The eBook, Mark 2

Selanit writes "David Pogue recently published a review of the Sony Reader, under the title Trying Again to Make Books Obsolete. Though he likes the device in general, he concludes that it's not destined to replace the book any time soon. Well worth a read."

Pun

[From A Far Away Land]

"Well worth a read."

Was that some pun humour in the summary?

Anyway, I'd not trust Sony to make an eBook reader that wouldn't install a rootkit anyway. Installing Sony software is about as good an idea as installing sofware from MyWebSearch. They messed up Audio CDROMs for cripes sake, now we want them to control a book format too?

Magazines and the Web

[Anonymous Coward]

The Web has certainly replaced magazines for the most part, and is even starting to replace academic journals [arxive.org].

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that textbook sales are decreasing in real terms since the introduction of easily found information [wikipedia.org] suitable for helping out with a lot of university work.

And there are already exact replacements [gutenberg.org] for some book content.

Just look at what porn is doing - are porn mags still used as much as they were? Nope, it's on the 'net. The web is the main component of a book replacement and once you can get paper like displays which don't need any bulky electronics another feature of books will be replicated in modern technology.

Blogs have replaced journals, and TV guides are now transmitted over the air and published on the net too. All paper based content moved to "book" replacements.

iRex is better

[network23]

The iRex Illiad [irextechnologies.com] is a better choice.

- - -

Online education? http://online.edu.org/ [edu.org]

Re:We've heard this before...

[CastrTroy]

Here we go Pocket Knife -> Leatherman/Multitool Pencil -> PDA with note pad The Match -> Lighter (I don't know anyone who regularly uses matches over a lighter Internal Combustion Engine -> Hybrid engine cars. (Yeah I know there's still an Internal Combustion Engine) Corrective Lenses -> Laser Eye Surgery Transpaent glass windows -> What, you wnat them replaced with opaque brick? Tumbler locks -> Many locks are now electrical and based on RFIDs. Zippers -> Buttons work so much better, I hate how zippers always fall down, If you want a constant barrier use velcro. Analog clocks -> Digital clocks Shoes with laces -> Velcro, or shoes with elastics so there's not tightening required. Anyway, although i know that none (save for the lighter) has come close to replacing the others, There are alternatives, and I believe that in the future, many of these things will be replaced, once the cost comes down. If it's $200 every couple of years for glasses, and laser eye surgery only costs $500, doesn't have to be redone, and is risk free, then I think may people will opt for that instead of glasses. If you still think glasses look good, well then get laser surgery and wear window glasses.

Don't forget the most important item

[Anonymous Coward]

PRICE.

Yet again content owners just don't get economics. Look at the first part of the article. How much does a E-book cost compared to a P-book. Why exactly the same offcourse. Nevermind the huge savings in both production, shipping and stocking, just like music and movies on the net we want the same amount of money as for the physical version. Oh and give the buyer fewer rights as well.

E-books sound handy especially for those of us who want to read books no longer in print. But why exactly should I buy an expensive reader only to then have to pay the same price for the e-book as for the paper version.

Why do content owners just not accept that if a product costs less to produce you pass some of the savings on to the customer? Imagine if you said "no thanks I don't need a plastic bag" in a real store and they then told you that will be 25cent extra. If you pick up your pizza at the restaurant instead of having it delivered you got to pay more?

Content owners are either plain stupid or plain greedy. There is a reason e-books failed commercially. This had nothing to do with the tech. It is because customers know when they are being ripped off.

Re:Obsolence.

[heptapod]

It's important to keep a book dry and out of the reach of insects but today books are being printed on paper which is highly acidic. When you find a book with yellowed pages, that's from the acid taking its toll on the paper fibers.
The reason why really old books from the Renaissance and earlier have survived to this day is because they are printed on rag not pulp! In 500 years even a carefully preserved hardcover book will be extraordinarily fragile.

They do too have DRM!

[m_hemaly]

Pulp books stricly forbid copying & pasting (though there is a hack going around called a scanner + OCR, but it's pretty expensive, hard to use and worst of all: requires you to get off your computer!). They cannot be emailed. You can't even link to them from a blog. And without the aforementioned hack, you can't transfer them among your various devices, even though you legally purchased them.
PS: I'm going back to reading His Dark Materials in this evil format now.

Re:Things need for ebook success

[jp10558]

I've always felt that the RCA e-book reader had a lot right, especially for the technology at the time. The interface is intuiative - you load a book, top button under your thumb goes forward one page, bottom one back one page.

What was bad was the low resolution.

I personally want something with a similar interface to the RCA e-book reader, better screen and better importers. I really like the backlight myself - and having a battery that can last "only" ~20 hours seems fine to me - hell, we live with cellphones and mp3 players that get significantly less always on battery life. I mean, is it that hard to plug it in at night?

That's not to say longer battery life is bad, but I really think backlights are a great benefit to e-books, and should not be discarded for an "authentic" experiance. If I wanted a paperback experiance, I'd buy a paperback!

Finally, am I the only one who thinks content industries in general just don't get it? I mean, why would I pay the price of a hardcover book for a DRMed computer file? For that matter, why would I even pay the price of a paperback for that? I would pay $2-$3 for that though, if it's something I'm going to read once or twice...

It needs to be cheaper than Amazon's used books are or I'll just buy a real book.

Re:the one advantage

[Richard_at_work]

While books have many advantages, ebooks can have some advantages over them. For example, you list 'they contain both the data and everything necessary to read it' as an advantage, but they dont include light - an ebook reader can (not sure if this one does, but my PDA sure does) which means I can read an ebook in many more places. An Ebook reader allows you to carry hundreds with you, take your entire library on holiday and not have to worry about planning the third book you will read by the pool.

Dont get me wrong, I still read normal books but my preference is these days to get an ebook, and no the DRM aspect doesnt bother me in the slightest.