Elgan: Here comes the e-book revolution: "February 7, 2009 (Computerworld) At what temperature do electronic books catch fire? We're going to find out sometime this year. E-book sales are about to ignite.
On Monday, Amazon.com is expected to unveil a new version of its Kindle reader. It will probably be a lot better and a little cheaper than the first version. But the real news already broke this week: A company spokesman announced that Amazon plans to offer Kindle books on cell phones.
This news countered Google's announcement that the 1.5 million public domain books available on its Google Book Search offering will soon be available (free, of course) via a new cell phone application."
5 comments:
I'm old school I guess. I have read a few books online and the screen just doesn't have the right resonance for me. Short stories are fine. You read them fast and are done with them,
But a book... Nothing, for me anyway, equals that holding a book in your hands, turning the pages, the smell of paper and ink.
I personally like to have a book available in both formats so I can read it whenever wherever. I have to say books.google.com is an amazing website, in my opinion. I can't believe how much great stuff I've found on there - and for short stories, it is particularly good! The new book readers are too expensive for me- I'll just read it on my computer screen until the prices come down.
I'm a paper guy, always was, always will be.
I've tried reading books on an LCD screen, and I just can't do it for very long. It's awful. The Kindle is another matter entirely. I've found it's just like reading a paper book in terms of being immersed in the story and forgetting the media. The re-sizable type is worth the price of admission.
I have 4,000 books in a back room, some dating from 1905 or so, and I can’t read many of them because of the paper dust and allergy issues. I don’t have that problem with the Kindle (or the Sony either).
I'm all in favor of ebook readers, but that doesn't mean they are perfect for all types of books. I still buy printed ones.
Haven't used Kindle, but I also don't like reading on-screen. I get short stories and other stuff for my fiction fanzines and I usually print them out to read. It feels a waste of time to read them on-screen. I don't know why this is. Everything feels too long on-screen. (Which of course means that flash fiction is best for this. But also some flash fiction feels too long on-screen.)
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