Here, from Robert X. Cringely....

The TeleBlog for the most part is a hyperspecialized read. Earthquakes happen, government tumble, thousands starve, or die in wars, but our focus remains on e-books, libraries, copyright and related topics. Still, we can't consider even specialities in a vacuum. Here, on the cusp of the New Year in the States, is a cheery set of predictions from futurist and urban affairs expert Joel Garreau at the Washington Post--who, I hope, is writing with tongue at least partly in cheek: Our Washington area of 2030 is so much smaller than that of 2005 that it is sometimes hard to understand how...

So says a headline at CIO.com, referring to open source efforts on Massachusetts. Some concerns about OpenOffice and the like: 1. The accessibility community has invested years in getting Microsoft products to work with the disabled. 2. Third-party adaptive technology vendors have based their products around Microsoft's. 3. The states deadline for OpenDocument format is Jan. 1, 2007, and right now it looks as if accessibility could suffer in favor of the deadline being met. Open Source advocates respond that their approach will be more flexible and greatly speed up the usefulness of tech to the disabled, and they're open to the state...

Not my favorite format--but better than Sony's own proprietary alternative. Details from BusinessWeek Online. I've mentioned the machine before, but in fairness to Sony I did want to highlight the PDF possibility. What Sony does have going for it: Many people will buy first and ask questions later. Meanwhile a BW excerpt: Users will be able to load any .pdf file onto the reader, according to a person familiar with the device, as well as files with a special Sony e-book format. That means you'll be able to read everything from magazine articles to analyst reports to out-of-copyright books. Problem is that...

The Times in the U.K. via if:book. Excerpt: Wikipedia, which started in 2001, will notch up around 2.5 billion page impressions this month. According to Mr Wales, its traffic volumes are doubling every four months. The combination of ultra-low overheads and massive readership would excite any media executive. And while the site does not carry any advertising, Wales admits it might. "There is a great deal of resistance to the idea, both from the community and from me. But at some point questions are going to be raised over the amount of money we are turning down," he says. ...

Piers Anthony, one of the grand old men of sci-fi and fantasy, maintains a long list of publishers of e- and p-books--and identifies the winners and sinners from a writer's perspective. He focuses on small presses, a useful approach, given the waning interest of big mainstream publishers in the works of nonVIPs. Among the winners: Double Dragon ("small company composed of three people dedicated to bringing quality books to the Internet") and Lulu (which has pleased many a self-publisher with its publishing services). Among the sinners: Yes, eBookAd (not a publisher in the usual sense, but a distributor, infrastructure provider and...

Here, from MobileRead. Also from MR: CHM eBook Reader 2.5 for PPC. ...

Video of a talk here--via Slashdot. Excerpt from summary of his comments: The key to churning out these cheap educational devices is volume -- and the more countries that join the bandwagon, the sleeker and less expensive the computers are likely to be. Negroponte casts a wary eye on the potential grey market appeal of the machines, and is determined to make them so distinctive as a government-distributed, educational tool that taking one would "be like stealing a post office truck." Negroponte concludes, "Changing education on the planet is a monumental challenge," taking decades. But OLPC [One Laptop per Child]...

Tomorrow is the last day of the year that remembered the death of French sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne a hundred years ago, in 1905. Distributed Proofreaders and Ebooks Libres et Gratuites joined in the activities and have been working on Dutch, Icelandic and French texts. When you are looking for electronic versions of classic etexts, visiting Project Gutenberg or the Online Books Page is a good idea. But sometimes authors are present on the internet without being listed at these large catalogues. Author's societies, or the sites of fans or of estates may be of help then. For instance, for...

Sony's e-reader means e-books have touched bottom and are headed up. But e-books won't mean "print books you can download." In future, they'll be books with motion, sound and interactivity -- features a print book can never have....

Here, from MIT's MediaPedia Wiki (via the eBookCommunity list)....

The traditional publishing industry targets mainly women these days--to hell with the literacy crisis among males. But e-books are different, with gadget-loving men being the main buyers. Could this change? Already Harlequin has started an e-book series for women, and now Deborah Fallows of the Pew Internet & American Life has just written an important report suggesting that women will soon surpass men in total Net usage. E-bookers, pay attention. The simpler the technology grows, the more attractive the technology will be to women. I myself hope that e-book use can go on to thrive among both sexes. Meanwhile the...