E-Book, eBook or EBook, What’s the Story?

It’s hard to believe that Penguin publishers produced the first commercially successful paperback book in the United Kingdom, around 1935. The paperback format remains the most popular way of buying, carrying, and reading books. By the dawn of 2000, the first possible threat to the paper book became popular. It’s a paperless book, an eBook. This is emerging as the next type of book that may replace the paperback in the 21st century.

An eBook is an electronic book. The entire content of a book is stored as an electronic file. There’s no paper or ink. Any book becomes a file. The eBook was first developed in the 1970’s and were made available to the public as CD software.

On December 1, 1971 Michael S. Hart started Project Gutenberg. The name “Gutenberg” came from the original movable type printing system developed in the 15th century that made mass book publishing possible. The main aim of the Project Gutenberg was to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. Project Gutenberg is one of the oldest digital libraries. Most of the books in Project Gutenberg are of public domain, they are not copy protected and can be distributed freely. The books are capable in an open format which will run on any computer.

People were able to read books on computer screens or on television screens. By the 1990’s, book publishers began to realize the potential of printing books digitally. Random House began publishing digital editions of new releases in 1996 on CD and DVD form. Around the same time, authors began using the Internet to publish books. Stephen King was one of those pioneers. Within a year, thousands of websites sprang up with hundreds of thousands of public domain books - from bibles to classics to new independent works.

Users with PC screens could view all of these electronic books. Many sites had manuscripts of books that were no longer available in paper form. Google began to store thousands of rare books. The next step was to develop a practical way of reading books in a portable form. In 1990, Franklin Electronics came out with a handheld portable Bible.

An advantage was the ability to type in biblical search terms to find related passages. Let’s say you typed in “Fire and brimstone”, the Franklin Bible would display all passages that contained those words. It was an amazing concept! The disadvantage was an incredibly small screen. Franklin attempted to release a series of books on a dedicated cartridge format. The concept was expensive and had limited appeal.

A number of handheld devices like Palm added touchscreens and dedicated books in cartridge or disc form. These, too, were considered too small and weren’t accepted by the general public.

Then in 2006, Sony released the Portable Reading System, the PRS-500. It had a touchscreen at a size of about 5-inches diagonal, the largest available at the time. You could see about 2/3rd of a paperback’s page at a time and could easily scroll from one page to another with relative ease. It was a monumental invention!

The PRS-500 had some problems. The LCD screen had very limited grayscale that many found difficult to read. The other problem was similar to the one met by Franklin and Palm, Sony required use of Sony’s dedicated eBook publishing site. While fascinated, customers and publishers found little appeal to “tie-in” with Sony.

In 2007, Amazon released their Kindle. The first version of Kindle had similar screen issues as the Sony PRS-500. The significant difference is that Amazon is the provider of most of its software and, as the world’s largest book dealer, sold many of the eBooks at a substantial discount when compared to paper book prices.

Since then, Sony and other companies (i.e. Ectaco) have been releasing eBook readers with better screens, better touch sensitive controls and page access. The most important thing is access to many of the eBook sites on the Internet, including libraries of free public-domain books.

The current eBook Reader Models - 2009

Sony PRS-600, available in 3 colors - black, red, silver - is thinner, smaller and lighter than most magazines. According to Sony, the PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition lets you access up to 350 (or more with memory expansion card slots) of your favorite books from anywhere. The intuitive 6″ touchscreen display makes navigation a breeze, letting you turn pages with the swipe of a finger. An included stylus offers freehand highlighting and annotation. With support for multiple file formats including ePub and PDF, you can enjoy books from more places, including the Reader Store and over one million free public domain titles from Google Books.

Sporting a gorgeous 6-inch display with touch screen navigation, turning pages, bookmarking your spot, adjusting the font, and searching for titles can easily be done with the swipe of a finger. Use the virtual keyboard or included stylus to take freehand notes and highlight sections of text to revisit later.

By supporting both industry standard formats, ePub and PDF, you can access books at the Reader Store, check out books from public libraries, access over one million free public domain titles from Google Books, as well as sharing sites, online aggregators and personal publishers. Ideal for the constant traveler, daily commuter or leisurely reader, the Reader Touch Edition lets you carry up to 350 of your favorite books3 at a time. You can even expand the capacity with optional Memory Stick PRO Duo or SD media (sold separately).

While most portable electronics lose power after only a few hours, the Reader Touch Edition provides up to two full weeks of reading (7,500 continuous page turns) on a full battery charge. Can’t find a meaning of a word? The PRS-600 includes a built-in dictionary. It also has a USB 2.0 connect port, allowing transfer of books from websites or your storage drive from your PC or Macintosh computer to the PRS-600.

Sony PRS-300 shares virtually all the features of the Sony PRS-600, including color variations, but has a 5-inch LCD screen instead of a 6-inch LCD. It also lacks a memory card slot but allows data transfer via USB 2.0. The PRS-300 is equally thin but is slightly smaller and lighter than the PRS-600.

Sony PRS-900 is called the Reader Daily Edition. It has a 7-inch screen and weighs nearly 13 ounces, almost twice that of the PRS-300. The large screen, however, offers the advantage of viewing books in a portrait or landscape mode. The landscape mode lets you view 2 pages at a time, simulating the ‘feel’ of reading a paperback.

Like the PRS-600, the PRS-900 offers a memory card slot. It shares data transfer capabilities and features with the PRS-300 and PRS-600.

The Sony PRS-900 claims a longer life of up to 2-1/2 weeks per charge (or up to 7 days if wireless is on). You can Use the included stylus to take freehand notes and highlight sections of text you want to revisit later, or bring up the virtual keyboard to enter quick notes or search eBooks. You can also look up words in The New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition, or export your notes to a computer using the Reader Library software. Approximately 1.6GB of onboard memory lets you carry hundreds of your favorite books at a time and with dual memory expansion card slots, your reading library is virtually limitless. With the Reader Daily Edition digital book, you can wirelessly (supports HSPA (3G), UMTS (3G), EDGE, and GPRS data service with 2 bands - 850 and 1900 MHz) browse, purchase and download content on the go or while lying in bed. The free 3G mobile broadband gives you access to the Sony Reader Store from within most of the U.S.

Ectaco JetBook

The jetBook from Ectaco offers a high-contrast, easy-to-read monochrome LCD screen. It lets you choose screen orientations. Ectaco is famous for pocket size dictionaries and the jetBook is its unique contribution to the eBook field. With especially wide file format compatibilities, it can download books from virtually any available website. Small, light, nearly pocketable, the jetBook offers an excellent choice for avid readers.

Lightweight and super-portable, ECTACO jetBook is among the world’s smallest eBook readers available and lets you communicate and learn while you travel. With an easy to scan high-resolution 5-inch display and a viewing angle close to 180-degrees, it is fully customizable for reading at portrait or landscape modes. When reading, jetBook allows text to be searched and cross-referenced using bookmarks that make it an excellent choice for use with dictionaries and other reference books.

To help you get started, jetBook comes pre-loaded with the CIA World Factbook to make every trip you take more informative and enjoyable. The CIA World Factbook is one of the best geographic resources in the world. It includes comprehensive geographic, economic and political information for over 270 countries. The jetBook offers support for eBook contents in Albanian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Faeroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian and other European languages. Its built-in memory can support hundreds of books, maintaining a light weight under 8 ounces.

The built in flash-memory allows you to store your favorite books to read whenever and wherever you like. An SD slot accepts interchangeable SD cards (purchased separately) of up to 32 GB in size so that you can increase your portable library almost without limit.

Ectaco JetBook Lite is like the JetBook but uses AA batteries instead of rechargeable. Using AA alkaline, you get about 23 hours per set. Then again, you can always buy rechargeable AA batteries and take the charger with you.

In New York’s Central Park there’s a path called Literary Walk, lined with statues of famous writers. With eBook Readers you can walk, ride, and read anywhere.

The advantages of the Sony and Ectaco book readers are the flexibilities of all the eBook file formats you can download. You’re not limited to just one resource. You can download books from anywhere. Many books are free. Other websites may have more competitive pricing than the mainliners. Enjoy the new literary panache of carrying a library of books no larger than a typical paperback, and easy to read.

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