What is Digg?132 Comments
- Antialias, on 10/12/2007, -16/+70I never understood the reasoning behind the environmental argument for ebooks. Trees are a renewable resource. Most of the wood used in books and other papers are grown on a farm. The same resources used to produce a single "ebook" reader is probably equal to hundreds of not thousands of books. not to mention the hazardous materials, continued battery usage during the life of the device, and that many owners will replace it for the newer model every few years.
That said, from a space/ease of use standpoint, I would enjoy a well thought out ebook system. - wild, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43Yea, sure. Becasue god forbid we make any advancement that makes it easier to read and gain knowledge...
- dominic2, on 10/12/2007, -7/+40Could civilisation as we know it be under threat?
Short answer: no - Scotchman, on 10/12/2007, -11/+42This has been a long time coming. While there's something to be said for preserving the old ways, it's even more important to preserve our forests. Nothing takes up more space in my home office than rows and rows of books sitting on bookshelves. If I could store all of that content on one small portable reading device, why wouldn't I?
- gameguy43, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27actually, a standardized xml format might be preferable, because it could make indexing different "sections" easier, making for faster searching and more convenient browsing. and just surrounding chapter headings with wouldn't be that intrusive.
- kevnaca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23I thought they were doing a laptop after i saw that title.
- chiller2002, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25wow...imagine a place where people could get books for free...for a couple weeks...and where all you would have to do is show them a plastic card to get it...imagine it would be called a library
- Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23@Antialias:
'Probably equal to hundereds .. of books'?? Riiight. Because the heat, water, bleach, ink, and runoff that are used and produced by paper factories aren't environmentally wasteful/hazardous. Meanwhile, the farming process for trees doesn't /do/ organic, so the water / fertilizer / damage to fertile land area is pretty bad, too (paper trees are one of the more environmentally damaging crops in farming).
The worst thing you'll find in an ebook reader is the chemically bound arsenic that's found in the chips themselves. Not to mention that, using e-ink, you could power the thing just using photovoltaics and capacitors - no batteries. Add to that the fact that someone with a single e-book need not have a large pulp-library; you could store most of humanity's written history on a couple of 4G flash cards.
As for the manufacture of them - well, there's some arsenic runoff that /could/ easily be recaptured and reused for future doping processes, about the same environmental damage that any plastic chachka produces, whatever damage producing machined steel makes (ie: CO2 emissions), very likely the addition of about a half-cup of dilute phosphoric acid (used in the PCB fab process), and a minute amount of lead vapor from the soldering process. Just in sheer mass, not nearly as much pollution is created than making a single book, let alone hundreds.
Meanwhile, hundereds of books go to waste each year; unsold 'best sellers', water-damaged books, books rotting in people's basement, books that were SO bad, they're not even worth the paper they're printed on. With a book reader product, sure there's unsold units - but not nearly as many. They won't go to rot (people won't leave a $75 piece of hardware in a place that could get water damaged / neglected nearly as often as they would a 'disposable' $5 stack of pressed pulp, not to mention that, if properly built, they could last a VERY long time). They won't often need hardware upgraded (what do you need more processing power for in a book? Or storage space?), and software upgrades could be done online.
Meanwhile, paper farm land (not all of it, but the chunk of the paper industry taken out by the new disruptive product) could be repurposed for food, corn (for non-petro plastics, diesel oil, ethanol, and other industrially useful products), or other industrially or socially useful crops - and repurposed using clean farming practices.
Of course, this is assuming that whoever is in charge of all of these projects has an ounce of sustainability sense. - spinchange, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19restrictive DRM for ebooks would be, dare I say, *evil*
- solowCX, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21While trees are a renewable resource, they use up valuable nutrients in the soil when they are planted over and over again within a certain area. Trees also act as a natural habitat for many species, some of which are endangered. Logging can be a relatively environmentally friendly practice, but there are still drawbacks. Not to mention simply using ebooks cuts down on the amount of energy consumed to cut down, ship and process the trees.
- gmprunner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19This could very well be the end of the world....
...of Warcraft. - abid786, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16eBooks should be in .txt
- TheAkolyte, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Personally, I don't like eBooks. I always get woozy and/or dizzy when I do that much reading off of a moniter, plus with eBooks you don't get the physical copy as a "Collectors" item.
- DrMonkeyLove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I can't think of a single portable device that I'd actually want to sit and read a book from. Would I rather sit and read an actual book, or sit and stare at my PDA or iPhone? I'll take the book, thank you.
- shad0w, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I completely agree. Plus, staring at a small, high-contrast, bright display for extended periods of time is really bad for your eyes.
- infimprob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I concur, this is great. I don't know how many times I've been writing or rewriting a paper for English class or a scholarship or something and I've found that I don't have the book, this will be excellent.
Of course this still depends on how much the iBooks will cost, and whether or not books published prior to 1900 will be free. - WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Civilization, as I knew it, is already long gone!
- fredinator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6don't worry, The Pirate Bay will release these books online without drm, and itll create a worse problem than there was to begin with (i.e people getting books for free, which lots of people wouldnt normally get if they didnt have drm). drm would wreck books, because everyone loves to share books with their friends
- reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Didn't Sony just release an eBook reader? From what I've read it's very easy on the eyes with a high contrast.
Too bad it's too expensive (like most Sony products). I would buy that in a heartbeat. Though it would be great if I could read books on my PDA. - ragipy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Could civilisation as we know it be under threat?" I am gonna say NO.
- rabidsnail, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Project Gutenberg ( http://gutenberg.org ) agrees with you.
- shad0w, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8This is an eBook reader not an "iBook". I was really confused for a second, I thought that Apple was releasing a Google-branded iBook.
- sparkrainfir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4civilization under threat?
you've got to be kidding.
did ipods put civilization under threat? did dish machines put civilization under threat? did indoor plumbing put civilization under threat? this is a natural progression of technology. live with it. - kingfelix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4no way. txt is fine in a lot of ways, but it would be boring as #$%^ to read book after book with no formatting. there are lots of formats that save space and allow search without compromising the good looks of a decent layout.
- josephhallett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Everytime you read an ebook an english student dies.
- myfanwy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3more to the point, how many hours do you sit reaading digg and the rest of the interent, on a screen?
the epaper developments from philips and others are getting better and better, there's no reason why in a few years they can't be virtually indistinguishable from paper
staring at a screen doesn't damage your eyes per se - the problem comes from not blinking, not focussing on objects at different distances every now and then and moving your eyes from side-to-side/up and down, all things which help avoid tired feeling eyes. the light produced by a monitor/lcd/plasma etc is far less than the light outside on a bright day, and probably contains less of the harmful components (UV) that natural light does - Billiam627, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Long answer: No, and anyone who thinks so because of ebooks needs to pick up a ***** newspaper
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3thank god civilisation is safe.
(: - Mikecol, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Be afraid of what? I'm excited!
- Seph7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Last time I bought a book - cant even remember, hate carying a book around with me just more bulk to take round with me, need good light to read them, always lose my place, constant strugle to keep it open cause of the spine.
Last time I carried my iPod around with me - today
If iTunes had a book I wanted to buy on sale tommorow would you buy it - yes
Conclusion - So whats wrong with eBooks for people like me - wastern, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3These devices are already available from Sony an others
for example
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/sony-reader-details-and-pics/
its all a matter of getting it to catch on.
However I know a lot of people like to have a book shelf with everything they've read....kind of an intellectual ego thing - LemurHorde, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I kind of like physical books too. If you look at the progression of music formats, ten years later (or less) the format is obsolete. Most books that I have I plan on keeping around so I don't want to deal with ever-changing formats and shifting each one I own from device to device as I update my tech. I'm the kind of person who likes paper newspapers (I recycle) and I enjoy the feel of good solid paper, being able to crimp the pages, make notes or doodle in the margins. Lugging around a book is equal to lugging around a bulky adapter in my mind.
- scootinger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5If they want to do for books what the iPod has done for music, it's going to be a while because there's nothing for Google to rip off of yet.
- Seph7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm a student I peffer reading things on screen especially non fiction as i control+f and find relevant parts. I don't print unless I really need to.
- zephypyre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've been reading books for years on a palm pilot, with mobipocket. Pretty much the only valid use I found for the palm, actually. The only problem I see with a mainstream transition to electronic text media is that, as happens every time there's a major format chance, the driving force behind the change will be forced to pick and choose which publications are worthy of the effort required to transfer the old format to the new. We lost chunks of our culture when tapes replaced records and again when CDs replaced tapes. I don't have any faith that the accoutants at google will see the value of scanning works that never made it on the bestseller list. I forsee a future of Dan Brown mediocrity if profit is the sole motivator in this.
- Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'll start buying ebooks when publishers stop trying to charge book prices for them. Most newly released ebooks go for the same price as their hardcover counterparts: $18-$30. I'm simply not going to pay that much for a few kb of text, no matter how determined elderly publishers are to cling to their old pricing structures. I wish these old geezers would just die already and let this technology realize it's potential.
- Seph7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OK but is seriously going to make any diffrence if i read lord of the rings on my ipod or out o a paper back
oh and "It is even said that all the CPUs around today have a component built into them so that they can all be 'crashed at once, from one central source such as the NSA." ummm link please
I mean seriously I don't know why anyone would censor fiction, and as for non fiction I'm sure the internet and places like Wikipedia are responsible for at least 40% if not more non fictional content in the world at the moment which are easily censorered "aggghhh oohh nooo". So seriously is it really gena make any diffrence to books except for make them more acessable to people who don't want to carry a few thousand sheets of paper around with them. I'd know what the rainforests would want. - bieber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dear God. Music is one thing, but if DRM gets hold of all our written material, humanity is just *****.
- dan0111, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This isn't going to work very well. People like being able to read on a piece of paper. Quite frankly, reading on a computer monitor for hours at a time can really hurt your eyes; moreso than a book can.
- TalonHawk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can most definitely read books on a PDA. I've been using a PocketPC for a little over a year now for probably 90% of the books I read.
You can get books in a lot of different formats. txt, rtf, html, pdf, etc. I've recently starting trying to find more .lit books since they are usually formatted better. I've been using Microsoft Reader for the .lit books. Been hoping to run across something better than MS Reader, but it certainly isn't bad.
I love reading on my PDA. It fits comfortably in my hand unlike some larger books. It's back lit so I don't have to worry about keeping my wife awake if I'm reading in bed. Not to mention I can store a ton of books on it.
The only problems I've run into are books with pictures. Most of the time they just don't look right on the small screen, or are missing since my books aren't all from legitimate sources. - marinist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Am I afraid that "civilization is under threat"? Hardly.
After working in the textbook publishing industry for a decade, it's painfully obvious to me this industry needs to embrace the future.
Presently, they're dragging their feet into the technology age, while charging students $$$ for their inefficiency and ineptitude.
They're just as greedy, self-serving, and entrenched as the music industry. I hope the smaller, more agile content developers beat the big publishers in finding ways to bring cost efficiencies to students. In the meantime, it's already happening: students are creating pdfs of textbooks and sharing with their friends. Sure it's piracy, but it suggests the old business model needs to change. - pozzoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This article doesn't say anything on google making and actual ibook devise. Buried as inaccurate.
- louiedog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As someone who actually reads ebooks on a PDA quite often I feel the need to tell tell people to try it before you write it off as uncomfortable. Yes, reading for long periods with a monitor is uncomfortable and I wouldn't recommend it. But I believe that is because the monitor tends to be fixed, and even a laptop on your lap gives little room for comfort. When you use a PDA you can hold it at any distance, move it around, and situate yourself comfortably, like you do when you have a paper copy of something. When I was using a palm a few years ago it broke while I was in the middle of a book. I tried to finish it on my computer but it was hell having to sit there and keep my head still for long periods.
I'm excited about the idea of ebook readers on the horizon (I've seen Sony's and it's completely overpriced for what it is) and I plan on getting one.
Oh, and for the txt vs xml, pdf, etc debate, I have to side against plain text. Sure it's fine for a novel, but what about a science book, cookbook, or other books where pictures and illustrations are important. It'd also be nice to be able to browse an index and click on items. In the case of a cookbook you could even search for multiple indgredients. - lump1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I actually see it the other way. Google are already scanning lots of books that are out of print. I think we have good reason to think that it won't be long before the selection of digital books will be larger than what you can buy new from Amazon. Books go out of print because it's just not economical to print small quantities of a given book, and it's expensive to store the printed books if you printed too many. I think the paper publishing system is much more likely to limit a reader's choice than the new digital format.
In fact, i wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Google's initial offerings will be out-of-print books for whose rights they negotiated with the original publishers. That's a win-win-win for the publishers, google and customers! - EricPeters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I tried reading an eBook of this 1000+ page book... my eyes felt like they were going to fall out after the 10th page. Reading text from an electronic screen for extended periods of time can't be good for the eyes.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am SO up for this.
I use .txt's on my phone right now (it has a large screen) and I can't get enough of that - it's particularly good when there's no illumination, because of the backlight.
Being able to buy copyright books commercially, carry them around as a collection, and have a decent size screen would be the way forward for sure. - azzageddi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would love to see a good source of ebooks--and I'm betting that Google would continue making all of the out-of-copyright ones available for free, unless they're going to so some serious fancy formatting. Note that this article said nothing about Google making a device--they're just providing content.
As for books in copyright, I hope they'll go for nonrestrictive DRM like watermarks. Come on--whatever DRM they use is going to be cracked in a week anyway, so may as well not punish the honest purchasers. - Photoflame42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I currently use an E-ink ebook reader and it has changed the way I read. I download tons of classics from project Gutenberg to read on it and the display really does look and read like newsprint. While I risk being vilified here on dig it is a Sony product (PRS-500) but it does let me import .txt and .rtf files. At 7000 pages per charge I have to say its a good deal.
I think e-books will be like mp3's with downloadable stores and many different companies providing readers. If google does not use e-ink or another amazingly readable technology I think this will have little effect. Ever try to Read a book on a PDA?
The big minus with my Sony of course is the cost but when you read as fast as I do it's worth it to not carry around a ton of books. - yakoff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have been reading ebooks for years on my laptop. Am I missing something? Why is this exciting?
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