old system in place even though it is not tenable.[1]"
Copyright overall works fine*. However as long as technology makes it easier for individuals(s) to exercise the baser aspects of their human nature.
The less of a chance you'll see books in a "easy to copy, so I can share with everyone who didn't pay" form.
*Overall yes. And as this demonstrates. The "copyright is too long" argument doesn't even get a chance to come into play.
"Contrary to popular belief, the information age demands releasing controll over how people use information once the cat's out of the bag and not micro-controling how everyone uses and gets every little piece."
The information age demands no such thing. However those who don't want to honor the agreement society made with artists would call for such a thing.
"one place it will not have is to lock in revenue streams for content distributors or creators. The future in that aera will be in services, not in control."
The option to never purchase remains, and always has. What is really meant by "lock-in" is "lock-out", as in "I'm locked out of breaking social agreeements, and not honoring reciprocal agreements".
"The future in that aera will be in services, not in control."
That's basically the drug dealers, and other assorted crimminals saying "You live in your neighborhood by my sufferance".
[1] Funny how reality never seems to agree with this "untenable" justification.
I think that something that would help ebooks is to have them bundled with the regular old paper version. I think this would be especially good for technical books. If you could download an ebook version of the book you bought, it gives you the option of reading it on a device or reading the actual book. Now, I don't have a PDA or anything, so I would probably read the book on my computer at home, then take the paper version with me (it would be read on my 1 hour commute). Now, let's say I buy a PDA or ebook reader down the line, and I'm also getting ready to buy another book. Because I am already used to the ebook format, I would be more prone to purchase an ebook only version to save a little money.
Now, that is on the marketing/sales end of the publishers obviously. But I think it would be a fairly resourceful way to force adoption of ebooks. People love getting stuff for free and saving money. Do it like a drug dealer man-- first hit's free, then you gotta pay... but it would at least be less than you're paying for a full book.
As far as the technological aspect goes, I'd say that the devices need to stop being so expensive. Or at least subsidize the cost of the unit by giving away multiple free ebooks. If I could buy an ebook reader for $100-200 and get 15-30 ebooks for free, I would consider that a good deal. Or mimic the video game/mp3 player model where you sell the hardware at a loss, and then make up for it in sales of the ebook. If you could sell a reader for $30-50 that didn't suck, and then consistently undercut the price of the paper version by 15-20%, I think you'd see more adoption of the technology... Also, unified file formats would be a good idea, but I doubt it will ever happen. The only caveat to that being if someone hit with a great device and service (see iPod) I think they would be able to gain some serious market and maybe push a (hopefully somewhat open) format.
I think it'll be interesting to wait and see what happens with ebooks.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
There is a collection of essays printed called "The Norton Reader" that my gf needed for college and cost $50. I downloaded all the essays she needed individually, took about an hour. So you can save $50 in one hour, not including the high price of gas to drive to the store. Google is your friend, fuck high textbook prices....
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
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 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.
GPG 0x1B479C78
Not replace, but complement. I read e-books that I've fed into plucker, but that doesn't mean that I don't read paper books anymore.
For example, an electronic version is great is you want to carry your favorite books with you all the time, especially if you want to check something. It wouldn't make sense for me to carry a copy of 1984 with me all the time, but I do carry an electronic version in my PDA. It doesn't cost me extra to do it after all.
Ebooks have their place, but it's not the same as paper books.
GPG 0x1B479C78
I don't own an ipod, but can you read text files on it? Is it hard on the eyes? Seems perfect for it control-wise: Scroll wheel to go down and up, forward and back buttons (for chapters?). Have it auto scroll at the speed you draged you finger... It would take a little while to get used to reading like that so I'm not so sure... Maybe the ipod linux project do this?
I'd like to post my ebook collection on my web site and read it on my blackberry. That's when eBooks will really work for me.
I do the first part. I have a password protected section on my web site where I keep all the books I bought from BAEN. I can read them whenever and wherever I feel like it, as long as there is a computer nearby. And in fact, I do.
The second part is more problematic. The blackberry is reasonably comfortable to read them on, but its too fragging slow, much worse than a 56k modem. Multiple-minute breaks between chapters just doesn't work out. I look forward to the next generation of wireless web services that are usably fast.
P.S. For you publishers out there, I also keep books that others have scanned or decrypted where I can get to them and read them. The only difference between your books and the unencumbered books I bought from BAEN is that I paid for the ones from BAEN. I'd pay for yours too if you didn't make it a pain in the ass. But hey, I'm probably the exception. Everybody else would surely pirate them anyway. You just keep telling yourself that.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Would you like to digitally sign my eYearbook? Put your thumb right there.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
There's nothing wrong with old timey books. They don't need fixing. I've used e-books in a course. At the conclusion of the course, the e-book disappeared. Instead of a book I was familiar with to keep as a reference, I had nothing. I didn't like being tethered to an internet connected computer to view the adobe acrobat based file. It's OK to read supplimental material this way but not a textbook.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Why would Apple do that? They still don't have fully-featured/supported movie playback, which would appeal to a much wider audience. Also, the iPod display is garbage. Apple makes some good products, but I think that some other company is more likely to mainstream PDFs
I've heard plenty of reasons why e-books "don't work."
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.
As far as I'm concerned not until they come without one-sided DRM, which is "never".
... With an ebook I own nothing but a _license_ to access the content of the book. But to exercise this license I must run some some software to decrypt the content and render it visible, and there is the problem. And of course ebooks are encrypted ... and I must approach the publisher, cap in hand, to ask if I can please read this text for which I have paid. For how otherwise can the publisher enforce his 'rights'? When it comes to ebooks, either they control it _totally_, or they control nothing at all.
... so that a log of my reading habits can be kept
... too expensive, and it would expand government. So err ... why not let the publisher monitor it and flag any suspicious use based on some AI, and then flag suspects to the FBI. That should do it.
... there will be a continuous fight to determine how much publishers can charge everyone for their material. I mean of course "a period during which it wll be determined which charging model is most appropriate for the new form of content dissemination". Which means exactly the same of course. Not because publishers are nasty, but because they are profit maximisers who will now be able to exercise much more control over how their book is read and used. With the changing balance of power ... the price will shift too. And since the power in the hands of the publisher is larger ... the equilibrium price must be expected to be higher too.
I like the identification of a book with its physical appearance: I can own the book and no-one (least of all the publisher) can stop me from reading it, lending it, selling it, or making notes in it. And in fifty years I will still be able to do the same (although perhaps I will need glasses by that time) without once having to pay the publisher beyond what I paid for the book.
As I see it, this is because the publisher has no practical way to stop me.
How different things are with ebooks
1) I may not _ever_ use other software to render the ebook than allowed by the publisher (or I will be violating the DMCA).
2) The rendering software:
2.a) may or may not run on particular hardware (at the discretion of the publisher), which may or may not disappear from the market in as little as 10 years.
2.b) may or may not enforce other restrictions on my access (e.g. limited duration of the license, limited number of times the ebook is opened
2.c) may or may not force me to contact the publisher online for a decryption key, so that
2.c.1) I cannot read the book unless I have a network connection to the publisher and
2.c.2) the publisher knows exactly when, where, and how often I am reading the book
3) In view of the one-sided balance of power and knowledge that accompanies the ebook format, a publisher has many more opportunities to charge me for the use of the book than it had before (how often I access the text, how long, how long since it was first published, where I do it (home, office, if abroad which country), what other text I licensed).
That, and the sharply reduced costs for the publishers, are in my opinion the only reason large publishers are 'excited' about it.
4) How long before 'patriots' will demand a careful scrutiny of who reads what in order to further 'homeland security'? Can't risk having a bunch of terrorists reading books about chemicals with a high energy content, radio-frequency devices, microelectionics, and infrastructure or major cities, now can we? So how long before a bill is passed to monitor the lot? And then what? Surely there must be someone somehow to deal with this information, right? A federal agency? Nah
5) Last but not least
Now personally I see more drawbacks than benefits from ebooks. Not because the medium is problematic (it's great; it saves room and it can make books
All my refence info in one pocket. Really handy when one forgets something.
Printed form is over 15 reams of paper so far. Note I cannot carry it. Yes I lug a laptop at moment but something smaller would be nice.
I sometimes hate being a all round system admin tech and problem solver. Running time is the most important factor.
This is the perfect example of the problem. It's like buying a $800 computer and then getting the 'well for $40 you can get a better video board, and another $40 and a bigger hard drive' and suddenly you have a $1200 computer.
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 in the margins means you need a keyboard or input device. That takes up space, means you need to be able to hold it and type (it is portable). 'Searches' are unreasonable. When was the last time you could do a fuzzy quicksearch in the latest novel from Amazon or Chapters?
Assume the device is for _READING_. Reading a book or small manual. Okay maybe adding hyperlinks for manuals would make sense. But lets scrap pictures, postscript, searching, and adding notes to margins and you have a _VERY_ simple consumer-grade device.
Think of what a palmpilot does- we need a palm pilot or pocket organizer (which you can get for $50-$100 max)- But specialize it. Read plain text, we'll add hyperlinks, and basic navigation buttons. A simple device that is practical to use. If my father can't use it, it's not consumer-grade. The forward/back he'd get. The 'fuzzy search', not so much.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Well distribution is cheap, but yes they need money for other things. But fine- given $4.59 in paper of $4.00 in electronic, given that a simple reader costs $40.00 makes perfect sense for the convinience and fun of having one.
E-books and the screen readers out now are an answer to a question nobody asked. I'm a fan of manuals and whatnot in PDF (as most of them go in the trash or recycling anyway) but not novels. If novels are to make it, they need to be small, simple, plain text, and coming in an easy-to-use device that does only what a book does now.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Something I recall from an old SciAm article:
When fluorescent bulbs intended to screw into a regular light socket were invented, they didn't sell worth a damn. This, despite the fact they were cheaper over the long run to both buy and to use. The manufacturers wanted to know why. They ran focus groups and other marketoid gimmicks to try to figure it out.
It turned out that despite all the qualifications of "better", what they were competing against was a "good enough" that was already so good enough (with a corrallary that the comparative drawbacks were so few and minor) that all the better made no difference to the people.
The single most telling point in the article was from one of the focus group participants who said "This solves a problem I do not have."
Unless and until ebooks can identify a problem among the billions of satisfied book users and solve it to their satisfaction so that they will choose to switch, ebooks will remain gimmickry. Continuing to push them despite repeated public non-acceptance indicates mostly that the marketoids really don't know what they're doing with respect to satisfying needs (ie. are for the most part ignoring them), and remain convinced that if you put a price tag on it, people will buy it.
Those fluorescent lights are now down from $20 to $5. They still don't sell worth a damn.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
and that's an e-book, right? I suppose other e-books will catch on when they too are free. People don't want to pay money for bits.
It's entirely stupid to ask the question this article addresses. Just because something is hard to do, or uses previous thoughts, technology etc doesn't mean it's a good idea. It doesn't even imply that its a good idea. Ebooks were only a good idea to save cost, and so seldom less expensive than buying from amazon or ebay. Is it worth all the trouble for a couple dollars?
What ebook proponents should be asking is not "When, or why", but "why not".
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
When you can make it easy to read eletronic paper in the bathroom and e-books on that paper, then you got a real find there.
I am with you, still like dead trees-just don't like the distribution and expense of normal bookstores, or even an amazon. Instead of an e book, I want a cheap printer that I can download an "ebook" to and it spits out a cheap bound normal sized paperback for me to read. A buck a book (joe cheap in other words) to the publisher/author plus some ink and paper on my end seems fair.
As for the paper, well, that's why we need legal industrial hemp...
... from staring at a screen for six hours reading a book.
How does that sound?
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
... ebooks from that are in a standard, open format that I can access with software I already have, especially if I can edit them to correct misspellings, add notes, and so on. I will not buy special hardware and/or software to read ebooks, nor will I accept any ebook format that includes DRM of any sort.
It would appear that OpenReader.org is tackling the e-book problem as evidenced by David Rothman's blog at http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=3575/here>. For years they have been developing standards but have never come close to building an actual e-book reader. It looks like they finally got off the ground and are rolling something out in Q1 2006.
It's also interesting to compare an electronic success (emusic) with an electronic failure (ebooks), rather than comparing the paper success (books) with the electronic failure (ebooks).
Emusic is better than music: you gain random access, facile organization & ultraportability, all of which are very valuable for music. And you can easily rip your existing CD collection into a more fungible digital form to jump-start your digital music library.
If people read books by randomly grabbing one off the shelf and reading 5 pages, then putting it back; if people could rip their existing book collection conveniently to electronic form; if the typical person owned as many books as they do songs and enjoyed creating mix-books for their friends or for certain moods; If people enjoyed shuffling randomly from book to book every 5 pages... then ebooks would be a sensation.
We don't read books like we listen to music.
Curtains for windows?
E-books will become popular when you can take the reader into the crapper. Oh, and the screen resolution needs to be 300 dpi.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
PDF is a horrible idea for ebooks. Are you reading the book in order to look at the pretty page with its perfect layout? I don't know about you, but I'm reading it for the story or for the information.
PDF means that I might have to read text that is either too small but I can see the whole page, or I have to scroll around to read the page.
HTML or a similar markup language means I can read the page and have the device word wrap it properly for its screen.
1. Most titles that I want to read aren't available. 2. When they are available, the e-book version costs substantially more. (Barnes & Noble and Amazon frequently sell best sellers in paper at huge discounts, which rarely apply to the e-book version.)
My biggest issue with e-books is Im not going to waste all that battery on it. Ill just carry the book.
Aside from that... howabout white text on a black background? I dont want to read from a glowing screen.
When they come out, I believe most of the books with become E. Because it makes a feel of book, only realoadable. Much easier and more fun than reading on Palms, for example.
When will e-books become mainstream ? Never, and they already have.
Perhaps that needs a bit of clarification. E-books have a number of disadvantages compared to traditional books. E-books require a reader machine to read them. The reader machines require batteries, are expensive and heavy, render text with quality that is inferior to pretty much any printed book, can easily cause eyestrain, are easily damaged and extremely hard to repair, and often have DRM to further reduce the value of the book to the customer.
On the other hand, e-books have one huge advantage: they are free to produce. Anyone (discounting people on war zones and other obvious exceptions) can publish a text in Internet free of charge - just go to your local library and post it on Slashdot. As a result, there is a huge mass of text just waiting to be read, also free of charge. Take a look at, say, fanfiction. 90% of fanfiction is utter crap - but the remaining 10% is on par with the source, and the top 1% is far superior to it. Then, of course, there are people who write entire (original fiction) books and put them online for fame and glory, various online comic books, Project Gutenberg etc.
In other words, e-book will never compete with the deadwood book. It doesn't fit to the same ecological niche, but has found it's own. So, e-books will never replace deadwood books, but they have already become mainstream - heck, Slashdot is a kind of ebook.
Of course this also means that selling e-book readers that try to enforce a (closed, proprietary, DRM'd) format is a dead-end business, since such a format does away with all the advantages of e-books, so why would anyone buy such a reader ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If you look at the accession rate for Gutenberg, what you see is that ebooks have arrived and are thriving. All this stuff about they don't look and smell like real books is irrelevant. The success of ebooks is not about replacing real books, its democratisation of access to knowledge. It is actually very like open source software, which gives you equivalent access to skills and tools.
I was a kid in a small town with a minimal library. What I would have given for a Gutenberg DVD all those years ago! Or for the Debian or Mandrake DVD!
Physical books have a lot going for them, that e-books will not replace, not now and not in 20 years.
e-books will add to and complement books, but that's it. My personal bet is on e-books replacing newspapers and magazines, and books only as in library and lending.
When you buy a book, you usually want to have it stay around, look into it again, and just enjoy it. I know my wall of books gives me a good feeling.
Newspapers, OTOH, are usually read once and then discarded. If e-book technology advances to the point where they are easily portable and comfortable to read, you might soon pick up your e-book reader in the morning, after it has automatically downloaded that morning's newspaper edition, and read your paper on the train that way.
That would be a great application, especially considering the environmental impact. And it is much, much more likely than e-books replacing actual books.
Not going to happen. Quote me in 2025.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
When they abolish DRM formats, of course!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Right now I have 9 books that I downloaded off of Project Gutenburg on my PDA. They are books in the public domain. I have Jack London, Herman Melville, Nietztche, Percy Shelley, Saxon Pope, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Morman, the Upanishads. I am never bored in a waiting room or standing in line. I could never carry this many paper books in my pocket. For me, publishers would have to make their E-book reader available for free on my existing hardware, and the books easily available for purchase.
Here is IMHO where an e-book is far and away superior to conventional literature:
Archival of old/ancient manuscripts
Essentially Project Gutenberg and similar related projects. An e-book offers the ability to provide to ordinary people archival documents that normally they wouldn't have access to because of the cost of publication and distribution. Here are some documents that I have been able to access that prior to the advent of an e-book was simply out of my ability to obtain because no traditional book distributor/book store was willing to sell them:
Many people, myself included, now offer free electronic versions of their books in an attempt to spread readership and increase hard-copy sales.
The intent is that many book lovers will buy the print version of a story they enjoyed, as well as reccommend the book to their non-Ebook friends to read.
To download a free copy my book, CYBERCHILD, go to www.smartalix.com/cyberchild.htm. A preview is also on that page so you can decide if it is your cup of tea.
It is available there in both PDF for Windows and Mobipocket PRC for Palm devices, so you can read it on your computer or your Palm-based PDA.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
I love the idea of ebooks that I can read on my Palm. I have read several plain text books this way in the past and would be willing to buy these instead of the real books which I buy tons of.
However, I will not purchase an ebook that has any form of DRM in it. I don't care how relaxed the restrictions are I just will not give my money to someone that supports DRM.
*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.
Do vampires live in trees now? If so, are they harmless when doing so? If so, wouldn't Vikram want to be babbling?
In the immortal words of ObviousGuy, I don't get it.
There are books and then there are books. I don't think that summer beach books are ever going to be replaced by e-books - as others have pointed out, what would be the point? But reference books which are fairly difficult to search in dead tree form become much more useful when in digital form, and their electronic incarnations are already very popular for this reason. How many families buy multivolume encyclopedias any more instead of CD/DVD versions of the same (or just net access to same)?
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
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.
Because a good e-book reader replaces no one book, but a trunk full of books...
Tomorrow I'm going to spend two weeks in the mountains. Right now I'm doing triage to the pile of books I want to read while there, discarding, discarding, discarding...
I'd kill for a good, simple, cheap no frills TXT reader, with capacity for 50/100 books.
A three inch by four inch by one inch square can provide 40 or 50 hours of entertainment...
Wow, a slow reader, aren't you?
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Digital music hadnt completely hit its stride until iPods and iTunes came along. Of course alot of good pieces were already out there. However the iPod combined good comprises in price, style, availability and corporate buy-in.
I just purchased my first E-book from Amazon.com Last Friday. It will not download properly and I can get absolutely no response from Amazon on the problem, even after sending them 3 e-mails. There is no phone number for customer service that I can find for them which is completely ludicrous. I had to download the stupid reader and then screw around activating it, then updating the reader. I'm sorry but from now on I am going to stick with purchasing paper copies and getting them through the mail. When I can purchase an E-book and bring it up in my choice of several different formats without the hassel I'll consider trying it again.
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
The parent was talking about a device that was with him all the time. The Developer Works article had a header entitled "Huge in Japan: When will it come to the West?"
The correlation between these two things is a device that is still too far from common in the US: the cell phone. Yes, many more people have cell phones than a few years ago, but the universality of cell phones in Asia will not be achieved in the US in the near future.
In Japan, read e-books on their cell phones because they do EVERYTHING on their cellphones. In Japan, cellphones are almost like a link to society. Japanese people use cell phones for so many things. In Tokyo, it would be hard to live without a cellphone. Therefore, the problem of getting a reader to everyone is solved. EVERYONE has a reader. The only problem is to make getting the books easy.
Nowadays, I almost exclusively read off of my A780 (no, I do not live in Japan). It is convenient, and more importantly, I can read any time I have 5 or 10 minutes free on a train or on the bus or in a cab (which is usually too dark to read a book at night).
So, the question "When are e-books going to become mainstream?" will probably be answered when the question "When will every individual have a cellphone with a large screen?" is answered -- per given society.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
For 'regular' books (not manuals, references, etc.)? This seems to me a tiny, obvious problem: I mean, per default just present plain ASCII, line wrapped to fit the display.
For extra points, use regex to tidy up Gutenberg Project formatting (asterisks -> horiz lines, etc.). Throw in html markup if you really want to (I wouldn't).
For data transfer (eBooks or other), add a USB A connector. Again, extra points awarded for charging the battery via USB.
"Good news, everyone!"