TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for September, 2006

By David Rothman

“Another year, another try at e-books. It’s a long-shot that Sony will succeed, although it’s a slightly better shot that Amazon will.” – David Haskin, a specialist in mobile and wireless issues, writing in Computerworld. His ultimate conclusion? Perhaps the Sony Reader will make it as a niche product. Exactly, David.

By David Rothman

Intel’s laptop for the Third World might sell in time for as little as $200 after probably starting at $250. It’ll compete with the OLPC machine, The $100 (Eventually) Laptop.

So which should be more promising for e-books? Resolution on the Intel machine’s seven-inch screen is 800 by 480. On the OLPC screen, a half inch larger, res will be as high as 1,200 horizontal by 900 vertical in monochrome and 800×600 in the color mode. Plus, the machine will work in a tablet mode.

My rather tentative vote is for OLPC’s baby, then, even if the Intel packs more computing power. Remember, the more comfortable it is for kids to read e-books, the more likely they’ll do so on their own without prodding. (more…)

By David Rothman

“Never give your manuscript to an editor/line editor who is under 50—the younger ones don’t know the difference between it’s and its, not to mention lie and lay.” – TeleBlog reader in the publishing industry.

The TeleRead take: Could this be one reason why e-book QC is so bad? The youth of the editors—and the allegedly related illiteracy? I’ve love to hear from both sides.

And speaking of literacy—and cause-effect: Check out Bill McCoy’s blog item on literacy, an MSNBC column and some musings on whether technology is eroding our ability to read. As far as I can determine, the people in the vidstore photo are not e-book line editors, but you never know. (more…)

By David Rothman

“Print-on-demand sites like Lulu allow you to create and publish your own book. If you’re primarily a writer, you might be tempted to hire a professional designer to create a cover for your book. Before you do that, consider creating a simple yet elegant book cover using the open source Kooka scanning software and the [Inkscape] vector drawing application.” – Linux.com, via Bill Janssen on the eBook Community List. Related: NewsForge article on designing a book with LyX, via Mary E. Tyler.

By David Rothman

“Personally, I would prefer if the pages were a little darker, or had a bit more black in them. Because of the screen size, it seems that the Reader would be better suited for hard black images with high-contrast, thicker lines. However, this didn’t diminish the manga reading experience for me.” – Tony Salvaggio in Comic Book Resources.

By David Rothman

Yes, I’ll get to the Sony Reader and if:book in time. But first some context—plenty:

Is reading a digital book like touring Normandy (photo) while gazing down through a bomb sight? Geoffrey Nunberg, a well-known linguist, has drawn that comparison. As he apparently sees it, you can’t wander blithely around and absorb the whole. If nothing else forget about tracking “the diminishing distance between our thumb and forefinger.”

Based on my experiences with the Cybook, PDAs, Gemstar machines and the rest, however, his arguments just don’t hold up. Cybook-style tablets can display several hundred words at once and let you instantly change pages. And via the Mobipocket program or the equivalent, I can gauge my progress by way of a line at the bottom of the screen. Search functions let me keep up better with characters’ names. I’ve actually found complex classics, such as Moby Dick and Crime and Punishment, to be easier to digest on the screen than on paper. I’m horrible at remembering Russian names and the rest; but with the right software, e-books can at least help.

Blunders on Sir Howard Stringer’s watch

But what if some meanie disabled or weakened the same search and navigation features that make me such a raving fan of e-books? As a matter of fact, Sir Howard Stringer has apparently done exactly that, in a sense—albeit quite unwittingly. He’s no meanie, just a well-intentioned guy who really should pay more attention to the people below him. Sir Howard, the CEO of Sony, isn’t running Sony’s e-book operation, but he may have been cheering on the Reader without using it as much as you would expect an Oxford-educated booster like him to be doing. And if Sir Howard is testing the Reader a lot, then he may have low expectations for e-books as a human reader’s friend. (more…)

By David Rothman

Publishers are a little more tolerant of fan fiction than before—a point the TeleBlog has noted. In other words, they’re a bit less likely to sue you for distributing a story based on a character in one of their books.

Now, here’s another angle.

Could fan fiction and other media-based writing—including efforts inspired by TV shows and video games—actually be good for kids in school, especially boys. Males often lag behind girls in reading and writing and are more visually oriented.

Also, assuming that educational benefits exist here, might advocates of looser copyright laws use this to their advantage?

Educational Leadership article praises derivative writing

Well, if nothing else, an article in an educational journal certainly sides with advocates of derivative writing. In the September issue of Educational Leadership, from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Thomas Newkirk writes: (more…)

By David Rothman

I’ve got to hand it to Sony—the way the company has played the dating game to the hilt.

Sony has been selling a limited number of Sony Readers for the impatient, perhaps as few as 130. And so the company, which was supposed to offer the Reader last spring, can technically say it’s at last shipped out the $350 units.

The big catch

But here’s the biggest catch. A message on the Reader site says, “Due to overwhelming demand, new Sony® Portable Reader orders will ship mid November.” Love it—a hyped-up shortage, created by Sony’s lateness!

(more…)

By David Rothman

More than a few TeleBlog regulars love to put quote marks inside periods—like “this”. Granted, that’s the established usage in some countries, but if you prefer American-style punctuation, then the book to consult is the Chicago Manual of Style, which favors “another approach.” As noted by the New York Times (reg. required), the Manual can even enlighten you about e.e. cummings vs. E.E. Cummings.

Effective tomorrow, American-English purists can get definitive answers from the Manual by way of an online edition ($25 intro for individuals, permanent price $30, institutional price dependent on size of organization). Here’s the site’s home page. Given the need of most e-book publishers for better copy-editing—yes, hypocrisy alert!—I’ll hope that the e-manual thrives. E-book publishers as a group are notoriously in need of the site’s offerings. (more…)

By David Rothman

I agree with MR’s Alex. Some informal first-day stats for early buyers of the Sony Reader could be too low—maybe way too low. But how much will they pick up later on, after the trendies have ordered? I still think, “OK niche product but not a runaway.”

ArsTechnia’s take is more pessimistic. It alludes to possible competition from Amazon’s rumored “e-book gadget with the more bookish Amazon brand name behind it” (prototype shown in photo). Amazon is also more bookish in a more important way: its Mobipocket format will leave Sony behind in the dust in terms of the number of available titles. What’s more, I know that at least one person at Amazon is concerned about the jokes about the Kindle Reader’s clunky retro look. And just speculating, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon responded in either the first release of a Kindle or a subsequent one. (more…)

By David Rothman

OK, now it’s iRex’s turn for some loving attention from the TeleBlog. Over at MobileRead, Roland “CommanderROR” is calling for iRex to offer DRM capabilities for the iLiad—a “must” if people are to read books from “protection”-minded publishers such as Random House, Simon & Schuster and the other biggies. MR’s Alex Turcic is backing Roland to the hilt. Nice going, guys!

Whatever the DRM solution is—Mobipocket, Adobe, Microsoft Reader, Mobiadobe, you name it—iRex needs to do something and do it now, or at least very quickly. The Sony Reader sells for half the price of the iLiad, and Sony is even reimbursing publishers to get books into BBeB format. Does iRex want to be a corporate kamikaze? I won’t buy the argument that iRex wants to focus on the B2B market. It needs to serve consumers as well, and the inclusion of DRM will be key, as much as I personally hate it.

Of course, as everyone knows, OSoft is eager to oblige by way of the DRM-capable dotReader. In a poll done within the iRex forum, an impressive 93 percent of the respondents have asked for dotReader to go on the iLiad. (more…)

By David Rothman

I married Carly in no small part because of her b.s. detector, which, yes, works just great with e-book hardware. Carly does not care a whit about news releases and reviews—she just wants to know how well a machine can display her Austen.

So here’s the deal for Sony and Bennett Kleinberg at the Goodman Media PR agency. FedEx me a Sony Reader ASAP for a day’s use, that’s all, and Carly can give us the definitive word. If the screen’s as good as some keep insisting, she’ll tell us and I’ll post an audio from her. Does Sony have the guts to do a Carly Test? As an incurable e-book booster, I hope the Reader passes.

Meanwhile I myself would love to see how the Sony Reader compares with the Librie, which I used to own, and which lacked sufficient screen contrast for me, at least. Now I’d like to use the Sony Reader in the same surroundings, the Rothman E-Book Ranch. My views on the Sony’s format limitations—no DRMed books except in the BBeB format—are no secret. I pledge to be objective about the rest; I actually do have high hopes about other ergonomic aspects. and maybe even the screen will surprise me. So, Sony, lend Carly and me a Reader. And while you’re at it, you can share the official screen-contrast specs for both the Reader and the Libries. (more…)