IT TRENDS
The ability to download books for free or a fee
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Multiple e-readers are heralding a new digital era for the book business
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Current option: e-Readers are becoming more attractive every day.
The world’s biggest annual gathering of the publishing industry, the Frankfurt Book Fair last month, was notable for one reason: it marked a grudging acceptance by the book business that a new digital era had dawned, that was slowly challenging the traditional way books are printed and distributed.
The event opened with a hard hitting talk by best selling Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. He accused traditional publishers of a lack of understanding of the Internet – and the challenge it posed.
He said they were no better than manuscript-copying monks of mid-15th century Europe, who felt threatened by developments like the mechanical press invented Johannes Gutenberg, which allowed multiple copies of a book to be distributed.
The organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair conducted a global survey covering 1,000 publishing professionals in 30 countries. Forty per cent agreed that e-content will overtake traditional books by 2018.
But while 70 per cent said they were readying for a digital age, over 12 per cent felt the current option — e-book readers — were only a passing craze.
Wishful thinking
The last category might turn out to be wishful thinkers: e-Readers — hand held devices which display the electronic text of a book on an LCD screen — are a somewhat costly option now, priced between $ 300 and $ 400 equivalent; but the technology is becoming more attractive every day.
The best known of these devices is the Kindle, released last year by Amazon, the largest ‘bookshop’ of the Web.
It weighs just 300 grams, with a leather casing that ‘feels’ like a real book; comes with a 6-inch diagonal screen a built-in dictionary; buttons for turning the pages; 256 MB of internal memory ( good for around 200 titles) ; card slots to enhance the storage – and most usefully its own dedicated wireless 3G network to link to the Amazon e-book site.
This offers over 180,000 titles for download at $9.99 a go. There are strong market rumours that a new version of Kindle is due for release — one which might offer a wider screen and possibly easier joystick controls to manage the pages.
As Amazon seems set to ‘re-kindle’ its e-reader, Sony has already updated its own offering in this space: the PRS -700BC Reader Digital Book has a similarly sized screen, is marginally lighter , and with the advantage of touch technology: You can turn the pages almost as you would with a real book, sliding your finger across the screen.
A big plus
The ability to download books for free or a fee, from any source in any standard format, is a big plus — though the absence of a built-in wireless connectivity means that you have to attach a laptop or connected device to access online libraries.
Touch will soon be the standard interface to ‘turn’ the pages of an e-book. Two other offerings in the offing both provide this technology. The Netherlands based IRex, a spin-off from Philips, has also launched its DR1000 series Digital Readers with a much larger screen — 10.2 inches diameter.
All these offerings are based on the same underlying imaging film: VizPlex from Electronic Ink, a proprietary material that is processed into a film for integration into electronic displays. To quote from the brief provided by the inventors ( http://www.eink.com/ ): “The principal components of electronic ink are millions of tiny microcapsules; each contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule where they become visible to the user.
“At the same time, an opposite electric field pulls the black particles to the bottom of the microcapsules where they are hidden. By reversing this process, the black particles appear at the top of the capsule, which now makes the surface appear dark at that spot.
To form an E Ink electronic display, the ink is printed onto a sheet of plastic film that is laminated to a layer of circuitry. The circuitry forms a pattern of pixels that can then be controlled by a display drive.”
A company called Plastic Logic has succeeded in finding a polymer substitute for the conventional LCD screen to go with E Ink’s VizPlex film.
Last month, its plastic e-reader, the first flexible and highly shock-resistant reading device, went into production in Germany.
With a display twice as large as Kindle or Sony’s (8.5 inch by 11 inch — standard A4 size), it is due to reach shops in mid 2009.
With so many models on offer, the e-reader is likely to reach many more customers.
Analysts iSuppli estimate that the market will grow from $ 3.5 million in 2007 to $ 291 million in 2012.
But there is another challenger in the wings: smart phones with built-in e-readers. Apple’s new iPhone comes with e-reader software.
For those who don’t like being tied to Apple’s own iPod e-book choices, there is a free software called Stanza that allows the download of non-iPod books.
Entry of mobiles
Mobile service providers too, are getting into the act: Vodafone in the UK has announced the facility to download popular titles from major e-book publishers, direct to the mobile phone.
Users might put up with the smaller screen of a phone because they don’t have to pay for a second device.
At the end of the day e-readers — either dedicated or phone-based — will only be as useful as the number and variety of books they can access, either free or for a price.
ANAND PARTHASARATHY
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