Who could ignore Jane's cat graphic---along with her plea for an end to eBabel? Adobe's Bill McCoy, in fact, came up with a very speedy reply. Yes, Bill: there's hope in .epub. It's the DRM-standards part I'm worried about: this is no small detail. Meanwhile perhaps you can return to your interest in social DRM, which could help address interoperability problems. Why isn't the e-book business getting serious about SDRM? Or maybe watermarking? Random House seems pleased so far with watermarking for audio books and is ditching DRM requirements in most cases. Why are e-books so bleepin' different?...

Adobe Digital Editions 1.5, on the way, uses more flexible DRM called Named Activation. You'll be able to tie your books to your personal ID, not suffer the usual machine-linked approach. The ML approach is torture if you own a whole bunch of e-book-capable machines---or when a hard drive goes south, as they're all likely to do in time. Perhaps with that in mind, eReader has been using an ID-based approach for eons by way of encrypted credit card-related information. Oink! Oink! Adobe's plans are Good News even for us DRM haters, but they're still just lipstick on a pig. Even Adobe concedes the...

Greg Newby, CEO of Project Gutenberg, says he's open to creation of .epub files on the fly, via the main Gutenberg site. And he is also willing to consider links to sites that store IDPF-standard files in ready-to-go form. At the same time, however, Greg writes on a Gutenberg list that he needs convincing evidence that .epub will indeed be an open, honest standard without gotchas coming in from Adobe or any other company. He'll also need the right software tools---free and open source. "On the fly" explained But first, what does "on the fly" mean? It means that Gutenberg would treat .epub...

OK, here's the reason Nick Bogaty's leaving as exec director at the IDPF. Bill McCoy at Adobe has hired Nick, effective next month, "to lead our digital publishing business development." From Bill's blog: "While Nick understandably decided to seek new challenges after an almost six year stint at the helm of IDPF, his passion for promoting the broader adoption of digital publishing was clearly unabated, so I'm delighted that he's chosen to come on board and play a key role in advancing Adobe's contributions." Best of luck to Nick and Bill. I hope they'll both give serious consideration to actual implementation of...

Mobipocket's Web site is still down as I write this. Some old customers just might stop buying Mobi-format books in the future. E-book software companies, publishers, distributors and e-stores, then, should consider social DRM as an alternative to traditional, Mobi-style DRM. Social DRM works by embedding names and/or other identifying information into files you buy, so P2Ping isn't as tempting. It's hardly perfect. But it isn't the e-book toxin that Mobi-style DRM is. With social DRM, e-books can be much easier to buy and own than with the traditional variety. Best protection is none, but... The best protection is none in this...

Google, Others Contest Copyright Warnings, in the Wall Street Journal, notes a pending complaint that the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) , a trade group in which Google, Microsoft and others are members, is filing about copyright notices that, according to the CCIA, misled users by not noting legitimate fair-use reproduction rights. What Google's role, if any, in the complaint is not entirely clear, but it certainly seems ironic that Google is being associated with this complaint, at the same time as they are putting putting highly misleading notices on scanned public domain works. Supposedly "essential" watermark The Google notice, found...

OpenReader is dead, dead, dead as a major format to implement, though I hope that the IDPF picks up its better traits. Here's yet another idea that we intended originally for OR. Why not a logo for the IDPF standard? You see a catchy circle or other image on your PDA or e-book device with included software---or the logo appears on an e-software site. If you buy a book from an online e-retailer displaying the logo, then you'll absolutely positively be able to read the format. Same if you want to borrow a book from a library site displaying the...

What do the IDPF's new e-book standards mean to publishers? Just what's a container format? And will the old OEPBS system be readable by software based on the new standards? Those are among the questions answered in a Digital Book 2007 presentation by Garth Conboy of eBook Technologies, Inc., one of the key players in the IDPF's standards initiative. This post also contains direct links to dozens of other presentations from the IDPF's Digital Book 2007 and conferences from earlier years. Later I'll highlight a few presentations, and meanwhile I'd encourage TeleBlog readers to look through the files and share...

"Big news on the UMPC front this morning folks. Looks like Intel is shedding the Origami gorilla (read: Microsoft) as they prep a Linux-based platform to compete with Vista and XP-based UMPCs. Intel will unveil their new MID (Mobile Internet Device) platform at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing later this week." - Engadget. The TeleRead take: So does this mean that the outrageous prices of UMPCs, generally above $1,000, will drop a little? I'm keen, keen, keen on e-book-capable machines running linux, by the way. The more Microsoft alternatives, the less chance of Richmond controlling e-book formats. I hope...

Color e-paper from E Ink might hit the market next year. If this happens, it could be great news for e-bookers and the magazine and newspaper industries. Well, the actual words in the Reuters story are "could be launched"---however you want to interpret them in terms of use in real machines. May this rocket take off! Source is Russell Wilcox, E Ink president, quoted in "Electronic Paper" Edging Toward Reality. E Ink is testing a prototype now. Meanwhile Reuters says the company's "revenues have grown at a rate of 200 to 300 percent annually in the last three years." Sony Reader screen...

Moderator's note: Cory Doctorow wonders if novels are "screeny" enough for long reads. Here's an adaptation of a rebuttal that Bill McCoy, an e-booker at Adobe, published on an e-mail list. The young woman in the CC-licensed photo is reading from a PSP. - David Rothman Neither the fiction nor narrative non-fiction of the future will be limited to long-form texts intended to be read immersively in a primarily linear manner---that's my opinion. At the same time, I would like to express disbelief at the proposition that digital content will not within the foreseeable future be an acceptable alternative to paper...

The year was 1998, the place a Microsoft press conference in the Washington, D.C., area. I remember sitting just a few feet from a Microsoft executive who swore allegiance to e-book standards and efforts to promote them. Dick Brass (photo) and his sidekick Steve Stone actually started the Open eBook Forum, now known as the International Digital Publishing Forum. But times change, and yesterday Bill McCoy, an Adobe man on the IDPF board, blogged that Microsoft is officially resigning from the group. That is not good news. As the TeleBlog readers know, the IDPF is a highly imperfect organization---but its standards...