Slashdot Mirror
Sony Reader Taking Hold?
An anonymous reader writes "Sony recently launched their latest attempt at an electronic book reader. The 'Sony Reader' is small and lightweight, about the size of a paperback book, and using E-Ink technology it only requires battery power when changing the page so light on power requirements. While it isn't their first attempt at an electronic book reader, critics are already predicting the Reader's success."
Unfortunately with most ebook sellers pricing themselves higher than equivalent paperbacks it's going to take more than this to really liven up the market. I favour SF&F so Baen ( http://www.baen.com/library/ ) are a welcome exception. They offer DRM-free downloads and subscriptions AND offer a load of books for free download.
Paperback books are cheap. This ebook reader can't compete with real books so long as it will be priced $300 to $400. The only way eBook readers could become commonplace is if they give them away.
They'd have me if it was possible to install other readers onto it (I don't want Sony to write the programs, just make it so other people CAN write the programs and the user can install them on the reader). Alternately I'd be more tempted if their format wasn't DRM'd (yup, non-DRM e-books do exist. One store that sells quite a bit from numerous prominent authors (such as Kevin J Andserson) is Fictionwise).
I'm a big time e-book reader and I'm migrating to an e-book only library (for new books anyway). If Sony has success, that's great. But I'm finding it doubtful that they will, because if someone like me isn't interested, what is their demographic?
I believe it will read pdfs so DRM is as much of a problem as you want it to be. I've seen horror stories in general about trying to transfer ebooks between PDAs so personally I'll limit myself to store that'll let me download plain txt (which I can convert to PDF to suit my personal preference with OO) or native PDF. Alternatively I may take the semi-moral choice of simply downloading via P2P scanned versions of books I already own.
without DRM, but I'm assuming that their book store is going to impose less DRM than the one they launched in Japan. In that bookstore, you could only "buy" your book for 2 months, after that it became unreadable. That defeats the whole purpose of having an e-reader! If I'm laying down $400 for an e-reader, I want to be able to bust out "Breakfast of Champions" on a whim, not make sure that my license is up to date before doing so. One of the reasons I don't buy a lot of books right now is that I hate having to find storage places for them, plus I tend to move around a great bit and shipping books is expensive and a pain.
I think a sanely priced bookstore would be a great idea, but till then I'm sticking with the library!
Monstar L
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
I'd say any success depends on it's DRM. I mean, if it can only display ebooks in a specific proprietary filetype (remember the success of ATRAC?) then I would suggest that the chance of it catching on are pretty much nil.
The reasons ipods became so popular were that it had the best UI of the time, and it played mp3s you could convert yourself. If this device can't display open formats (or at least PDFs), then it's just another electronic white elephant.
I'm still wondering who the target audience for this device is.
-More expensive than books
-Less 'enviroment friendly' than books
-More restrictive than books (a 60 day ebook DRM deadline that self deletes, versus at my leisure, 1 day through forever)
Are you a commuter? If you are, then you would probably realize the value of having a device that is less cumbersome to use than even the smallest laptop(and the battery lasts a bit longer too). If you are not then I could understand why you wouldn't be in to this, but there are lots of situations where people don't like to use laptops, even if they aren't part of your life.
Monstar L
Reading is bed will never be the same again :o). I can't believe how long these devices have taken to be developed as I feel the potential market is huge. Perhaps the problem is simply that it is a huge shift in thinking. It's the first time that paper really will become some what redundant. I'm not saying we won't need paper but if these devices became ubiquitous and with a decent display (which I think would be needed for them to become ubiquitous) I could easily see paper useage dropping dramatically.
I, for one, look forward to the day when 1000 page books weigh as much as a paper back and I don't have to struggle with forcing open a book that has printing running to within 3mm of the spine.
In fact the only downside I can envisage is that it will put publishers out of business because it will become trivial to self publish. I realize that you could self publish in electronic format already but sticking a PDF on a website is different to producing a book.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
These dedicated e-readers are all trying to look like a dead-tree book and are missing a big part of the point. My PDA is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket. A book, even a paperback, isn't. Neither is a paperback-sized e-reader.
It's like trying to make automobiles palatable to horse'n'cart users by putting a fake horse in front of it.
I do all my reading on a Palm (T3, if you care) and have done for years. All it took to make it worthwhile was a paper-white screen with 320x320 or better resolution.
Why do I prefer ebooks?
The 800-page book I just read weighed no more than the short story I read before that. And I could have hundreds of 800-page books in my pocket at once.
I can touch a word on the page and instantly call up a definition from a 150,000 word dictionary.
I can read in the dark, I can read while waiting in a queue, I can read while floating in a canoe (with the PDA in a waterproof bag.)
I can bookmark interesting pages, I can jot notes in an electronic 'margin', I can copy a relevant passage into an email without re-typing it.
If my house burns down, I have an off-site backup of my library.
I can search for a character's name or a phrase I want to look up.
And I don't need something that _looks_ like a book to do it!
I like the idea of e-books but they do lack some of the conveniencs of a paper back. The major one being cost. If I leave a £4.99 book on a train I am mostly just upset that I can't read it until I get another copy and then I will have to relocate my position. But if I leave £400 of e-book on a train I probably won't give a stuff about the books! Although if it carries 80 books will my insurance reimburse me for those too? Or will the ebook library let me have another download for free (this kind of thing also applies to DRM linked music too - you might the insurance to pay out for a new music player, but will your current license let you move it to your new, possibly incompatible player?)
In the UK there has been a movement to openly share good paperbacks by leaving them on trains and in other public places, perhaps with a few comments in on what you thought about the book. I think it may have been a BBC idea - sorry no weblink (bad slashdotter, dirty slashdotter, in your bed!). This is great idea and gets people exposed to books they wouldn't have normally read. Could we imagine a digital equivalent? Maybe a random download for every 5 you buy.
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
Dearer means more expensive, it's used in UK English, you know, the Queen's English. Strangely enough, the French use the term too, "cher" means "dear" as in "my dear and me" (mon cheri et moi) or "too dear" (trop cher). The fact that the French use the term is probably why the Americans don't.
#include <sig.h>
I would TOTALLY use one of these things (especially because I have seen the type of display they use, and it's really very nice). I would use it to work on my novel, read bits of text that I'm translating while on the train, take a report from work to look at on the plane -- as long as it can read plain text and HTML files it's fine. Excel, and powerpoint would be good too but I can see how there could be issues there. But text and HTML are fine.
Oh, wait.
I can use it to read particular selected books that Sony has done a deal with Random House on. And PDF files. That are on a Sony(r) brand memory stick. In other words, no attempt is made to make it useful as a general purpose display device -- the focus is a game console like business model where they make the money on licensing someone else's content to me.
Well done, Sony. Another great idea from the planet's most bloated, directionless and internally divided consumer goods megacorp. Here is a lollipop for you. Now sit in a corner and wait till a Chinese or Korean company buys you.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
7 These formats require file conversion to BBeB using supplied software.
At least they supply the necessary software.
IOW, they haven't learned anything from the debacle that was their MiniDisc player, their ATRAC(?) portable music player, etc.
Forcing people to copy from standard popular well-supported formats to your flavor-du-jour is a losing proposition.
Unless... you create a program like iTunes that is easy to use.
My bet is that the software will suck.
This may be true for you, but other people have different requests. For me, I'd much prefer this solution, were it not for the cost. I have a PDA (a Sony NR-70V with a large, 320x480 screen), and have played around with some e=books on it, but I have issues, many of which this device resolves.
Where I see the big application for this is with commuting (where you probably have a laptop bag or backpack anyway), which would give the ability to bring dozens of novels/ technical boks/newspapers/emails with you and vacationing (where you are definitely bringing bags with you anyway). By all means, load e-books onto your PDA; that's still great for spontaneous reading (waiting in line for 20 minutes, or whatnot) or for times when space and weight is at an ultimate premium (as in your stated example of canoe tripping). But I think this technology has promise for a lot of people. It's just too expensive at the moment
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
These dedicated e-readers are all trying to look like a dead-tree book and are missing a big part of the point. My PDA is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket. A book, even a paperback, isn't. Neither is a paperback-sized e-reader.
Paperback size is about perfect for a form-factor. Why do you think books converged on that size? It's not as if making smaller books were impossible, but publishers rather vary the page count than the size. Yes, I know there is a lot of variation in book sizes - but up from paperback size rather than down. There are lots of thicker or larger books, but very few smaller. Most publishers rather publish a thin book than a small one.
You might be comfortable reading on a PDA screen. I for sure am not. I don't want to have the screen 10 cm in front of me, and neither do I want to ready tiny letters.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sigh... I was actually considering buying this until you found the "catch". I don't want my files converted to their proprietary (likely DRM'ed) format. I want it to support PDF, RTF, TXT, HTML and the like natively.
For example: Device shows up as a USB drive when plugged into a computer, drag and drop your documents onto it, let the device convert/display them on the fly for me. No special software necessary.
Now it's possible (and I stress the "possible") that they're doing the conversion upfront on the host machine to save processing power and to make the battery life longer on the reader unit. But they should at least give the user the choice... Either do the conversion up-front, or support the file types internally with the understanding that the unit will have less battery life and may take longer to display pages.
I'll reserve judgement until reviews of their conversion software come in, but if that software tries to sneak any sort of DRM onto MY files, or prevents files loaded onto the unit from being transferred back to a PC it's connected to, they can kiss a sale goodbye.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
"until I can drop my e-book in the bathtub without ill effects, the batteries will never go out on me, I can scrawl notes on the margins of "Cryptonomicon" where Stephenson got the German wrong, and dog-ear it where I like to reread"
Uh...you can do all those things right now. My batteries last WEEKS of reading for hours, you can bookmark (and search, and use a dictionary, and...), you can take notes (far more than you can fit in the margin, at it works like writing in the margin), AND paper has a ton of disadvantages. I don't WANT to go back to paper books - why should I have to lug a suitcase of books around for a very long trip if I can take hundreds of books with me in my pocket? Try it before you knock it. Does your paperback come with variable font sizes? I didn't think so.