How I Learned to Love Reading Online

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Beatley Library

Simmons College

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818, PD

Newsweek cover from Nov. 27, 2007

From lawgeek’s flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdawg/1300241735/), last accessed 2/18/08

Kindle details

• $399 for device• 10.3 ounces• 6 inch display• Holds “hundreds” of books• Wireless connection using 3G

network

• Supports MOBI, Microsoft Word, HTML, TXT, PRC and image files

• Newspapers, magazines, blogs, & books

• Doesn’t require a computer• Keyboard• Not backlit• OED loaded• Wikipedia• $.10 for wireless conversion• PDF??

Amazon.com’s Kindle storefront (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/133141011), last accessed 2/17/08

Sony Stats

• PRS-500 series• $299 for device• 9 ounces• 6 inch display• Internal memory holds up to 80

books• Connects to computer via UPB• BBeB Book, TXT, RTF, PDF*,

Microsoft Word • Not backlit

• No keyboard• Bookmarks• Switch Screen orientation

*PDF can be created using Acrobat Standard or need to be unencrypted

Ebookstore.sony.com, last accessed 2/17/08

Fictionwise & eBookwise

•eBookwise-1150

•$110 plus shipping

•18 ounces

•Screen the size of a paperback

•Backlit screen

•Memory: 8MB internal flash (10 books)

•Can add up to 128MB card (200 books)

•Rechargeable battery

• Rocketbook, TXT, RTF, HTML, & Microsoft Word

•Does not support PDF

Image from http:www.ebookwise.com, last accessed 2/17/08

Other readers available

UBIT’s walkbook•Supports: PDF, TXT, DOC, HTML, MP3, WOL and image files

•$310

•Istanbul, Turkey

Bookeen’s Cybook•Supports: PDF, TXT, HTML, PDB, Mobi, MP3 and image files

•$350

iRex Iliad

•Supports: PDF / HTML / TXT / JPG /

BMP/ PNG

•$699

•8.1” screen

Other “readers”?

Image from Kimbooktu (http://kimbooktu.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/bookish-wallpaper-ii/), last accessed 2/17/08

iphone

3.5 inch screen

5 hour battery life?

Not technically an ebook devices, but . . .

Textonphone.com

Image from http://www.apple.com, last accessed 2/17/08

Gphone

•Big question mark

•No delivery date

•Software only

•Ebook capabilities?

Image from Feb 18, 2008 entry at http://www.google-phone.com/, last accessed 2/17/08

OLPC

From OLPC’s site (http://laptop.org)

Other Mini PCs

Kojinsha E8 subnotebook •Windows XP•AMD Goede LX800 processor•512MB of memory•Touch screen (1024x600 resolution)•Memory card slot•USB port•3.5 hours of continuous use time •Between $529 and $635

EEE PC from Asus•Linux operating system •900 MHz Intel Mobile CPU •4 GB of solid state memory.•7-inch wide color LCD with an 800 x 480-pixel resolution •Memory card slot•3 USB 2.0 ports•3.5 hours of continuous use time•$400 at Amazon.com•Selection of colors: White, Black, Pink, Blue, & Green

http://www.arbus.com. Last accessed 2/19/08http://aving.net/usa/news/default.asp, last accessed 2/19/08

Polymer Vision’s Readius

Image from 1/22/09 Wired blogs(http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/readius-ebook-p.html_, last accessed 2/17/08

Polymer Vision’s Readius

Good News• Cell phone & ebook

reader

• 5” Flexible screen

• Download content wihtout USB

Bad News• Tri-band phone

• For European market only

• Release?

Where’s the content?

Image from http://www.lightupyourworld.nl/en/index_en.html,

last accessed 2/17/08

http://books.google.com, last accessed 2/17/08

http://search.live.com, last accessed 2/17/08

http://www.archive.org/details/texts, last accessed 2/17/08

http://www.gutenberg.org/, last accessed 2/17/08

http://www.dailylit.com/, last accessed 2/17/08

http://www.the-future-of-ideas.comhttp://www2.oprah.com http://craphound.com/down/