TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for May, 2003

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Tiny eBook Reader for the Pocket PC won’t win friends at Microsoft, Adobe and the like. If you’re as big on public-domain books as I am, you’ll vastly prefer TinyReader—given the wonders it can perform on plain vanilla text. No fuss, no time-wasting conversions. What’s more, you can tweak the view far better than you can with Microsoft Reader and certainly better than you can with the horridly inflexible mess from Corporation A. Whether for e-books or most other apps, Adobe still sucks.

By contrast, TinyReader is for humans, not Masters of the E-Book World. Do you want to go far beyond just changing the size of the type? Hoping to fiddle with the precise space between the lines? Or between paragraphs? The distance from the text to the edges of the page? Turn justification on or off? Choose boldface? TinyReader’s feature set in this regard is stellar, with one major exception. On my Dell Axim, at least, I can choose only between Tahoma and Courier fonts. But Golden Crater Software, the little Ontario firm that came up with the $12 bargain, is open to the possibility of including special fonts if it finds them at the right price. Meanwhile I’m enjoying the ability to choose between light and dark backgrounds, one way to vary the view as I wend my way through a long book. Not to mention the possibilities for reading in bed without disturbing a sleeping spouse.

Just when will the big software houses and book publishers be as clueful as Golden Crater? User-customized text display is what counts. No, it won’t hurt for publishers to be able supply default views; but the reader, the human in this case, not the software, should prevail in the end. TinyReader reflects such a philosophy.

Also, despite the low price, TinyReader works with ClearType, on machines equipped with it, so the type will be clear and you can squeeze in more on your screen.

Plus, as noted, the software eagerly laps up text in the Gutenberg format. Just tap on Info > About this eBook and check Book contains line breaks and Repaginate. Then tap on OK. That’s it. No need to take the ASCII and make it digestible for your reading software beforehand. And remember, you can manipulate plain text so well—line spacing and so on—that you’ll actually fare better than you would with Microsoft Reader and the rest.

Blessedly, HTML capabilities for TinyReader will be on the way. So if you’re keen on italics and the rest, you’ll be in luck. For recreational reading, at least, I myself care far more about a highly customized display than I do about all the trimmings.

Oh, and even now TinyReader can work with ZIP-format files, greatly expanding the number of public-domain titles that you can squeeze on your Pocket PC. What’s more, the reader lives up to its name and isn’t bloated; and, as described by Golden Crater, “no more than 64K is kept in memory at any given time.”

This isn’t to say that TinyReader is perfect. Besides the font limitations, you’ll need to deal with a pokey response if you toggle in the horizontal scroll bar that shows your position in the book. Golden Crater’s Jim Koornneef, tells me he’s working on that issue. I’ve also suggested that he might want an auto scroll feature and the ability to search backwards, not just forwards, for words.

I’d welcome a slicker interface, too, and more detailed documentation. Relax, however. If you care enough about e-books to be reading this blog, you’ll have no trouble.

Even with TinyReader’s shortcomings, I’m an unabashed fan. And well I should be—given Koornneef’s outstanding responsiveness to my suggestions for user control in areas such as line and paragraph spacing. He is Microsoft NOT.

At the same time, Koornneef is a realist. I suspect that like me, he sees Microsoft’s PDA efforts as more durable than Palm’s. In fact, before TinyReader for the Pocket PC, he created a different version for Microsoft’s Smartphone format. A Linux incarnation someday? I hope so. Especially if Linux could offer ClearType-style capabilities. If freeware programmers can follow in Koornneef’s footsteps, by the way, so much the better. Hopefully not too soon, though—given the support he deserves for his hard work.

But why am I so gung ho on an ASCII reader after having pressed the Open eBook Forum so hard for a standardized OeBF consumer format in the Noring vein? Yes, Jon Noring’s approach would let publishers display the same goodies as in paper books—while also allowing readers to come up with their own favorite views instead. I’m just as enthusiastic as ever about it. But even if the OeBF wakes up and acts immediately, the Noring solution will be many months off. Some important people on Jon’s eBook Community List are beginning to acknowledge the obvious. The short-term commercial interests of certain OeBF members—as opposed simply to copy-protection issues–are a major reason why the organization refuses to do a consumer standard. Don’t expect miracles, readers. Just keep up the fight!

Meanwhile, it’s great to know that plain vanilla ASCII is still around and that TinyReader can make it look better—for your eyes–than the proprietary formats of Microsoft and Adobe.

Buying information

–Product description. Keep in mind that I haven’t mentioned all features, including a basic one, bookmarking.

–Try the Pocket PC version of Tiny eBook Reader

–Buy it

–Try the SmartPhone version

–Buy it

Note: TeleRead is an advocacy site–for e-books and well-stocked national digital libraries–rather than a software reviewing outlet. TinyReader caught my eye because of TeleRead’s eagerness to promote public-domain books and standardized e-book formats at the consumer level.

Also of interest: The uBook reader, which lets you change font colors and sizes and a number of other variables but not with the precision that TinyReader offers (at least in areas I care about). What’s more, at least on my system, the images don’t seem to be quite as sharp as with TinyReader even though I’ve experimented with various options. I’ll keep both programs on my Axim, however. uBook can handle HTML, TXT, RTF, PDB and insecure PRC files and even let you choose between portrait and landscape display. Digests Gutenberg text just fine. uBook is free, although the site does let you make PayPal donations–well-deserved. At some point I may also do a full review of uBook (which I won’t go ahead with for the moment because of time constraints).

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Here in the States, Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel (1929) hasn’t been freed for public-domain reading in cyberspace, but Eugene Gant, the protagonist, undoubtedly would have a few feelings on the matter. Consider a snippet of dialogue between him and an Indianpolis woman visiting his small town in the North Carolina mountains:

“And a library–you have a big one, eh?”

“Yes. We have a nice library.”

“How many books has it?”

“Oh, I can’t say as to that. But it’s a good big library.”

“Over 100,000 books, do you suppose? They wouldn’t have half a million, would they?” He did not wait for an answer, he was talking to himself. “No, of course not. How many books can you take out at one time? What?”

The question goes unanswered in Look Homeward Angel. But there’s little doubt how Eugene would have felt about a cyberlibrary from which he could enjoy as many books as he wanted, at once.

If Bill Gates were less gadget- and software-crazed, he would just might understand–and help finance the legal uploading of modern classics that the greedsters in DC have denied the Net. Perhaps more caring philanthropists will. Think of all the classics, such as Look Homeward Angel, with strong regional roots. A North Carolina millionaire, for example, or group of them, could pay for LHA’s posting in cyberspace. Such arrangements would be more practical with an infrastructure of the kind that TeleRead could provide.

Of course, the best solution in LHA’s case would be for Congress to overturn the scandalous copyright-term extension. Time for this to be an issue in the 2004 Presidential campaign? Just happens that Sen.John Edwards, one of the main Democratic candidates, is a Tar Heel. Mightn’t he just want to take a library-friendly stand–if he hasn’t already–to demonstrate some independence of contributors from the entertainment industry?

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The eBook Library from eBooks Corporation will target “select university and research libraries in September 2003 and will be officially launched in January 2004,” according to an announcement at BookExpo America. More details:

EBL will feature Non-linear Lending(TM), a multiple-concurrent lending model which allows a single title to be checked out simultaneously by multiple patrons. Other features of EBL include digital interlibrary lending, unique eBook reserve functionality and lending by the chapter. eBook titles can be browsed online and then downloaded to a desktop, laptop, or hand-held device for use offline. The system will allow patrons to perform full text searches across their library’s entire eBook collection.

One hopes that the EBL will be more respectful of the public domain than some other library-related companies have been.

(Found via eBookAd.)

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That’s what David Weinberg says in his essay in the new Wired. My own take is similar to that of TechDirt. No need to make DRM a crime. The real punishment is inflicted on the shareholders of companies that use DRM cluelessly. Of course, when DRM interferes with access by the disabled, then it should be a crime. Here’s an idea. Maybe some of the DRM zealots could don blindfolds and spend a month as “blind” people.

Meanwhile here’s some good reading for members of the Open eBook Forum–a few words from TechDirt:

DRM products shrink your market, rather than expand it. It makes innovation slower, it harms consumers, and makes your products less valuable. It also opens up a wonderful opportunity for competitors to come along and give consumers what they want rather than meekly trying to hide behind DRM.

Of course, without a practical consumer e-book format, the OeBF hasn’t even reached the point where it has existing competitors. If publisher-members want DRM–well, the technology can be reasonably used, via a Noring-style approach. But they’d better not overdo it. Otherwise perhaps someday, when young voters finally rid Congress of the old coots who gave us the DMCA, then Weinberg’s proposal to criminalize DRM may not seem so far-fetched.

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Optics.org has a pretty good description of E Ink’s latest prototype. Also see the display company’s own material, especially a picture of the technology in action.

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Just spotted…a helpful piece from Reuters on free books…

Project Gutenberg, which started it all and has supplied the digital copies used on many other sites, could have gotten more attention, but overall the piece should do more good than harm.

Suggestion: When the press writes about free books on the Internet, perhaps it can mention the copyright-term-extension legislation that deprived the Net of such classics as The Great Gatsby (or at least deprived U.S. users). The Reuters piece refers to Eldritch Press without noting its key role in the recent legal efforts to undo the damage. Via Eldritch, by the way, you can enjoy an HTML edition of The Rise of David Levinsky–discussed recently in this blog.

Coming soon: A quick write-up of software that I found especially helpful for reading ASCII editions of free books.

By David Rothman

Are you visually impaired or otherwise disabled in a way that interferes with book reading? Or do you know someone else who could benefit from free talking books and even a player for them? Certain libraries in Hawaii, New Jersey and Mississippi are joining those in a one-year Illinois experiment overseen by the Illinois State Library Talking Book and Braille Service. Highlights:

…Lobe Library [in Illinois] will offer digital talking books to readers from July 2003 to June 2004. Patrons participating in the TBBS Talking Book program who have a temporary or permanent physical or visual inability to read regular printed material are eligible to participate in the pilot program. They will receive a free handheld MP-3 type player loaded with a digital audiobook, headphones, an instruction sheet, and an evaluation survey. Patrons will be able to test the player for three weeks. In June 2004 a national electronic book expert will write an evaluation report based upon the experiences of readers who participate to determine if and how the service will be continued and whether it should be expanded nationwide.”

For details, reach the Illinois State Library Talking Book and Braille Service at 1-800-665-5576, extension 5, or psalamon@ilsos.net.

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The Open eBook Forum is collecting stats from publishers, including nonmembers. Links:

–Press release announcing program

–Registration and methodology for statistics program

As much as TeleRead disagrees with the OeBF’s failure to come up with consumer-level format standards, we very much support the existence of the organization and hope that publishers will cooperate on matters such as the above.

With accurate stats, the group can more effectively cope with misunderstandings in the press about the extent of e-book growth.

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A Reuters column and an AP story are both skeptical toward e-books. And not entirely without justification–given the Open eBook Forum’s format debacle and the related fixation on copy protection.

From Reuters:

E-books, hailed in hi-tech precincts as the electronic alternative to traditional publishing, have failed to live up to their early billing as a replacement for the printed page, despite their popularity with gadget-obsessed pioneers.

“The (e-book) vendors will tell you that mass adoption is just around the corner,” said Rich Levin, editor-in-chief of BookTech, a trade magazine for the publishing industry.

“When I talk to readers and publishers, they tell me the technology is just not ready for prime time,” he said.

Guess what, Mr. Levin. Isn’t it possible that the industry has punished itself through lack of a standardized format at the consumer level. In fact, Levin himself acknowledges that as a problem.

The piece goes on to say: “Meanwhile, the Open eBook Forum is working on standards to make electronic book publishing easier for publishers, said Nicholas Bogaty, executive director of the group.”

Notice the operative phrase? “For publishers.” How about readers?

All the talk about obnoxious copy protection schemes is also a threat to e-bookdom. Imagine an industry that boasts about ”temporary electronic ‘ink’ that disappears, or is unreadable, after a few weeks or months” (a description used neutrally in the Reuters column) .

Readers may grudgingly put up with this techology in library books, but just think how they’ll feel if it invades book “stores,” physical or electronic. TeleRead, of course, would provide ways for even electronic library books to remain on readers’ disks–with proper payments to writers and publishers.

Among other things, the Reuters piece also brings up the eye-wear issue. But guess what. Hardware has improved, I can read hour after hour on a Dell PDA with a decent color screen. Because I can adjust font sizes, I actually find this more pleasant than paper books. Yes, these matters are subjective, but I would suspect that the screen quality issue will matter less as hardware improves and young people grow up with e-books.

Meanwhile the AP story from BookExpo America notes: “Three years ago, at the height of the digital boom, e-books were the talk of the convention floor, with about 100 companies in the ‘technology’ section. But the number dropped to about 40 by 2002, and about half that total were expected this year.” The headline? “E-books Down, Graphic Novels Up at Expo.”

Imagine the scene next year if OeBF has announced a new universal consumer format. Meanwhile, alienated by the piracy paranoia of the industry, which also is complicating the development of the universal format, millions of readers will continue to shun e-books.

Question for the mass media: Won’t anyone talk to Jon Noring for his take on copy protection and reader formats? Looks as if the most important ideas within e-bookdom for the moment are publicity-proof.

Update, May 29: I wonder if AP and Reuters read statistics from the Open eBook Forum showing dramatic increases in e-book use last year. Sales are growing rapidly in percentage terms. The problem is that they’re pathetic compared to what they could be with more respect for the needs of readers.

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Jon Noring’s appeal for a universal consumer-level format for e-books is getting around. Why, it’s even being translated into Italian. No surprise. This undoubtedly is the most important e-book-related article that you’ll read in ‘03.

Alas, some in the e-book biz still don’t get it. Gasp, there’s talk that standards could threaten business models.

Jon and I have another take on this. Lack of standards would be a lot more lethal to the prosperity of the e-book industry. Worry less about the welfare of companies dependent on the proprietary approach and more about the business as a whole.

And remember the best kind of competition in e-books. Content-related. Proprietary standards enforced by big boys such as Microsoft and Adobe will harm publishers of all sizes. Let the real fight be over the most gripping plots and fascinating characters, or the most essential insights, as opposed to: “Who’s done the best business deal?”

Especially I’d encourage people outside the States to speak up. And don’t just talk about “VHS-vs.-Beta times ten.” Do something. Tell others about the Noring article and have it translated into still more languages. I’ve suggested to Glenn Sanders, publisher of eBookWeb, where Jon’s article came out, that the site link to translations as they appear. Net activities could be just the start. I myself would rather not see government regulate e-book formats, but in the States and elsewhere, this could be a useful way to force the OeBF to do what it promised five years ago. So tell your politicians about Jon’s piece. Here’s in the States, of course, the big angle is proprietary formats vs. accessibility for the disabled.

Pesky reminder: Italy is the home of Mario Monti, the European Union’s most fearsome trust buster, who demolished GE’s plans for expansion. I wonder if he or colleagues just might find some regulatory angles. Again I’d much rather see the industry clean up this mess on its own. But pressure won’t hurt. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the EU or a similar body presented the OeBF–the dominant standards organization within e-bookdom–with a deadline?

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It’s breakfast time here in the Washington suburbs, and my wife and I have once again pondered a cosmic question. “Do you think Safeway will ever order enough black cherry yogurt?” I ask.

“Always runs out first when yogurt’s on sale,” Carly acknowledges.

But when we ask the grocery chain, we always get the same answer. “We’re not going to order any more.” No explanation.

Might communications giants be a little like Safeway? Even if your tastes are no more exotic than cherry yogurt, you often lose out. And a proposal to relax Federal Communications Commission rules would just aggravate matters in rather obnoxious ways. Speak up before the commission votes June 2.

I, of all people, know the risks from unchecked media monopolies. You think you’ve seen many TeleRead articles in the popular press? Hardly a coincidence. TeleRead challenges the perverted copyright system, and while the plan actually might be very good for media of all sizes, the giants would rather not disturb the system that they see as so good for them. No cherry yogurt. And that, Virginia, is a great example of why we have laws restricting the influence of the big media. Oh, it isn’t as if they mind some forms of government intervention. Observe the millions that Disney, AOL Time Warner and friends have lavished on campaign contributions to inflict DMCA tyranny on the rest of us.

What’s really amusing is when big media corporations run commentaries with such headlines such as Free the Media, which is exactly what Scripps Howard did–in an article that I read on a radio station site run by Clear Channel Communications, the giant that is one of the biggest advocates of “consolidation.” May I suggest that the laissez-faire people drop by the TeleRead site and read excerpts from The Brass Check, in which Upton Sinclair vividly documents the risks? (The full book will be online this summer.) Meanwhile, within the private sector, the small fry suffer–not just individual citizens but also small local businesses that are looking for affordable advertising outlets.

Does this mean that every item from the big media is suspect? Of course not. Just the same, media concentrate increases the possibility of Jayson Blairish situations where corporate arrogance prevails over journalistic ethics (oxymoron alert).

Fed up with the proposed changes? Strike back by researching the issues and, yes, contacting your local Congress member. You can also add your name to the petition of MoveOn.org.

Yes, I know. Big media will say, “See, this massive campaign proves that we can be successfully bypassed, that we really don’t count that much.” Bunk. Robert McCheney, a University of Illinois professor, correctly notes the discrepancy between the general inflation rate and rise of the values of radio stations despite the growth of the Internet.

Perhaps someday, when we have small radio stations available over IP-based wireless, things could be different. But not now. You can drive home and hear the usual media suspects; you cannot tune in the latest from TeleRead.org or the thousands of other little sites.

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I’ve been revisiting Bleak House via my PDA and a text from Project Gutenberg. Copyright zealots remind me of Dickens’ legal leeches. Think about it. The longer the copyright term, the more possibilities for lawyering. And guess what is among the more common occupations of members of Congress? No, it isn’t as if copyright law is a major legal specialty of the lawyer-members on Capitol the Hill. But my theory is that lawyers tend to watch out for fellow lawyers or at least care less about the damage they do to society by fighting for lengthened copyright terms and other mischief, such as the attack on the doctrine of first sale. Campaign donations bring out natural tendencies.

Here’s an interesting project for a class in law or economics. Why not draw a graph with two lines representing the inflation-adjusted incomes of typical writers and the amount of money frittered away on copyright-related legalities, including the lobbying that aggravated the mess? I suspect we might well see a strong inverse relationship, making a mockery of Hollywood’s claim that it’s watching out for creators.

Meanwhile Shift Magazine has run an interesting piece on the Privatization of Culture, which, in some ways, you might actually rename the Lawyering of Culture–since this privatization is not without its opportunities for leeches.

Thought: Might be fun to see how many Congress members who rant against overpaid trial lawyers (a little déclassé because they often take on corporate fatcats) are doing the same against overpaid entertainment industry lawyers and the costs that they’ll create for the rest of us in the new legal environment. To think that Hilary Rosen–in other words, RIAA lawyers–is helping to create the New Order of IP Law for Iraq and presumably other countries we occupy in the future. Oh, well, I suppose it’ll help us here in the States by making the rest of the world that much less competitive.

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Hey, it’s wicked, wicked, wicked to make a backup copy of your DVD, ’cause the DMCA sez so. That’s the word from Chairman Jack of the Motion Picture Association of America.

PC World asked: “Why can’t people who legally purchase DVDs make one backup copy? How come the same fair use rights that let you make a backup copy of other media do not extend to DVDs?”

“That question,” said Jack Valenti, “has nothing to do with fair use because a DVD is encrypted and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act says to circumvent an encryption violates that law.”

Oh, the glories of vanity laws–bought with millions in campaign donations.

Thanks for the laugh, Jack.

(PC World, via Jenny, the Shifted Librarian.)

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Some researchers worry that IM-crazed kids will abandon standard English usage for language in the LOL vein, according to today’s New York Times.

The TeleRead take: LOL . The cure? Don’t ban Instant Messaging. Do expose children to standard English, and what better way than a well-stocked national digital library system of the TeleRead variety?

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Again and again we’ve said it. Beware of e-books in proprietary formats that rely on the sustainability of any particular vendors. Now, from the the Inquirer, comes an article raising serious questions about Palm’s dependence on interaction with Microsoft products. Will The Evil Empire eventually do Palm in? Writer Charlie Demerjian doesn’t see any immediate risk, but he says that in the future his next purchase may not be another Palm. Why?

The problem is that Palm has taken aim at its own foot, shot with deadly accuracy, and is in the process of handing the entire sector to Microsoft. In one seemingly simple step, it has given control of the core functionality to Microsoft. A Palm Pilot is not much more than an address book and phone number list. Sure, the new ones have 144MHz ARM based CPUs, megs of memory, and can run programs as fast as a desktop of a few years ago, but they still have the functions of a paper day planner at their heart. This heart is what they have just handed over.

Granted, Palm-style e-book software will run on Pocket PCs and it isn’t as if the format is about to vanish overnight–not to mention that the above is just one writer’s theory. Still, this is all an example of why the Open eBook Forum should get its act together and come up with an officially blessed consumer-level format for e-books. This industry needs confidence-builders, not more questions of the Palm variety.

Note: I’m aware that the software/publishing side of Palm won’t be the same as the hardware side. Just the same, the condition of one will affect the condition of the other.

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“Bookish researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Bristol, England, are working on an experimental e-book that allows users to flick through pages just as they would reading real books, magazines, and newspapers. ‘We want to convince users that they are real books,’ said Anthony Sowden, a researcher at HP Labs Bristol. ‘The devices, dubbed Digital Media Viewers, were previewed to a group of European press this week as an example of the kind of digital-media research taking place at the company’s U.K. research lab.’” – IDG News Service, May 22.

The TeleRead take: The viewers are said to be “lightweight and roughly the size of an opened book, with displays that feature about the same resolution as the screen of an average laptop computer. Much of the innovation lies in the software, however, which allows the user to turn pages using built-in touch pads.” The biggest obstacles for the prototypes–they aren’t actual products–happen to be battery power and screen res. But guess what. It isn’t as if other vendors are standing still in the problem areas. Perhaps through licensing, HP’s gizmo will hit the market sooner than skeptics might think.

One other comment. I’m delighted to see anything that promotes e-book use, but the above innovation doesn’t excite me that much if it’s limited to page-turning alone. The jog lever on my Dell Axim does just fine, thanks. Perhaps, however, the article fails to mention some nifty navigation schemes that would make a difference.

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Andy Oram, a veteran editor at O’Reilly, the respected tech publisher, favors a Noring-style solution to the “VHS-vs.-Beta times ten” mess, as we’ve called it. Offering a personal opinion in his Web log, he writes about the chaos in formats:

Right now, the ebook industry is notoriously mired in a swamp of unappealing and incompatible solutions. A continuation of this trend will at best mean that publishers and users alike are trapped in questionable technologies that unnecessarily restrict them through a mixture of technological incompetence and paranoid content protection. At worst (actually, this result might be better) ebooks may not get off the ground at all.

Jon Noring, a central figure in ebook technology, has written a readable and persuasive article on the solution: an open standard based on nonproprietary technologies that are currently in use and have developer bases already in place. The Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS) is simple and so comprehensive it could legitimately be called a multimedia specification (although it probably is adequate only for small bits of audio and video in books rather than full movies). It does not arrogantly create entirely new standards (as proprietary vendors do). According to the FAQ, “The goal of OEBPS is to provide this comprehensive support not by developing yet another standard, but by specifying subsets of well-established standards, most importantly: XML, XHTML, CSS, MIME, Dublin Core, MARC, and Unicode.”

Also worth reading is David Rothman’s blog “Proprietary approach is LESS secure” that shows we need to fight some of the same old fights over again to educate publishers about the value of an open approach.

Opposition by vendors to an open approach can be expected on the basis that it will force their premium-cost devices to compete with cut-rate solutions, including displays on general-purpose commodity computer systems. But vendors and publishers may well fight the open solution for another reason: standards and specifications require them to put down what they’re doing in clear writing. And they have good reason to be embarrassed about advertising some of the Digital Rights Management policies they’re adopting.

Andy’s observations are in character for a dedicated editor eager to see publishing technology progress in e-books and p-books alike. With an open approach, for example, it would be easier to do precisely located links from book to book. Best of all, without the format confusion, publishers could sell more books.

Hey, book publishers are in enough trouble economically. This industry does not need self-created obstacles.

Luckily, as I’ve noted, some of the better publishers are showing open-mindedness about the risks of intrusive Digital Rights Management. Random House has even even released some books in unencrypted form, via Fictionwise, which reports great success. The Noring solution of a universal format would still provide for DRM–via nonproprietary techniques–but make it less intrusive.