One of my favourite trend-dissecting websites, Ars Technica,  goes into detail on how Amazon must adapt to sell ebooks to multiple devices, as Apple gets ready to release its tablet and just about every PC vendor prepares its own e-ink devices, slates or what-have-you. The article, titled "Why Amazon won't launch its own tablet, but will use Apple's", says that Amazon must to now compete with vendors who will sell books for any screen, and will have to support the Apple tablet and others no matter how un-Kindle they may be. The article goes on to suggest that opening the Kindle...

In geek circles and indeed here at TeleRead, the big news these days is all coming from the CES show in Las Vegas. As far as the e-book world is concerned everyone seems to be following tablet devices---those being announced at the show and even those not being announced. But for those who are on the lookout for future technology that might actually change the way the world looks at e-readers, one of the more interesting stories seems to have overlooked completely because it's not at the show. Apparently the folks at the One Laptop Per Child program...

I wasn't as impressed with Edward Nawotka's editorial on the recent Consumer Electronics Show as Paul Biba was. In fact, I saw a troubling lack of foresight and even hindsight. A decade or two ago, someone might as well have said that a Walkman was everything needed to enjoy music.  How downright quaint such an opinion would seem now in the post-iTunes era. Likewise, an assertion today that… "at least for the time being, the devices that we already have are good enough for books in their present form" …just seems to me to be oblivious to what needs to come. Indeed,...

Long-time open source developer and spam fighter Chip Rosenthal chose to crunch some numbers for his research of whether or not to buy a Kindle this holiday season. After doing the math, Chip describes in his blog how, over a three year period, using a Kindle would cost $565 more than simply buying paper books. He attributes the difference largely to what he calls the "DRM Tax". "[...] maybe someday Amazon (and publishers) will realize how much harm they are doing with DRM. If the DRM tax was removed, not only would more people get e-readers, but also, thanks to the...

Editor’s note: These are Evan’s personal opinions. Also see Paul Biba’s different perspective. – D.R. Sometimes I really wonder what the point is of some of these industry charts with all the multi-colored arrows and intertwined corporate logos---except to prove that the authors have plenty of time on their hands. I guess this one, which claims to describe the e-book universe, serves a purpose or three: It helps show that there are many players in the field, some of them well known brands; Being able to explain it makes you the...

I guess David and I aren't going to completely see eye-to-eye on this, but I didn't see much that was wrong -- or inaccurate, for that matter -- in the New York Times article on the recent Sony press release. In fact, to me it appeared to be all good news. Upon reading the original article, my first reaction was to celebrate the effective demise of Sony's LRF format; I still think that was the main purpose of the announcement. The Reader's continued support of LRF always allowed the possibility that Sony could be keeping its own proprietary-format...

Welcome to Evan Leibovitch, our latest contributor! Evan works at York University in Toronto and has written dozens of articles on open source issues. A longer bio appears at the end of this post. – D.R. During the workshop that preceded the IDPF conference a few months ago, someone mentioned they'd heard that Amazon or another company was working on Yet Another Format that wasn't quite complaint with ePub. This rumored format, we were told, might be called “ePub plus” or something like that. Whether the comment was a genuine notice of impending threat, a trial...