TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Steve Tippie’ Category

By David Rothman

With Earth Day coming up tomorrow, April 22, Fujitsu is ballyhooing the WoodShell Laptop. From PC World:

“The prototype of the WoodShell uses natural materials, such as forest-thinned cedar and bio-based plastics for its housing and parts, according to Fujitsu.

“Fujitsu also plans to display its FMV-BIBLO NX95Y/D, a notebook that uses bio-based plastic materials for part of its housing, at the Milan show. The notebook is only available in Japan, the company said.”

Also in the Hardware Department: Asus to launch Eee PC with Intel’s Atom in June, in PC World. So, guys, when will a tablet appear—wooden or not? Also see Asustek to launch Eee PC with 10-inch Screen.

Speaking of the environment: See How Amazon’s eBabel pollutes the earth, not just the e-book market, my recent post.

And for pro-Kindle viewpoints: Check out The Kindle vs. ‘information snacking’: An Amazon shareholder letter from Jeff Bezos, a post by Wiley executive Joe Wikert. Also upbeat on the Kindle is Good News, Mr. Vanity Fair: Your dream e-reader is almost here, from our newest contributor Steve Tippie, a Tribune Media Services VP and editor-publisher of Opinionated: Voices and Viewpoints on America and the World, a Kindle-format magazine with columnists ranging from Arianna Huffington to Cal Thomas.

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By Steve Tippie, editor-publisher of Opinionated, a Kindle-format magazine

Moderator: Welcome to our latest writer, Stephen Tippe, editor-publisher of Opinionated: Voices and Viewpoints on America and the World. It’s Tribune Media Services‘ new Kindle-format magazine—with commentators ranging from Arianna Huffington to Cal Thomas. This essay is adapted from one in the magazine. - D.R.

In the First Annual Survey of Magazines in the New York Observer, writer John Koblin picks up a prediction from Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair.

“In the next five years in Graydon Carter’s world, you’ll walk onto a plane, or a subway, or a soon-to-be invented mode of transport, and you’ll tuck a little electronic book under your arm. Inside that little book, which will be very expensive at first but soon will cost $150, there’ll be a series of mylar ‘pages,’ and there will be small buttons off to the side, and once you hit one of them, whoooosh, words and photos from Vanity Fair will suddenly appear. ‘You’ll subscribe to five magazines and six newspapers,’ Mr. Carter said. ‘That is what I see as the future. …That I know is coming.’”

A newsstand in my backpack

Well, a couple of weeks ago I hopped into a mode of transport called a cab and headed to O’Hare Airport with a little electronic book, currently very expensive but sure to become more affordable, maybe even as low as $150, tucked in my backpack. Stuck in traffic, I pulled it out and purchased a single issue of the British newspaper The Independent to read, saving my Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, and Atlantic subscriptions for the inevitable airport delays. I simply hit a small button off to the side and, whoooosh, articles from The Independent suddenly appeared. Later that evening in my hotel, I picked up the device again and tried to decide whether I wanted to get back into Joseph Ellis’ lively bio of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, or start the copy of a new police procedural by a favorite Italian author that I had purchased a few days before. I hit another button and, whoooosh . . . well you know the process by now.

A publishing and distribution platform, not just another e-gizmo

For Kindle owners, the future is now and we know that it has already arrived!

Although the Kindle is not yet the exact device of this imagined future—it doesn’t show off the glossy color celeb photos that we love “Vanity Fair” for—it is clearly nearly identical to the device he describes (substitute the eInk screen technology for the mylar pages). Kindle owners know that the device is still in an early stage and will improve and get less expensive. But it is a mistake to focus on the the Kindle as just another electronic device; it is a publishing and distribution platform and model that promises to accelerate the revolution in book and periodical publishing started by the Internet.

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