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The eBook, Mark 2
Selanit writes "David Pogue recently published a review of the Sony Reader, under the title Trying Again to Make Books Obsolete. Though he likes the device in general, he concludes that it's not destined to replace the book any time soon. Well worth a read."
From TFA: "One charge is good for 7,500 page turns. That's enough power to get you through "The Da Vinci Code" 16 times (electrical power, anyway)."
So my question is: Why would you want to?
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
pulp books do not need electricity. . .
Why yes, I do live in a basement, you insensitive clod.
KFG
The Web has certainly replaced magazines for the most part, and is even starting to replace academic journals.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that textbook sales are decreasing in real terms since the introduction of easily found information suitable for helping out with a lot of university work.
And there are already exact replacements for some book content.
Just look at what porn is doing - are porn mags still used as much as they were? Nope, it's on the 'net. The web is the main component of a book replacement and once you can get paper like displays which don't need any bulky electronics another feature of books will be replicated in modern technology.
Blogs have replaced journals, and TV guides are now transmitted over the air and published on the net too. All paper based content moved to "book" replacements.
Here we go Pocket Knife -> Leatherman/Multitool Pencil -> PDA with note pad The Match -> Lighter (I don't know anyone who regularly uses matches over a lighter Internal Combustion Engine -> Hybrid engine cars. (Yeah I know there's still an Internal Combustion Engine) Corrective Lenses -> Laser Eye Surgery Transpaent glass windows -> What, you wnat them replaced with opaque brick? Tumbler locks -> Many locks are now electrical and based on RFIDs. Zippers -> Buttons work so much better, I hate how zippers always fall down, If you want a constant barrier use velcro. Analog clocks -> Digital clocks Shoes with laces -> Velcro, or shoes with elastics so there's not tightening required. Anyway, although i know that none (save for the lighter) has come close to replacing the others, There are alternatives, and I believe that in the future, many of these things will be replaced, once the cost comes down. If it's $200 every couple of years for glasses, and laser eye surgery only costs $500, doesn't have to be redone, and is risk free, then I think may people will opt for that instead of glasses. If you still think glasses look good, well then get laser surgery and wear window glasses.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
pulp books do not need electricity
That's the only advantage you can think of for traditional books? They also have no DRM; they have to be treated pretty badly before they stop working; they contain both the data and everything necessary to read it.
I have a fifty odd year old book I bought second hand recently. It has one or two holes in it where it got torn up pretty badly. However, I can still read it. I probably couldn't say the same thing about a fifty year old computer text file, as it would pre-date ASCII and likely be written on some old format like a punch card, so I'd probably need to buy some specialist hardware like a punch card reader, then write a program to translate the data into a modern format.
Of course, digitised books have advantages too, such as not taking up space, and being easily searchable. It seems like an ideal format for non-fiction reference books such as encyclopedias and guides, but not very good for fiction.
I guess I'm not the first to figure out that maybe e-books have an uphill battle to market, because a book or two is already portable. Which means that maybe the marketing effort should focus on commercial users of piles of books -- mechanics, doctors, computer technicians, etc. (When I had a service call from Sun recently, the technician was lugging around a laptop to read service manuals.)
you had me at #!
See my reply below to another poster.
My point, which I apparently failed to convey, is that alternative technology exists to accomplish the most common uses of all of the things I mentioned -- and in some cases, has existed for quite some time -- without "replacing" those things in any meaningful sense of the word. Yes, the new technology infringes on the size of the market for those things, and yes, some people will opt to use the newer technologies exclusively. But the older technologies have their advantages, too -- whether it be cost, safety, ease of use, familiarity, or simple idiosyncratic aesthetic appeal. As a result, I think that the use of the older technologies is far more likely to last than most of us neophile technogeeks seem to think.
(My mention of transparent glass windows was in reference to a trend some years back, now thankfully largely reversed, toward replacing clear glass in schools and office buildings with, yes, opaque brick, or else opaque glass, in the interest of "reducing distractions" in schools and "increasing productivity" in businesses -- till studies began to show that the end result tended to be exactly the opposite. Most people apparently need distraction occasionally to function at their best.)
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
Link to printable version
:)
If you don't like either Sony's reader or the iLiad (my personal e-Ink favorite) you can make your own!
Awesome.
Pulp books stricly forbid copying & pasting (though there is a hack going around called a scanner + OCR, but it's pretty expensive, hard to use and worst of all: requires you to get off your computer!). They cannot be emailed. You can't even link to them from a blog. And without the aforementioned hack, you can't transfer them among your various devices, even though you legally purchased them.
PS: I'm going back to reading His Dark Materials in this evil format now.
I've always felt that the RCA e-book reader had a lot right, especially for the technology at the time. The interface is intuiative - you load a book, top button under your thumb goes forward one page, bottom one back one page.
What was bad was the low resolution.
I personally want something with a similar interface to the RCA e-book reader, better screen and better importers. I really like the backlight myself - and having a battery that can last "only" ~20 hours seems fine to me - hell, we live with cellphones and mp3 players that get significantly less always on battery life. I mean, is it that hard to plug it in at night?
That's not to say longer battery life is bad, but I really think backlights are a great benefit to e-books, and should not be discarded for an "authentic" experiance. If I wanted a paperback experiance, I'd buy a paperback!
Finally, am I the only one who thinks content industries in general just don't get it? I mean, why would I pay the price of a hardcover book for a DRMed computer file? For that matter, why would I even pay the price of a paperback for that? I would pay $2-$3 for that though, if it's something I'm going to read once or twice...
It needs to be cheaper than Amazon's used books are or I'll just buy a real book.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
>> pulp books do not need electricity
Unless it's dark. And where I live, it's dark about half the time. Farther north, planetary motion is even less compliant with readers' needs. Fix that, and you've got something!
I happen to split my time between web development and book design and typesetting, and I can't imagine that the old, er, analog format can't live in harmony with the new digital formats. I prefer to read print on paper, but I do keep several reference and classic books on my PDA. I don't find them as easy on the eyes, but that's details -- the fact is, I have more data than I could ever carry in print form in a little box the size of my wallet, and I can refer to it when the chips are down (the U.S. Constitution is getting quite a workout these days, for example). And if I have something digitally that I'm reading at home on paper, I can wait out a dentist or something and just move my physical bookmark when I get home. Moreover, you can't run a global search on a hardcover from the library. But you can hold it and smell it and enjoy all the tactile magnificence of a well-manufactured book.
Working in publishing, I hear a lot of either/or -- people strongly believe that the advent of eBooks spells the end of print books. They can live together and compliment each other, as long as the proponents of each don't think the other is a mortal threat to their bottom line. No different from a lot of other digital-vs-analog arguments, really. People freak out far too easily when they think something that will compliment their industry will actually replace it. Whereas the smart people (read: the ones who will still be there at the end) get involved in both.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
pulp books do not need electricity
True, but how much is "enough"? I have a electric quartz watch that I have had for about 10 years and have changed the batteries twice. I would regard that as maintenance to the point of it being negligible.
The Sony Reader has an eInk display. Charged plates underneath capsules arranged in a fine grid push either dark or light ink into view. The resulting display is basically the same as ink on paper and needs no back light in the same way as conventional paper doesn't need them either. And crucially, there is no power required other than to change the display. I fully expect that in a few years, eInk will require about as much power as a quartz watch and will have as long a life without a change of batteries.
The Sony Reader isn't going to "replace" books or magazines any more than dishwashers "replaced" washing the dishes, or the car "replaced" the train. It's going to simply find a niche to co-exist with paper. All this huff-puffing about how you need batteries and can't swat flies with an eBook is hokum. DRM is going to be the biggest problem - by far - with this technology. Luckily, Sony haven't carried that particular innovation through with the Reader it seems.
PS: Here's a review of the Reader published on our company blog, which concludes that's it not too bad. Has a video of it in operation too (the Reader's screen refresh is rather slow, apparently), which is more than the NYT can manage.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"