The eBook is 40 (1971-2011) Part 14

[Summary]

Marc Autret, a journalist and graphic designer, wrote in December 2006: "I am convinced that the ebook has a great future in all non-fiction sectors. I refer to the ebook as a software and not as a dedicated physical medium (the conjecture is more uncertain on this point). (...) Non-commercial ebooks are already emerging everywhere while opening the way to new developments. To my eyes, there are at least two emerging trends: (a) an increasingly attractive and functional interface for reading/consultation (navigation, research, restructuring on the fly, user annotations, interactive quiz); (b) a multimedia integration (video, sound, animated graphics, database) now strongly coupled to the web. No physical book offers such features. So I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and packaged in a given format. How valuable will it be? Its value will be the one of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!"

In late 2006, I launched an inquiry about how people were seeing the future of ebooks. Here are the answers from Pierre Schweitzer, Denis Zwirn and Marc Autret, three French "pioneers" in their own fields.

Pierre Schweitzer is the inventor of the @folio project, a mobile device for texts. He wrote in December 2006: "The luck we all have is to live this fantastic change here and now. When I was born in 1963, a computer memory could only hold a few pages of characters. Today, my music player could hold billions of pages, a true local library.

Tomorrow, by the combined effect of the Moore Law and the ubiquity of networks, we will have instant access to works and knowledge. We won't be much interested any more on which device to store information. We will be interested in handy functions and beautiful objects."

Denis Zwirn is the founder of Numilog, the main French-language digital bookstore. He wrote in August 2007: "The digital book is not any more a topic for symposiums, conceptual definitions, or divination by some 'experts'. It is a commercial product and a tool for reading. There is no need to wait for some new hypermodern and hypertextual tool carefully orchestrating its specificity from the print book. We need to offer books that can be easily read on any electronic device used by customers, sooner or later with an electronic ink display. And to offer them as an industry. The digital book is not, and will never be, a niche product (dictionaries, travel guides, books for the blind). It is becoming a ma.s.s market product, with multiple forms, like the traditional book."

After being a journalist specialized in publis.h.i.+ng, multimedia and copyright, Marc Autret is a graphic designer working with publishers.

He wrote in December 2006: "I am convinced that the ebook has a great future in all non-fiction sectors. I refer to the ebook as a software and not as a dedicated physical medium (the conjecture is more uncertain on this point). The [European] publishers of guides, encyclopedias and informative books in general still see the ebook as a very minor variation of the printed book, probably because the business model and secure management don't seem entirely stabilized. But this is a matter of time. Non-commercial ebooks are already emerging everywhere while opening the way to new developments.

To my eyes, there are at least two emerging trends: (a) an increasingly attractive and functional interface for reading/consultation (navigation, searching, restructuring on the fly, annotations of the user, interactive quiz); (b) a multimedia integration (video, sound, animated graphics, database) now strongly coupled to the web. No physical book offers such features. So I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and packaged in a given format.

How valuable will it be? Its value will be the one of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!"

Marc was not happy about the "compet.i.tion" between PDF and EPUB. He added in June 2011: "I do regret that the emergence of EPUB has led to the outright annihilation of PDF as a format for digital books. The fact that interactivity elements available within the PDF are not supported by the current mobile platforms has removed any possibility of experimenting new things in this direction, that had seemed very promising to me. While print publis.h.i.+ng gives place to many different objects, ranging from the carefully designed art book to the basic book for everyday reading, the ebook market has grown from the start on a totalitarian and segregationist mode, comparable to a war between operating systems, rather than favoring a technical and cultural emulation. Because of this, there are few PDF digital books benefiting from the opportunities given by this format.

In the unconscious collective mind, PDF has stayed a kind of static duplicate of the print book, and n.o.body wants to see any other fate for him. The EPUB format, which is nothing but a combination of XHTML/CSS (admittedly with JavaScript prospects), consists in putting the digital book 'in phase with' the web. This is a technology that has favored structured content, but hasn't favored typographic craft at all. It has given a narrow vision of the digital work, reducing it to a flow of information. We don't measure it yet, but the worst cultural disaster in recent decades has been the advent of XML, as a language that pre- calibrates and contaminates the way we think our hierarchies. XML and its avatars go on locking us in the cultural invariants of the Western world."

2010 > FROM THE LIBRIe TO THE IPAD

[Summary]

After a quiet time in the early 2000s, ebook readers "took off" again, from the Librie launched by Sony in April 2004 to the iPad launched by Apple in April 2010. The first dedicated ebook readers were the Rocket eBook (1998), the SoftBook Reader (1998) and the Gemstar eBook (November 2000), which didn't last long. Lighter ebook readers storing more books showed up with new E Ink displays, for exemple Librie from Sony (April 2004), Cybook 2nd generation (June 2004), Sony Reader (September 2006), Kindle from Amazon (November 2007), and Nook from Barnes & n.o.ble (November 2009). Compet.i.tion has been fierce with smartphones (from 2005) and with the iPad from Apple (April 2010). Some readers are now eager to read multimedia/hypermedia content and stories in 3D on flexible devices.

After a quiet time in the early 2000s, ebook readers "took off" again, from the Librie launched by Sony in April 2004 to the iPad launched by Apple in April 2010.

The first dedicated ebook readers were the Rocket eBook (1998), the SoftBook Reader (1998) and the Gemstar eBook (November 2000), which didn't last long. Lighter ebook readers storing more books showed up with new E Ink displays, for example the Librie from Sony (April 2004), the Cybook 2nd generation (June 2004), the Sony Reader (September 2006), the Kindle from Amazon (November 2007), and the Nook from Barnes & n.o.ble (November 2009). Compet.i.tion has been fierce with smartphones (from 2005) and with the iPad from Apple (April 2010).

# The Librie (Sony)

Sony launched its first ebook reader, Librie 1000-EP, in j.a.pan in April 2004, in partners.h.i.+p with Philips and E Ink. Librie was the first ebook reader to use a 6-inch E Ink screen, with a 10 M memory, and a 500- ebook storage capacity. Ebooks were downloaded from a computer with a USB cable.

# The Cybook (Bookeen)

After a Cybook 1st generation launched in January 2001 by Cytale as the first European ebook reader, the Cybook project was taken over by Bookeen, a company created in 2003 by Michael Dahan and Laurent Picard, two former engineers from Cytale. A Cybook 2nd generation was available in June 2004. The Cybook Gen3 (3rd generation) was launched in July 2007, with a E Ink display.

# The Sony Reader

Sony Reader was launched in October 2006 in the U.S. as the first ebook reader using the latest E Ink screen technology, The screen gave "an excellent reading experience very close to that of real paper, making it very easy going on the eyes" (Mike Cook, editor of epubBooks.com).

Another major feature of the reader was its battery life, with over 7,000 pages turns -- or up to two weeks of power on just one battery charge. It was also the first ebook reader to use Adobe Digital Editions. It was available then in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and France.

# The Kindle (Amazon)

Amazon launched Kindle, its own ebook reader, in November 2007, with a 6-inch E Ink display, and page-turning b.u.t.tons. Books could be downloaded via the device's 3G wireless connection, with no need for a computer, unlike the Sony Reader. A thinner Kindle 2 was launched in February 2009, with a storage capacity of 1,500 ebooks and a new text- to-speech feature. The Kindle DX was launched in May 2009 with a larger 9.7-inch screen for newspapers and magazines.

# The Nook (Barnes & n.o.ble)

Barnes & n.o.ble launched Nook, its own ebook reader, in November 2009.

Based on the Android platform, the original device included a 6-inch E Ink display, with WiFi and 3G connectivity. A new WiFi-only device was launched in June 2010. The Nook Color was launched in October 2010, with a larger 7-inch LCD display, for the viewing of magazines and picture books. The website of Barnes & n.o.ble offered 2 million ebooks in November 2010. A lighter Nook with a 6-inch E Ink tactile display was released in May 2011.

# The iPad (Apple)

Apple launched the iPad, its multifunctional tablet, in the U.S. in April 2010, with an iBookstore of 60,000 ebooks. The iPad was available in a few European countries in June 2010. After the iPod (launched in October 2001) and the iPhone (launched in January 2007), two cult devices for a whole generation, Apple has also become a key player for digital books. The iPad 2 was launched in March 2011 in the U.S. and two weeks later internationally.

There are many other ebook readers and tablets, but I will stop there.

Some of my friends now wait to read multimedia / hypermedia content and stories in 3D on flexible devices.

2011 > THE EBOOK IN TEN POINTS

[Summary]

Here is a conclusion in the form of quotes. The dates indicated here are the dates when these texts - excerpts from email interviews - were written and first published. Their authors are Michael Hart (August 1998), John Mark Ockerbloom (September 1998), Robert Beard (October 1998), Jean-Paul (June 2000), Nicolas Pewny (February 2003), Marc Autret (December 2006), Pierre Schweitzer (January 2007), Denis Zwirn (August 2007), Catherine Domain (April 2010) and Henk Slettenhaar (June 2011).

Here is a conclusion in the form of quotes. The dates indicated here are the dates when these texts - excerpts from email interviews - were written and first published.

# August 1998

"We consider etext to be a new medium, with no real relations.h.i.+p to paper, other than presenting the same material, but I don't see how paper can possibly compete once people each find their own comfortable way to etexts, especially in schools." (Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg in 1971)

# September 1998

"I've gotten very interested in the great potential the net has had for making literature available to a wide audience. (...) I am very excited about the potential of the internet as a ma.s.s communication medium in the coming years. I'd also like to stay involved, one way or another, in making books available to a wide audience for free via the net, whether I make this explicitly part of my professional career, or whether I just do it as a spare-time volunteer." (John Mark Ockerbloom, founder of The Online Books Page in 1993)

# October 1998

"The web will be an encyclopedia of the world by the world for the world. There will be no information or knowledge that anyone needs that will not be available. The major hindrance to international and interpersonal understanding, personal and inst.i.tutional enhancement, will be removed. It would take a wilder imagination than mine to predict the effect of this development on the nature of humankind."

(Robert Beard, founder of A Web of Online Dictionaries in 1995)

# June 2000

"Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear). You can do this in the written media, of course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed how I write. (...) I have finally found in online publis.h.i.+ng the mobility and fluidity I was seeking."

(Jean-Paul, founder of the hypermedia website cotres.net in 1998)

# February 2003

"I see the digital book of the future as a 'full work' putting together text, sound, images, video and interactivity: a new way to design, and write, and read, perhaps on a single book, constantly renewed, which would contain everything we have read, a single and multiple companion.

Utopian? Improbable? Maybe not that much!" (Nicolas Pewny, founder of Editions du Choucas in 1992)