Comments on: Progress – the ebooks debate rumbles on

By: Paul Raven

Paul Raven — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:39:59 +0000

Interesting points, Gopakumar – a project like the $100 laptop for books could be a really powerful tool for change. Provided it didn’t end up as riddled with FAIL as the actual OLPC project seems to have become…

By: caitlan

caitlan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:01:33 +0000

I like the way I interact with paper books. I can read them then lose them, share them, store them, annotate them, or whatever. I guess I would switch if there was a lightweight, large screen reader that wasn’t too expensive and downloaded my blog subscriptions and magazine subscriptions. AND INSTEAD OF A SCREEN IT SHOULD BE A PEN SIZED PROJECTOR.

By: Gopakumar Sethuraman

Gopakumar Sethuraman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:43:10 +0000

The cost of the Kindle is prohibitive and that’s only where the low tech books win out. The physicality of the book is highly romanticized. After all, a good story sucks you right in and makes you forget that you’re holding something physical. And unless one is in major city with a well stocked public library the wait time for new books is quite long and sometimes budget restrictions may see the library not getting certain books. The battle of the ebooks should be fought in developing and underdeveloped nations where such technology can provide easy and quick access to information/knowledge. Most of those markets don’t serve genre niches at all and what is published (the most mainstream works) have abysmal quality (making the physicality all too prominent).

By: Nancy Jane Moore

Nancy Jane Moore — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:31:45 +0000

It happens that I commented at length on this very subject today on the Book View Cafe Blog. Of course, I'm both an author and a book nerd, but I really want a good e-book reader. I don't have one yet because I bought the Rocket book when it first came out and learned the hard way about the price of being an early adopter. Buying the latest gadget is fine if what you're basically interested in is gadgets, but if what you really care about is what the gadget can do, it's better to wait until a few of the bugs shake out.

By: Hallen

Hallen — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:09:51 +0000

to Radiofoot, small point: libraries are not free; underfunded, sure. As a punter im waiting with bated breath for my local council to decide its cheaper/less hassle to just give everyone a Kindle. As a librarian, shrug..