I got fooled on this one. Although the sony ebook reader displays pdf files, you can hardly read it – even when you change to landscape orientation. I think Sony forgot that the whole purpose is to read content (after all part of the name of the product is reader).

Sony’s ebook reader does not reflow pdf files!!!! Sure it displays it – but this hardly useable. I am sure they know this, yet they chose to mislead the public by claiming you can read pdf files on their ebook reader

Well put, Pond! And the Sony PR campaign is directed at them. “Gosh, isn’t it wonderful that big wonderful Sony will take our questions.” Never mind the answers to the format-related ones. Still, we know that nonproprietary formats have a history of winning. The last laugh, then, and maybe even some early laughs, may be on Sony.

Thanks,
David

Remember they have their eyes on Apple’s success with the iPod. That model includes not only the cool device, but also the proprietary, Apple-only DRM format, and the iTunes Music Store. The more iTunes songs you buy, which are only playable on your Apple iPod, the more you are tied in to the whole Apple iPod market. So your next music-player will be another iPod, and you will buy more tunes, TV shows, (and maybe ebooks?) from Apple in their proprietary, DRM format, and then buy another iPod in a year or two… round and round she goes.

This is the brass ring, the Holy Grail for a company like Sony. Losers never forget a war, and Sony has not forgotten the VHS-Betamax war they lost. It’s why they fight so bitterly for Blu-Ray.

Addiding text, html, etc., capabilities to the Sony Reader is much like Apple’s support of mp3 on the iPod: it helps to open up buyers like me who are more interested in reading Gutenberg texts and free ebooks, and who would avoid like the plague any proprietary DRM garbage format. But then, once I bought the Reader, if a cool new book appeared on the Sony Reader store, maybe, just maybe, I’d buy it. And lots of people would be less rigidly opposed to that BBeb format than you or me…these are the great unwashed suckers upon whom Sony is casting its lustful gaze.

Same thing with Apple. FIne, they’re going to have a DRMed e-book version, but I hope they support HTML or TXT or whatever natively rather than conversion.

I hate converting my files — major waste of time to read books that are already in the public domain.

Thanks, and keep the thoughts coming!

David

Here’s the hole in their DRM universe; they include a RSS reader, so it’s a trivial task to make a weblog specifically with pirated material, and then add it to your reader like that. I’m sure Sony and their publishing partners are agonizing over this. On the one hand, they know that reading RSS feeds is extremely useful; on the other hand, it will make circumvention easy. My guess is that their iTunes-like application won’t make it possible to convert RSS feeds into permanent content residing on the reader; it will have a rapid expiration date (say one week or two). I am very curious about how Sony tries to solve this problem. Let’s hope they don’t try to.

Remember: you won’t be able to read DRMed books–the kind the big publishers insist on–except in Sony’s pathetic BBeB format. You can read far, far more more books in, say, Mobipocket. While the iLiad will cost more, it will allow access to more books. I’d rather it be cheaper, but until the Sony does more, the iRex machine actually should be a better value.

That said, I hope you enjoy your new Sony when it comes. Keep us posted. I myself will do what I can to enlighten Sony about the need for more a less proprietary approach, but I won’t get my hopes up.

Thanks,
David

I think you answered your own question David:

“It’s a for-profit tech company, not Mother Teresa.”

I am still excited about this thing. In addition to the 10,000 ebooks you mentioned (which may be less than a full public library, but is still an awful lot of popular titles to make available), I’m planning on using this to read public domain works, of which there are already plenty available.

And the asking price, while not cheap, is still way, way, less than the Iliad.

The only real disappointment to me is the long delay on release. I had hoped to be reading ebooks on the Sony device back in May. Oh well.