

Here comes the e-book revolution - cubix
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Mobile+and+Wireless&articleId=9127538&taxonomyId=15&pageNumber=1

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mapleoin
I hate it how everyone focuses on Amazon's Kindle. I think it's one of the
weakest ebooks out there. And certainly the most proprietary.

There are tons of ebooks out there:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook_reader> and I think the iLiad should get
more headlines: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILiad>

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unalone
You think? What about it makes it weak?

It has access to an online Amazon store. It has free wireless Internet from
anywhere. It's owned by the largest online book store on the planet and it
integrates into their products. If you need to convert to a format that works
for them, they give you a free email address that converts instantly, or for
ten cents you can send it right to their book. Physically it's beautiful: the
form is one of the best I've come across for any device.

The iLiad looks ugly. It looks clunky and generic and the interface looks just
as bad. If you want good press make something that's a joy to use.

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procrastitron
I completely disagree with you regarding the Kindle's physical form; I think
the Iliad (and every other e-book reader I've seen) is far ahead of it in
terms of design.

When I'm reading an e-book, all I want in front of me is a large screen.
However, the Kindle sacrifices screen size to make up for a built-in keyboard.
99% of the time that you are using the device you won't have any need for a
keyboard, and the Iliad's 8 inch screen would serve you better at those times
than the Kindle's 6 inch screen.

For me, the ideal form factor for an e-book reader would look like one of two
things:

1) A larger iPod touch with something close to an 8 inch screen.

or

2) An EeePC with a swivel screen so you could use it in e-book mode, similar
to the OLPC XO.

Right now I'm using an OLPC XO as an e-book reader, and although it doesn't
have as nice a form factor as the Iliad or the Sony Reader, I do consider it
significantly nicer than the Kindle. Of course, the low price doesn't hurt
either.

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unalone
The keyboard is incredibly useful. I annotate things that I read, and I'm
grateful that they've got a keyboard. Meanwhile, the screen handles text well
enough that on the small setting, one page is about equivalent to a page in a
book.

You can't compare a laptop to a Kindle. You just can't. The electronic paper
that it uses is in a league of its own. I can see comparisons to Sony's
e-Reader or the iLiad, but if you can deal with a laptop for reading you're
nowhere near the intensive reader that would benefit from something like a
Kindle.

I haven't used an iLiad before. I've never heard of it. The picture Wikipedia
showed makes it look ugly, as I said. However, the Kindle is significantly
better than the e-Reader, which is the only other one I've heard to be a
legitimately good product.

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procrastitron
You're right that most laptop screen's aren't good enough for reading e-books,
but the OLPC XO is an exception because of its special display. Granted, that
display still isn't as nice as e-Ink, but it is good enough for serious e-book
reading.

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unalone
What display does it use? I didn't know it used a special display.

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procrastitron
It's some sort of special display that was created just for the OLPC. It has
an adjustable backlight. When the backlight is turned on all the way the
display looks like a regular laptop display, but when it is turned off all the
way, then the display looks like an e-Ink display.

Unfortunately, it does not compare with the e-Ink displays in terms of low
power usage, but it is good enough for long reading sessions without straining
your eyes.

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unalone
huh! Very neat. I'll have to look for that and see how it works.

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jaxn
I am finding more and more technical books available as PDFs and that is
pushing me towards getting an ebook reader. When I am using a book for
reference I want to be able to see it and my screen at the same time (not the
book on my screen).

Interestingly, I think that if I buy an ebook reader I will read more for
leisure as well.

From where I sit, the EVDO on the Kindle is appealing (esp since I hear it has
some RSS capabilities). However, the PDF support seems frustrating.

Hopefully the original Kindle will see a drastic price drop (even if only on
ebay). That way I can see if I like it without spending so much money. (We
must be in a recession if I am scrimping on new tech toys.)

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tontoa4
Is there any place to publish and sell your own eBook online? I've had this
idea but the PDF creator seems like it'd be difficult to code. The iTunes App
Store type business model seems ideal for this.

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njharman
<http://www.lulu.com/> is one of many, many. There are books sold in iTunes
App Store today. Many I've seen are just lame repackaging of public domain
texts.

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tontoa4
These places seem like they're more targeted toward producing physical
products. I'd focus on digital. Still think it's a viable idea for sure.

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jballanc
Funny how much I'm reading about this problem right after reading Siracusa's
piece: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and-
fut...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and-future-e-
book.ars)

I, for one, can say that I was inspired to download "Stanza" after reading
that, and have already finished H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" thanks to it!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

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unalone
Stanza is icky. I use it on my Mac to convert stuff for the Kindle, and it
does the job but it does it poorly.

It's especially bad on the iPod touch. Reading on something that small is
possible, but it's a _dread_.

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nickd
I disagree. I was pretty impressed at how readable it was on the iPhone. The
biggest problem with copyright free e-books is that they are 100 years old,
and mostly boring. Not all, but most.

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unalone
Wow, you need to find the right 100-year-old books. Literature was if anything
better then than it is now.

On the iPhone you get blurbs. I have the same problem with Classics on the
iPhone. It makes reading feel cramped. Stanza is even worse: it has awful
margins, and it has no support for making paragraphs feel good. It's
functional but unpleasant.

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nickd
I guess we can disagree on the quality of old books. There are a lot of great
classics. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't argue that only new books are worth
reading, but if there are 500,000 100+ year old books available, I would still
argue that 499,100 wouldn't be interesting to almost anyone outside of maybe
research purposes. But hey, that's 100 free interesting books, right?

~~~
unalone
To be fair, if we publish 500,000 books a year _now_ , less than 100 will be
interesting. ;-)

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BvS
Will file sharing etc. become as big a problem for the book industry as it
became for the music industry?

Howo are writers going to earn their income in the future?

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TweedHeads
99cts books, sell a million and you're done.

As long as they try to sell ebooks for $20 or $50 they will fail miserably.

iTunes is about the right spot between price and convenience.

Make it expensive and I'll pirate it.

Make it affordable and put it at my fingertips and I'll pay for it to avoid
the hassle of viruses or bad copies wasting my time.

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electromagnetic
Everyone knows the value of $1, however I don't think we see a song on iTunes
as having a cost because it's less than a dollar.

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wyclif
Who is doing the interesting things in startup space to solve the publishing
problem, particularly the college textbook problem?

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nazgulnarsil
any innovation in this area is going to face hard opposition from the textbook
publishers. you could encourage professors who are writing the new textbooks
to use a new distribution model, but you will face a lot of resistance.

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creativeembassy
If anyone is looking to get an e-book reader for CHEAP (to see if you'll even
enjoy reading a book without paper), I bought my wife an eBookwise at
Christmas. Her (and I, haha!) have been enjoying it since. It's old-school
(still uses smartmedia cards!) but gets the job done, and I didn't pay with an
arm and/or leg.

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omouse
No more ebooks please. Can we have something a little more interactive that
makes use of the wonderful hardware we have now?

