Where we are
Today's electronic books solve many problems of earlier, failed models.
They combine the portability of handheld computers with better screen
resolution and book-like formatting. For instance, you can say good-bye to
scrolling. With e-books, you read one page at a time, and click to turn the
page. E-books also include a stylus for scribbling notes in the margin, and
the ability to enlarge text, search a document by keyword, or define a word
by clicking on it. Each book incorporates high-level encryption to ensure that
digital texts don't get pirated--a coup for e-book developers, who needed
this feature before book publishers would allow them to distribute
copyrighted titles.
This year's models
Three electronic books are debuting later this fall: NuvoMedia's Rocket
eBook, the Librius Millennium Reader, and the SoftBook. The 1-pound,
4-ounce Rocket eBook closely resembles the 3Com organizer in appearance
and size. (It's no wonder, since it was made by the PalmPilot designer.) Plug
it into the serial port of your computer and download manuscripts from sites
such as Barnesandnobles.com, then transfer them to your Rocket eBook.
Reading is easy on the eyes thanks to its backlit, glare-resistant,
high-resolution screen--it generates 105 dots per inch (dpi), quite an
improvement over the 72 dpi you get on most desktop PC monitors. Its
battery life is long, 20 hours, and its price is the highest of the e-books
debuting this fall, $499.
The cheapest and lightest of the bunch is the one-pound, $200
Millennium Reader. It works just like the eBook: plug it into your PC,
download texts to the PC, and transfer them to the Reader. It's unique in that
its 10,000-title library includes many romances and popular fiction.
Another model, the SoftBook, looks more like a writing tablet than a book: the
screen is a full 8-1/2 by 11 inches, and the device weighs a hefty 3 pounds.
It also holds more pages than its competitors--as many as 100,000. But the
biggest difference is that the SoftBook doesn't require a PC. Instead, it
includes its own modem: just plug it into a phone jack and download titles
from the SoftBook online library, which includes hundreds of books and a
daily newsfeed. You pay $299 for the device, plus $20 per month as part of
an advance-purchase agreement.
The market
According to these manufacturers, e-books are not meant for casual
readers--at least, not for now. As Jim Sachs, the CEO of Softbook put it,
"[Electronic books] are for people who must read lots of essential
info regularly, such as students, professionals, doctors and lawyers."
Success for e-books in the educational market seems likely, since schools
would appreciate how easy e-books are to update. As more titles become
available and consumers become used to electronic books, Marcus
Colombano, Director of Marketing at NuvoMedia, believes they "will be used
by everyone who reads."
There are, of course, problems for certain users. Traveling professionals
who are already managing a notebook, PDA, and cell phone don't want to carry another device. David Thor
of Sherwood Research says "The concept of e-books makes sense, but using a separate device for it
does not." He believes e-books will be more successful in the future, when the specialized hardware goes
away. In addition, there's always a reticence to accept an unfamiliar technology. According to a recent
study by Sherwood Research, almost 80 percent of the participants said they would rather print out a
book-length text using a file format like Adobe's Acrobat Reader, than read it from a handheld device. |
