E-Books Take Center Stage - PC World
I find reading whole books on my cell phone a non-starter.
The form factor is simply too small. This PC World story is useful but missing discussion of this soon-to-be-product, from Plastic Logic. If it works as envisioned and is priced right, it and other devices will be the distribution media of choice for what are now books, newsprint and glossy magazines.
Some will miss the familiar paper medium, but it will disappear quickly once these products hit the market at the proper price point and distribution deals with content providers are in place. I have yet to find a convincing argument that it won't happen.
3 comments:
I tried a Backberry for a few days last year. Took it right back! "Smartphones"? Hmm. They're quite DUMB in my opinion.
The keypad is sized for a baby! Anyone with slightly large fingers... well, sorry... just forget it.
And reading books off this tiny screen seems equally DUMB due to the small size, though I hear that email in IPhone looks pretty nice.
But those who suggest that smartphones can be used as eReaders and pose a serious challenge to dedicated eBook readers miss an important feature of eBook readers! ebook readers use "electronic ink" screens, which is very similar to paper, not old style flashing CRT, LCD, or smartphone light emitting screens, which cause eye fatigue.
I absolutely love my Amazon Kindle. If the experimental web browsing feature worked better and processing email via gmail or hotmail were easier, you'd have a very nice all-purpose web reading tool. Unless you happen to travel outside the US, in which case none of the wireless (which comes free with the product for as long as you own it) features work.
I agree a revolution is coming here. But the bigger challenge is to turn the public on to reading once again, as many claim reading itself is on a vast decline...
I've discovered another area that could stand a serious revolution in the computer world. Learning software! I'm studing a 2nd language and I've found that BYKI.com is great for drilling words, phrases, and sentences. But this app could be so much better, and there's not much for competition as far as I can see. We need all sorts of these tools to learn many different topics really fast. They use the SRS learning methodology, Spaced repetition learning... I would love to find one of these tools that would finally help me master English grammer, as I've realized it's easier to make a jump to a second language if you're really good with your first language, including grammer. Searching!
There should be another
By "web reading tool"... I mean something that could almost replace the computer for those like my mother who only use the Internet to read news and email... Many people don't get along with comptuters very well so this market is WIDE open. Thanks to whichever company can deliver the good product in this sector ASAP.
Finally, maybe learning software in general is a potentially revolutionary product... one extremely well designed application could maybe be more effective than a real teacher in some areas. In my own experience with the language study, I found a tutor who would change me $24/hr, yet that time is not well spent in my opinion if you have not already simply already become familiar (memorized or mastered) many common words / phrases. Of course you need real world practice, face to face, but it's a waste of time maybe to try to learn large numbers of words in this manner, face to face. Better to have a good application to first get some language fodder under your belt... My uneducated opinion only.
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