TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Nokia 770’ Category

By David Rothman

How big a screen do you need to read E, especially e-books, and what does this mean in the escalating Kindle-vs.-iPhone debate?

The larger-display faction: My wife, a baby boomer like me, favors big fonts. When Carly is in the mood for an e-book, she hates the idea of reading off a PDA-sized screen such as the iPhone’s. The UberReview feels likewise. And some older people in publishing seem much more focused on the Kindle than on PDA-type gizmos and cellphones as a saviors of E. What’s more, certain eye doctors and librarians correctly think of  Kindle-type machines as the new large print. The six-inch screens on the Kindle and Sony Reader are spacious enough for many boomers, not all, even with a larger font in use. Now if E Ink display-makers can improve the contrast sufficiently between text and background—an issue for many older people!

In the middle: I’m doing a Switzerland act in the Kindle-iPhone debate. My extra-close-up vision is still good, and in the most literal sense, I see a place for both PDAs and Kindle-sized tablets. I can just stuff my Nokia 770 or Palm TX into my pocket for use at the dentist’s or the Department of Motor Vehicles. Even at home I read off the Nokia or Palm when I don’t want to bother firing up my OLPC laptop, which is convertible to a tablet.

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By David Rothman

Hmm. Maybe Nokia has things a bit backwards. Business should be unlearning DRM, so that I can read best-sellers on my Nokia 770.

By David Rothman

How to live with Adobe PDF on small-screen devices like the Asus Eee PC?

Can you tweak the software so the view is more booklike—using the portrait mode—hen you hold the Eee as shown in the photo below?

And what about the far-more usable, as I see it, FBReader?

Geeks.com has come up with a handy little guide with tips, including how to rote and adjust the margins in FBReader. Would that the DMCA not exist—so people in the States could convert files from DRMed formats to enjoy with FBReader!

In fairness to Adobe, it would have been nice if Geek.com had mentioned Digital Editions, which, like FBReader, can handle the IDPF’s ePub standard (and do so with better image support).

Bottom line: For adequate e-reading, you don’t need a Kindle, especially if you want to read e-books on more than one device.

Related: FBReader: Ten easy tips for e-book users who want to switch to a Linux handheld, which I wrote about the Nokia 770, but which would overwhelmingly entirely apply to the Asus machine as well. Check out the customization tips, including key assignments.

Also of interest: Asus reviews from Ficbot and Paul Biba.

By Roger Sperberg

Over the last two years, I’ve thought a lot about what I want in an e-reader.

As someone who’s made my living as a freelance writer and written a couple books, I’ve thought about copyright and the rights of a creator. These concerns are pretty low in my current thinking.

As a technologist, I’ve thought about including motion, sound, color and interactivity to take advantage of the content being delivered by a computer. Following the development of Sophie, I’ve come to accept the need for creators to make rich-media texts, no longer thinking of this as an after-creation/publisher activity.

As a reader, I’ve thought about getting ahold of what I want to read and removing the barriers to what Bill Hill calls ludic reading. What kind of device do I want to hold in my hand and what do I want to see on it? In this time, I’ve mostly been using FBReader on the Nokia 770, N800 and N810 internet tablets, and I am consequently dependent upon a flexible and color-capable device, unlike the majority of what the market seems to be offering up right now.

As someone who has worked in book publishing for the last fifteen years, I’ve thought about how to forego copyright as a mechanism for economic protection and still provide incentives for publishers and writers (and jobs for editors). A viable business model — gosh, it sounds more and more like the search for the holy grail.

I’m no true prognosticator, but I think we can see the outline of the next generation of e-readers now.

Bowing to Sophie’s makers, I believe the new e-books will contain far richer media than at present. And by this I don’t mean “including video and audio” but just what Sophie’s makers do: including anything an author might devise when provided with full programming capability.

Like FBReader and Openberg Lector, the next-gen e-reader will accept a whole slew of formats. And as the OpenReader and OEBF formats champion, the most useful formats will deliver a single file that itself contains one or more maps to multiple files inside it. And we’ll be able to escape the “html with a slight makeover” straitjacket we’ve lived with since day one of e-reading.

And as FBReader and Lector insist, the next-gen e-reader will be multi-platform.

All of which lead me to expect that the triumvirate of AJAXed development platforms — Mozilla’s Prism, Adobe’s AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight (I call them “Prairielight”) — will provide us with many new e-readers. (more…)

By Paul Biba

My daughter is in from San Francisco for Thanksgiving and she brought “The Road by Cormac McCarthy and insisted I read it before she leaves on Monday. Well, the book was a paper one and so I embarked on the task.

The reason I mention this is that I’ve just spent quite a while reading books solely on the Sony Reader, so reading The Road was an abrupt change and so makes for an easy contrast. I noticed the following things:

I didn’t mind the contrast difference between the pbook and the Sony Reader screen - this surprised me because the pbook has so much better contrast

The Sony Reader was lighter, thinner and easier to hold. The Road comes in at a mere 287 pages and is not a heavyweight at all, but the Sony was more pleasant to use for long periods.

It fatigued my hands to hold the pbook’s pages apart, i.e., bending the spine. This was noticeable since I read the whole book in one session. The Sony Reader would have been much more comfortable.

I had to keep a real bookmark in the book, which was a pain. (more…)

By Roger Sperberg

Access has announced a public beta of virtual machine software that allows Nokia Internet Tablets to run Palm OS applications. Thoughtfix (aka Daniel Gentleman) at Tabletblog was the first* to report on this and has a video showing the software running as well as some photos.

The Garnet VM runs on the about-to-be-released N810, the N800 and the no-longer-being sold 770.

If, as expected, the software runs in landscape mode on the Internet Tablet, readers of this blog may find more e-books now available to them (and more readable on the NIT’s 225-pixels-per-inch screen). With 770’s going for as little as $100 on eBay, an inexpensive high-quality e-reader on a widely used platform is a reality. For those unsatisfied with the stock on non-DRMed books readable in FBReader, this is good news.

As Internet Tablet Talk headlines it, “Run 30,000 Palm OS apps on your Nokia Internet Tablet.”

Brighthand reports that “Garnet VM is expected to be available by the end of the year free of charge as a download from Access.” (Other reports at intomobile and engadget.)
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* Oops. Dan writes that he got the news from intomobile.

By David Rothman

As hot as E Ink gimzos are right now, many e-book-lovers prefer PDAs and other devices, such as iPhones, that they can use for purposes besides reading. Web browsing, for example.

Over at DearAuthor, Jane concludes a three-part series with a discussion of PDAs and the rest—with mentions of favorites like the Palm TX (photo), the Nokia 770 and the IPAQ 211. Part I was the Intro; part II, an overview of E Ink devices and other devices intended just for e-books.

Detail: E-book apps on the iPhone are rather problematic for the nontechnical right now, because of Apple’s closed approach. But this should change in the near future.

Related: Favorable DA review of Manga: The Complete Guide.

Technorati Tags: Palm TX , Nokia 770 , Ipaq 211 , iPhone

By Paul Biba

Writing the post below got me thinking about whether I should be upgrading my e-book reader. Here are my current thoughts on the subject.

I currently own an original Sony Reader and a Nokia 770 and 800. Since I’m using my iPhone I don’t consider my Treo to be a reader any longer, and there is no real reader for the iPhone, so that is out of consideration. The 770 and 800 are nice units, but are rather kludgey when used with FBReader. I guess the Sony has spoiled me. I would really like to upgrade the Sony because of the lack of contrast on the screen, and this leaves me with the following:

Sony Reader, latest version: this is my prime candidate, given the excellent experience I’ve had with the current version.

Bookeen Cybook: really attractive given its ability to read the Mobipocket format. However, I’m a bit shy of buying an expensive product from a company that doesn’t have any service facilities in the US.

iRex Iliad: just too expensive. This one is aimed mainly at the corporate market. Same service problems also.

Ebookman, etc: old technology. Not in consideration.

Amazon Kindle: if it exists. My current thinking is to wait for this to come out before making any decision. Amazon has done such an excellent job with its new MP3 store that it gives me hope that they will do the same thing for ebooks.

What are you going to do?

By David Rothman

The Nokia N800, a powerful little e-book-friendly handheld, is now selling for $240 at Buy.com. See our review from earlier this year. The screen is 4.1 inches (800 x 480 res, 65,000 colors).

Alas, Mobipocket and the other commercial programs with DRM capabilities won’t run on the linux-based N800. But you can use FBReader on public domain classics and other nonencrypted work. What’s more, if you live in a country where it’s legal, not the U.S., unfortunately, you can strip away the "protection" from Microsoft .lit.

Earlier the street prices for the N800 were well north of $350.

One reason for the sale is obvious—the need for Nokia to clear the shelves for the forthcoming N810, which will offer a built-in keyboard, just the ticket for searching. The 810 is off to a great start. You can already read about it in Wikipedia.

By David Rothman

The E Ink screen on the new Sony Reader is brighter and definitely has more contrast, according to Mike Cane, a hardware-fondler extraordinaire.

But there’s still one big, gaping omission beyond lack of a color screen—no keyboard for searching.

Enter the new Nokia N810, successor to the 770 and the 800. Search probs over, at least if this photo is any clue. Oh, and behold that inviting LCD screen! Alas, as Kevin Tofer at jkOnTheRun has noticed, there’ s no WiMax. I also wonder if the linux-based N810 and related Nokia models will end up someday with a compatible Mobipocket version so we can read DRM-infested books on them. That said, remember there’s always FBReader, which already has primitive .epub capabilities and should be gaining more; compatible content is already available from Feedbooks. What’s more, if you’re worried about glare from the LCD, you can use FBReader’s color-changer to darken it a tad.

Kevin spotted the N810 news at Internet Table Talk, along with a gallery of official images. Unfortunately the just-given ITT link isn’t working right now.

Related: Other N810 stories via Google, including, I see now, an Engadget account.

By Paul Biba

I’ve used practically every gizmo around to read e-books, starting in the 1990s with one of the first Pocket PCs, the HP Jornada.

You name it, there’s a good chance I’ve read off it: Palm units, such as my favorite, the TX; Smartphones, from the tiny Cingular 3125 to the large screen Nokia E61i and iPhone; Internet tablets such as the Nokia 770 and 800.

Somehow I’ve always managed to get through my books, some of them pretty lengthy, but the experience has never been as good as a paper book.

Well, the Sony Reader is something new for the industry, and for me, and I find that I’m pretty satisfied with it. This isn’t a review, but simply one reader’s thoughts about his Reader.

The Screen

I’ve found that the e-ink display is much easier on my eyes than any of the backlit displays I am accustomed to. In all the other units I would use the Settings function of Mobipocket or eReader to set the background as a pale yellow or pale blue, in order to avoid the glare from the screen, and often had to dim the display as well.

Of course, this is unnecessary with the Reader, given the E Ink display. The text is crisp and clear and very easy to read if you have good light. I find that I can, lighting permitting, use the smallest text size without difficulty. (more…)

By David Rothman

Don’t be scared if you’re an e-book newcomer and have shied away from a Linux handheld.

The menus on the affordable Nokia 770s aren’t that hard to puzzle out, for example, if you spend a little time at it. And good e-reading software is available, FBReader, which is open source.

Missing until now: Handy customization instructions

The missing ingredient up to now has been a set of handy customization instructions for FBReader newcomers, many of whom might want to modify their respective key layouts to turn Nokias or other devices into much better e-reading machines.

Below, I’ll share some FBReader basics for the sharp-screened Nokia 770, the newer Nokia N800 and other machines—including Alan Wallcraft’s tips on changing the actions tied to various buttons on your handheld. Click here if you want to go directly to the ten tips and skip the preliminaries.

Nope, this FBReader guide isn’t perfect (we’ll eventually add screen shots and update the obsolete one above), but a fancier version is on the way with help from Alan, Joseph Gray, Robert Nagle and none other than the gifted developer of the program, Nikolay Pultsin, whose Google-based e-mail list I’d recommend your joining. What’s more, our current tips and forthcoming FBReader wiki will help owners of Pepper Pads and perhaps those of the E Ink-based iLiad, along with certain other small machines. Update, Aug. 30: I’ve just added Joseph Gray’s “Installation” and “Getting Started” sections—after the original Rothman-Wallcraft post. Despite some unavoidable redundancy, his Wiki sections are very much worth reading even though they’re just drafts.

The benefits of the Nokia-FBReader duo

Once you’re all set up, it’ll be a snap to use your Nokia or similar machine to download e-books from Manybooks.net, Project Gutenberg and the rest—not to mention non-encrypted books from reader-friendly publishers like Drollerie Press and Baen and stores such as Fictionwise, which offers thousands of books without DRM.

If you live in the States, you can even use the Nokia/FBReader duo to enjoy free books by Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron and other authors, via the ad-supported Wowio service, which also offers comics. Just use the free Mobipocket Desktop to convert Wowio’s PDF books to an FBR-readable Mobi format (please note that Desktop is Windows-only).

Meanwhile your new Linux-based gizmo will avoid directly relying on Microsoft, a DRM bastion, whose software has its share of security vulnerabilities. Linux handhelds like the Nokia are safer than, say, the Windows CE variety. I love my CE-based DT 375, now once again on sale from uBid for $155, not bad for a Web tablet with an eight-inch display, far bigger than the Nokia 770’s screen of about four inches; but security isn’t one of Microsoft’s fortes. Besides, in small part for ideological reasons, hackers love to crack machines with Microsoft operating systems. (more…)