10

By David Rothman

image New York is a pretty glum place these days, and I applaud Mike Cane‘s Chronicle’s of Depression, straight from the Big Apple in his inimitable WTF tone.

Mike’s writings just might jibe with my own thinking. Humans have gotten worse, at least in recent, Gecko-ish decades, while the gadgets keep getting better and better.

Cheerier than Planet E as a whole

Despite all hassles of DRM and eBabel, however, the e-book world is a much cheerier place than Planet Earth as a whole. I rejoice in the rise of ePub, the growing resistance to DRM, and the little personal triumphs of people such as Ficbot, the latest convert to the iPod Touch. And to think we’ll see color E Ink in a year or so, for real!

imageThat’s not the same as an end to Wall Street crime, war or poverty, or mixes thereof; and I’d highly recommend that e-bookers follow Mike’s example and care about those issues, too, rather than just retreating into gizmo-dom. The economy will leave many of us with no choice. Looking ahead, I could think of few better investments for the U.S. or many other countries than a national digital library system well-integrated with local schools and libraries (I mean appropriate pedagogy, too, not just content and  technology).

For now, Mike is centering own his gadget-related fantasies around the red Sony Reader, shown in the photo above. He did the best job he could with the tool at hand, a cheapie "crapcam," then ran this headline: FIRST PHOTOS! Red Sony Reader!! In the era of doom in caps on the front pages of the tabloids, I’ll go for that.

Why I sold my Sony…

image Not as pessimist but as an optimist, I sold my own Sony yesterday on eBay, in anticipation of a wireless model coming in the next few months—if not in October, then in very late ’08 early ’09. My needs were and are not your needs. I’m a special case in that I try to keep up with technology that’s relevant. I buy so you may not have to. Yesterday’s sale for $215 helped raised cash toward a wireless reader or one of the rugged large-screen models that will soon be appearing.

How I wish I could have hung on to the Sony without worrying about the resale value! Were it not for the TeleBlog, that’s exactly what I’d have done. Furthermore, like Chris Meadows and Ficbot, I got a refurb iPod Touch because I’d concluded that the new ones didn’t offer a enough extras.  I could just as easily test Stanza and the rest on the old one. Case by case, huh?

Your own buy-and-sell policies?

So what are your own retention policies toward e-reading gear? What are you planning to keep over the next few months and what are you shedding, in an anticipation of the early arrival of something markedly better? And how do you feel about DRM and eBabel in this context? Do they make you less likely to buy new hardware?

Meanwhile I’ll keep my fingers crossed about the Sony Reader. As reported in Forbes: "Cheaper, book-focused e-readers are also likely to be revamped soon. Sony has all but confirmed that it will announce a new version of its Reader in early October, though it won’t share any details." True? I don’t know—just that sooner or later Mike will have much more than a red Reader to do an all-cap routine about. Meanwhile we’ll see if those Kindle rumors pan out.

Your comments: Yes, feel free not only to discuss your buy-and-sell policies for your e-book gizmos but also what you own now and what you have in mind to replace it.

Human bug update: The upper-res infection is still there, and I still feel lousy, but I think the antibiotics are finally kicking in. Thanks to TeleBloggers who asked about me.

 
10