From...

December 3, 1999
Web posted at: 1:14 p.m. EST (1814 GMT)

by Rawn Shah

(IDG) -- When personal computers became popular in the 1980s, many believed that electronic documents and e-mail (yes, there was e-mail back then) would save a lot of trees. Not true. In fact, we are cutting down even more trees for the cellulose-based canvases that we write, type, illustrate, and print on.

eBooks might actually make the old prediction come true. Since 1997, several vendors have been touting eBook readers -- self-contained information appliances presenting written content in a simple electronic format. These devices allow you to carry the equivalent of tens, or even hundreds, of printed books in a corner of your briefcase.

What little eBooks are made of

Although sizes vary, most eBooks are about as big as a hardcover book and come equipped with a small screen. One high-end model put out by Everybook features dual color screens (each 8.5 by 11 inches); it's as thick and heavy as a dictionary. The Rocket eBook from NuvoMedia, on the other hand, is a consumer device about the size of a paperback novel, weighing around 22 ounces.

Those two particular eBooks include some advanced technology for LCD screens and visualization. For example, when released, the Everybook screen will boast 300 pixels per inch (ppi), one of the highest resolutions available, even when compared with those of professional display monitors. To date, most regular monitors have a display resolution of around 72 to 80 ppi, while only the best LCD screens have resolutions higher than 100 ppi. The high resolution, together with technology that can focus text at the subpixel level, will make fonts sharper and easier to read for longer periods of time.

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How they work

Some eBooks, such as the Everybook, have built-in PC (PCMCIA) Card readers that allow you to add new content simply by plugging in a different PC Card that contains the information in Flash memory.

Ebook vendors

Weighing less than a pound and half, NuvoMedia's product can hold more than 10,000 pages of text; it has a small but readable screen that can be oriented vertically or horizontally. With only two buttons and a touchscreen, the controls are simple. The latest version, priced at $199, contains 16 MB of RAM.

Everybook intends its product, the Dedicated Reader, to be used by professionals such as doctors and lawyers. As such, the eBook displays two full pages of up to 16 million colors at 300 ppi; it will be initially priced at $1,600.

The Everybook runs the Linux operating system and displays documents in Adobe's Portable Document Format in a user interface of its own design. Each PC Card can hold up to 500,000 full-color pages, and to download pages it connects directly to the Internet via a modem or LAN interface, rather than through a base station computer.

SoftBook Press's device was designed with both the average consumer and the high-end professional in mind. At 6 by 8.5 inches and 2.9 pounds, the SoftBook has a grayscale, touch-sensitive screen. With 8 MB of onboard RAM and additional options for Flash memory, it can store from 5,000 to 50,000 pages of text, and its lithium-ion battery provides up to five continuous hours of reading before it needs a recharge. The device has an internal modem that can connect directly to the Internet to download new content.

A new standard for electronic books

Unlike Web sites, whose pages can contain interactive content, flashing images, forms, and so on, an eBook's requirements are much simpler. eBook vendors don't have to build complex devices to run, say, Java Virtual Machines, or graphics and animation. As a result, they have been able to keep costs down and to manufacture fixed and familiar products, freeing users from having to learn a lot of controls and interfaces.

The industry standard, known as the Open eBook (OEB) Initiative, has been approved by leading eBook vendors (Everybook, Glassbook, Librius, NuvoMedia, SoftBook Press), major print publishers (Bertelsmann, Franklin Electronic Publishers, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Microsoft Press, Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster, Warner Books), online booksellers (Barnesandnoble.com, Follett.com), and many others (Adobe, the Association of American Publishers, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, the National Institute for Standards and Technologies, Nokia, etc.).

The first version of the published standard addresses format, layout, compatibility, printing concerns, and the specification's relationship to the various Web document standards (including XML and HTML). Most vendors have agreed that eBook readers should be able to mark pages, make annotations, highlight text, and perform other basic actions. The idea is to get the feel of eBooks as close as possible to that of print books while offering advanced features that only computers can provide.

Although eBooks haven't been the huge hit that laptops or palmtops have been, Douglas Klein, president and chief operating officer of NuvoMedia says, "After trying the eBook, we almost never have a doubter." Ebooks lack mass acceptance partly because of their fairly high prices, but a bigger issue is the lack of material.

Several well-known names are offering their content through various eBook vendors in pre-OEB format. Barnesandnoble.com offers book-length content from unknown as well as best-selling authors in the Rocket eBook format. SoftBook offers more than 1,500 books from HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Warner Books.

Fortune, Money, the New York Times, Time magazine, and the Wall Street Journal are also available in eBook format. (As a promotion, some publications are available with free trial subscriptions until December 31.)

Will we still use paper?

Electronic books make it simpler, cheaper, and faster to create and distribute published works. With copyright protection methods, digital documents may be more securely distributed than their paper equivalents. When was the last time you saw an encrypted book in paperback?

Electronic books and documents have other significant advantages. Indexing, for example, becomes a matter of pointing and clicking rather than shuffling back and forth, which in itself may damage paper. You can also easily share bookmarks, annotations, and highlights, thus giving others a chance to focus on particular items without defacing or destroying the original contents. And you can query and search the entire book for words or phrases and get a list of every occurrence, something not easily done on printed books.

The downside at this time is that paper-based content has centuries of data, compared with just a few hundred books currently available in electronic format. It is likely that the most popular works will first go into eBook form. The sad truth is that a lot of material will probably never make it into electronic form because it is no longer in print or because it is in so little demand that no one will take the initiative to give it digital life.

Paper will always be around. Moreover, the average life span of data stored on hard drives is about five years, and archival tape lasts only a few years beyond that. Paper survives these by centuries, even millennia, so there may be a second life for paper-based data storage devices -- even for those yet to come.