A NEW OLD WAY TO COMMUNICATE
The idea of an electronic book has floated around for decades. Of course, it has long been possible to read books on your PC, but who wants to do that? Many practical handheld e-book readers have been attempted over the years, yet the most recent products appear to meet the needs better than any previous efforts. The most popular one so far may derive all of its success by embedding a cell phone.
Amazon’s Kindle was first introduced in 2007 and became an instant bestseller. The secondgeneration Kindle should see similar results (Fig. 3). The 5.3- by 8- by 0.36-in., 10.2-oz device has a 6-in. diagonal LCD screen with 16 gray levels and 800- by 800-pixel resolution. With 2 Gbytes of storage, it can hold more than 1500 books. The software lets you flip pages, store your place, and change font size. Other features include a USB port and a battery that will retain a charge during reading for up to four days. A text-to-voice capability lets you listen instead of read as well.
But its biggest feature is a built-in cell phone. Embedded into the Kindle is a full-blown cdma2000 1xRTT EV-DO Rev A data phone. There is no voice capability. The phone is set up to call Amazon so you can buy new books online—talk about enabling your impulse buying. Via the Sprint network, the service doesn’t require an extra monthly phone bill. Amazon has more than 270,000 titles available at prices typically half the price of a printed book. About the only downside is the price, which at $359 is still steep for many.
Amazon also recently introduced an advanced version called the Kindle DX. It has essentially the same features of the Kindle with a larger 9.7-in. screen about the size of a standard sheet of paper. It targets users who also want to read newspapers and textbooks. Some newspapers and textbook publishers are testing the waters for the product. Again, at $489, it may be too expensive for most consumers.
Other new e-book readers are spread throughout the market. The Sony PRS-700 features a 6-in. LCD and can store up to 160 books internally, but it also accepts external Memory Stick Duo and SD Memory Cards for additional storage. The company provides access to its online e-book store with over 20,000 titles via the Internet and a PC connection. Also, Sony has access to the more than a half-million free public domain books from Google.
The unit will use its own text formats, but it also reads Adobe PDFs and Microsoft Word documents. While the Sony unit is attractive and the available titles vast, it doesn’t have the cell phone. Neither do any of the other lesser-known e-book readers, such as those from iRex, Astak, and Plastic Logic, though that could be changing. AT&T and Verizon both expressed interest in developing an e-book relationship like the Amazon- Sprint deal. Who can blame them?
Don’t forget that you can also download and read books thanks to apps on many smartphones, too. Examples include Lexcycle’s Stanza app for the Apple iPhone and the MobiPocket readers for BlackBerry and Symbian OS (Nokia) phones.
Though the technology was around for years, recent Amazon and Sony efforts may have finally pushed e-books into the spotlight. And the e-book could help save some of the many newspapers and magazines nearing bankruptcy. An e-book is just a processor, a big LCD, a large memory, and long battery life. What’s been missing has been the book availability and appeal of the prospect of reading from an electronic screen.
Those obstacles have largely been overcome. Forthcoming generations will be e-book readers if they are readers at all. While printed books will never become obsolete, their monopoly is over as digital media continues its inroads into all aspects of our lives. The cell phone is just facilitating that transition.