"eBooks may take off, but only when they are offered free. At present there is no notion of buying a player for books. There may be a market for mini-books running on ebook readers, offering extra content and special graphics." - Views of Michael Rogers, the New York Times' Futurist in Residence, as summed up by Sky News. The TeleRead take: Ad-supported books would be helpful, given many surfers' identification of E with "free." But let there be traditional alternatives, too! Meanwhile I remain a big fan of the ad-supported Wowio service. If only I can talk 'em into doing...

E-mail services like Gmail can be bad enough as potential snoop-enablers. I agree with Tim O'Reilly that you've already lost your privacy in many other respects. Still, thousands of your emails could be there for federal spooks to see one day, at least in theory. D.C. says, Trust Us. I'm still Gmailing away, but with lower-than-ever privacy expectations. So should you also Trust Us about electronic bookmarks and other details of your reading? Just when the Kindle is appearing with its own Trust Us approach---Amazon stores everything for itself and maybe unwittingly for Washington---D.C. comes along to remind us of the...

Far from limiting itself to Amazon, Sony and other giants, Macmillan is eager to reach out to independent bookstores such as Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard. That's the word from Fritz Foy, senior vice president of strategic technology at Macmillan. Earlier, at Macmillan's request, Amazon had stopped the indies' feeds for imprints such as St. Martin's Press. The result was that top titles like Rhett Butler's People appeared to be gone with the wind, at least for BooksOnBoard and others. But as related by Macmillan yesterday, the reasons were far from nefarious. Territorial rights issues Rather there were international rights issues with a number...

My daughter came in from San Francisco for Thanksgiving and I showed her my Sony reader and asked her opinion of the Kindle. Background info: Erin is 27, an English major with a Masters in Journalism from Medil. She works for Wired Magazine and is about as tech-savvy as a person can get. With this background her opinion really surprised me. She would never use a Sony Reader or a Kindle, or an independent ebook reader of any kind! Further, she stated, unequivocally, that no person in her age group would use one either. Erin said that her generation...

Moderator's note: Welcome to Ficbot, our latest TeleBlog contributor, who lives in Canada! Cory Doctorow is a fan of Ficbot's blog The Best Media in Life is Free---devoted to e-book, audio and music freebies. - DR What to do if you are searching for an ultra-light mobile laptop alternative and can't afford the OLPC or Asus EeePC? If all you want to do is play Solitaire, read e-books and type documents, the Alphasmart Dana may be an option for you. It retails for about $400, which is vastly over-priced for what you get (especially in light of the growing number of...

Ars' verdict: Some pros: E ink, full text searches, easy controls, convenient shopping, newspapers delivered automatically via wireless. Some cons: Design flaws and inconsistent interface and sluggishness, Insufficient screen contrast, and "nerve-wracking" terms of service. Technorati Tags: Amazon , Kindle , e-book readers ...

Moderator's note: BooksOnBoard fears that Amazon may be trying to drive it and other e-indies out of business via its Kindle Store. Later this week, while remaining neutral on the issue of possible anti-trust violations, we'll publish more details from BooksOnBoard's side. Amazon has declined comment on business and format issues. Meanwhile big thanks to DearAuthor's Jane for the Kindle-related item below. - DR Amazon's pricing for at least some mass market books has suddenly gone full retail, no discount since the release of the Kindle. When questioned in Newsweek about the low pricing, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said:...

"McClellan is still at work on his book. At PublicAffairs, it is not unusual for writers to be finishing their books at the time we announce publication because the sell-in to stores has to take place months before the books actually arrive. The large chains want about six months to prepare for release, deciding on how many copies to take and what kind of promotion to support." - Peter Osnos, PA founder, discussing What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington, by ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan. The TeleRead take: What a great example...

"Last April, I wrote a column titled, 'Why e-books are bound to fail.' My reasons: cost, the availability of better alternatives and, most importantly, book lovers love paper books. I was wrong." - Columnist Mike Elgan in Computerworld, as reproduced via Macworld. Earlier opinion discussed here. The TeleRead take: Elgan's also repented about the Kindle. My current opinion from afar---remember, Amazon has refused to send the machine to uppity me---is that it looks darn promising for e-book novices. Now to get Jeff Bezos to promise to do e-book standards and take care of a few other details! Related---and actually...

While E Ink is in the spotlight now because of the Kindle, the LCD is hardly dead, and in fact, that's the technology used for the five-inch screen of Panasonic's new Word Gear machine---seen here before. A MobileReader has gotten his hands on a review unit. Meanwhile in yet other hardware news, Tim O'Reilly says he prefers the iPhone, over the Kindle, as an e-book reader,even though he hopes the latter will help e-bookdom. Related: Engadget on WordGear--expected to go for $350. Res is reportedly 1,024 x 600. (Thanks to Mike Cane, who passes on this cheery news about...

Believe it or not, the TeleBlog is much more of a text blog than video blog. On the way is a commentary on yet another literacy report out of D.C.---correctly bemoaning the decline of reading. But often video is the best medium for making a point about physical objects such as, paradoxically, e-book readers. The XO as an e-book reader: A Kahle-Cisler chat A great example is a video of Steve Cisler, a veteran librarian, interviewing  the Internet Archive's Brewster Kahle about the e-book potential of the OLPC XO laptop (thanks, OLPC News). What doesn't come through...

"Mobipocket told us this morning that they hope to have Macmillan back for us and others by the end of the week." So reports Bob LiVolsi of BooksOnBoard in an e-mail to me.  That's great news in the wake of concerns that publishers might favor Amazon Kindle and Sony books---at the expense of independent booksellers such as BoB and Fictionwise that use the Mobipocket format. Amazon owns Mobi. Fictionwise: No anti-trust prob in Amazon's books below cost Also see just-posted comments---mentioning the issue of Amazon and competitors from a legal viewpoint---from FW's Steve Pendergrast. He says he does...