Ray Hendon

Ultraportables, which include the newest incarnation of thin and light laptops, the Ultrabook, are thought by some to be a threat to tablet computers.  The instant-on capability of Ultrabooks are believed to be especially attractive to those who have been buying tablets because of this feature. 

It appears likely to me that Ultrabooks and other thin and light laptops will do well in the market place, especially when their prices fall a few hundred dollars.  But whether they will dampen any of the enthusiasm for tablets is another matter.  Personally I think both form factors satisfy separate needs for different users.

One feature of the new Ultrabooks that will help resolve the question is whether they will serve their owners as competent eReaders.  Surely there are some prospective buyers who would prefer to own only one device rather than two—but only if the one could do the work of two.  Can an Ultrabook do both heavy duty computing and convenient eReading?  Can one design satisfy both these needs?

Certainly a dedicated eReader or a tablet have some advantages over a laptop, even a thin and light one.  Reading electronic books, for example is probably done best by a device that closely emulates the look and feel of a book.  The popularity of the Kindle and Nook are thought to owe much of their success to their similarity to printed books.

How essential is the look and feel,  though, to those who read a lot.   This article takes a look at the possibility of using these new, thin and light computers as an eReader.

To put this question to a practical test, I loaded the top three eReading applications to an 11.6” screen Asus UX21 to see how they worked.  The applications chosen to test are:

Amazon’s Kindle App for PCs, Macs, iPad, iPhone and Android devices

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• Barnes and Noble’s Nook Application for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone  and Android devices
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• Sony’s Reader Application for PC, Mac and Android devices

  

To give you a taste of the difference, I have taken screen shots of random pages from eBooks on the three applications I mentioned.

Beginning with Amazon, a screen shot of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, is displayed in the two column format for laptop viewing. The screen shot is taken of the Kindle application for PCs.

Screen of Kindle Reader in Two Column Format

The Kindle app is widely praised for its versatility of layout options, underlining, comments, bookmarks and especially its syncing abilities.  This app also has go-to options that ease navigation, and dictionary lookup for a highlighted word.  All these features work on Ultrabooks. 

Amazon also has a user friendly policy of allowing you to direct any book in your library to be sent to any device on your registered list of devices. Amazon is indifferent as to which device or how many you use for any their electronic titles.  It treats them all the same and syncs them in an effortless way. The moment I registered my latest laptop, the Asus ZenBook UX21, all books in my library were immediately available for reading.

The strongest features of Amazon is, in my view, the ease of use of its website.  It is easy to find books, send them to the device of your choice, and generally navigate their vast site.

Equally strong is the selection of books, magazines and newspapers. They claim over a million titles, but that includes some categories such as “Singles” that represent a new class of literature that is generally shorter than a book but longer than an article. 

The worst feature of Amazon is that they insist on using a proprietary format for their eBook files.  It has an AZW extension and works only on Kindle software or hardware.  Although all the free sites I use give the option of downloading their books in the AZW format, in practice it is not terribly inconvenient.  Amazon also can read PDF files, and they will convert your Word for Windows documents to a format that allows you to put them in you Kindle library.

The other downside to Amazon is that they use DRM (digital rights management) on everything, so there is no cutting or pasting using anything in the AZW format. 

The Nook eReader software also provides a good reader experience. The screen shot below is from one of their pre-DRM works. Don’t be fooled by the small typeface. My screen capture utility shrunk it because the Nook takes up more of the horizontal space of the computer screen than the Kindle reader, so it has to cut the size down to fit within the pasted space. In practice, the Nook screen is as readable as any other.

Screen shot from the Nook Reader using the dual pane format

All the formatting and user options are available for the Nook reader–font size, margins, highlighting, lookup, go-to. And the B&N syncing feature is excellent between devices, and they offer their reader software app for a wide range of devices.

As far as eReading goes, it is hard to find much to prefer of B&N over Amazon or vice versa.  Both are excellent and have almost identical features.

The same is true for selection of books. B&N’s inventory is huge, and they have a good selection of free public domain books—as good as or better than Amazon’s.

Nook uses the ePub format, as does Sony, although both will read many other formats as well.  They do not read Amazon’s proprietary AZW file format, however.

Something of an oddity: The Nook reader treats all ePub software as DRM protected, so they do not allow cutting or pasting of non-DRM books.  Even on the iPad, whose own iReader app allows cutting and pasting of non-DRM protected material the  Nook does not.

Sony’s reader app provides a good reading experience. The screen shot below is from an ePub file of a non-DRM version of Sherlock Holmes.

Screen of Sony Reader’s Dual Column Layout

As with the Nook, the Sony Reader software uses more of the landscape screen to display its materiel than the Kindle app, so my clipping software has to reduce it to fit the pasting space. But Sony gives one plenty of formatting options and page control.

Sony lags both Amazon and B&N with book selection and syncing ability.  Their books are generally priced high; they have few free books, and their selection doesn’t match its two larger competitors.

Sony makes its reader software available to fewer devices—no iPad, no iPhone, no BlackBerry, for example.  They have syncing available to the three types of devices they support, but I have not tried it personally.

I like the Sony reader app for its ability to read almost any kind of document regardless of format, except, of course, Kindle documents. I will always have their app installed on my computers in case a particular book is not available in the Kindle format.  And they allow cut and paste options for non-protected books.

I find all three of the reader software about equally enjoyable to use. The differences in layout and options are not terribly important. I find I use the Kindle app more than the others because I find more books on their site I like, and I like to sync the books among all my devices. Still, I maintain active use of the Nook and the Sony Readers.

Summary:

First, the reality of the size and convenience of specialized eReaders and tablets makes it clear that they have the advantage. It is not possible for an ultrabook, weighing in at 2.9 pounds, to be as convenient to use as a 7-inch tablet or even the pound and a half iPad.

However, it is also inconvenient to carry two devices if one will do. So, there will be occasions when a thin and light laptop could be a suitable substitute for a dedicated eReader or tablet. 

At bottom, all of these tested apps work well on an Ultrabook. And they would work just as well with the software from other vendors such as Kobo or Blio. If your eReading preferences include comic books, magazines or children’s books, then you might like a specialty reader designed for the formats unique to these publications.

While all the eReading apps work well on an Ultrabook, it still may not be your preferred way of reading electronic texts.  But they are completely usable as a primary or secondary eReader. The choice of one over another is more dependent on which site you prefer to use because of its particular strengths than to the characteristics of their eReades.

From my experience, I have given away my Kindle reader. I simply do not want to carry another device with me in my travels. Now that I have a 7-inch tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I use it as my eReader of choice because of its lightness and ease of holding in one hand. I use the iPad for e-reading infrequently, but there are occasions when it comes in handy. Its weight, though, makes it a second choice, especially for long reading times. 

I rarely use a PC or my ultraportable for reading, but if I do it will be on the ultraportable.  Its lightness and instant-on feature does make it a better choice than the older, heavier laptops, but it is not as convenient to carry as a tablet.

An ultraportable may not be your favorite way of reading electronic texts, but it serves as a completely satisfying vehicle for reading if you want to carry only one device with you or if an occasion arises when it is all you have to use.

12/21/2011:  Fire Fixes Flaws

From David Pogue: “Animations are sluggish and jerky — even the page turns that you’d think would be the pride of the Kindle team. Taps sometimes don’t register. There are no progress or ‘wait’ indicators, so you frequently don’t know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn’t been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery.”

+A software update, sent out over the air on Tuesday, fixes these balky characteristics.  According to reviews, the carousel stops spinning on a dime; it takes only one tap to open an application, and one tap opens something much faster than before. and page turns are faster and smoother.

There was one enhancement, too.  The user can control which apps are in the home carousel.

A good fix for the Fire that makes a significant difference in user satisfaction.

12/19/2011:  Lenovo Has Quad-core 10.1-inch Tablet in The Oven

A report from DigiTimes, a newspaper based in Taiwan that keeps a close eye on electronics manufacturers in that island nation, says that Lenovo has a quad-core tablet ready to begin production in January.   It will be called the K2, which will be an update of the existing K1.  The new device will feature an  NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, up to 2GB of RAM, and Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

12/17/2011:  7-inch iPad Coming in Late 2012?

DigiTimes, an infamous reporter of random rumors strikes again with a report that Apple is buying oodles of 7.85-inch displays from LG and Aupotronics.  Presumably these purchases are intended for use by the Cupertino firm, and it probably isn’t for a new laptop.  More likely it would be for the often speculated 7-inch tablet, a sort of mini-iPad. 

The rumor would put delivery close to the end of 2012.  DigiTimes has been right in some of their reporting, given the close relationship they have with the Taiwan firms that actually manufacture many of the world’s laptops.  But, they have also been wrong, so there is no way of knowing yet.

RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook  sold about 850,000 units for the three quarters since its introduction.  %00,000 weere sold in its first quarter, 200,000 the next and now, 150,000 in the last quarter that ended November 26th.  RIM has been working overtime trying to get sales going on their tablet.  They have sent out multiple OS fixes, and they promise a much improved model in February.  But, the main emphasis for boosting their sales has been to lower the price to $200.  this has helped, and it is rumored that after Christmas selling season is over they will keep the $200 price point as permanent.

This will make it hard for other 7-inch tablets to get more than $200, with the Kindle Fire selling at that price, too.  This is good news for those who are considering a 7-inch model to supplement their digital experiences.

12/12/2011: Kindle Fire to Get Software Update

Amazon will push an update to Kindle Fire owners before the end of the year, according to a report in the New York Times.  The new software will offer better performance, improvements in multitouch navigation, and the ability to edit the list of recently used items that show up on the home screen.

All of the enhancements are in response to consumer complaints that have been documented in reviews posted by the early adopters of the new 7-inch tablet.  Nearly 33% of early buyers have given the Fire three star or less ratings.  This compared with only 11% of the first Kindle buyers some years ago.

12/08/2011:  The Nook Tablet Ships a Million

It is clear now that the 7-inch segment of the tablet market will never be the same since Amazon and Barnes and Noble brought out their 7-inchers at prices that translate to roughly half the prevailing prices at the time.

Amazon’s success with the Kindle Fire has been widely publicized, and now Barnes and Noble is said to have shipped a million units of their Nook Tablet since its mid-November debut.

Neither the Fire nor the Nook Tablet are as full featured as their competition from Samsung or HTC, to name a couple, but the pricing at that end of the market will never again support a $400 price, much less the $500 price point at which they were initially offered.

An example is offered by RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook.  Even at the deeply discounted price of $199, they are expected to have sold only about 150,000 units for the entire quarter.  Admittedly the $199 price point was not in effect during the entire quarter, but with Amazon selling four to five million since mid November and Barnes and Noble at least taking shipments on a million units, this can spell only disaster for the PlayBook.  I wonder if it can be fixed.

The sales of Samsung 7-inch tabs and HTC are not yet known, but it cannot be expected to be much.  Altough HTC has reduced the price on their 7-incher to $199, I wonder how much they can sell.  The original Galaxy Tab is now selling for $200 with a 3G contract.  It is hard to see that the newer models of the same size will sell much at their $400 price points.

12/01/2011: Electronic Reading Continues it Rapid Growth

Electronic reading continues to grow at a fast pace as it continues to grab a larger slice of the book sales pie. Amazon reported today that they now offer over 900,000 eBooks in English and other languages, all offered for sale through their website.

Following this announcement, Juniper Research, a firm that follows the industry, released a report which foresees sales of electronic books to reach almost $10 billion by 2016. Sales for this year are estimated to be about $3.2 billion.

Juniper attributes the rise to the growing inventory of eBooks and in the number of eReading devices on the market. They also say that the spread of eReading to smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices is expected to contribute to the growth. The research firm expects that tablets alone may account for as much as 30 percent of eBook downloads by 2016.

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The ability of electronic devices to morph from one form to another is a source of confusion in the minds of consumers. For decades there were tablet computers, but there were no electronic readers. Then electronic readers were introduced, and within a few years browsing capabilities were added, more or less as an afterthought but not done well.  But, the distinction between these two categories was blurred just a little.

Then the tablet computer morphed from a very expensive pen-centric business device that was a sub-category of a laptop into a hand-held device that is now a category of its own. It wasn’t long before Amazon and the other eBook sellers developed reader applications that allowed these new tablets to read eBooks, too. When you put a Kindle reader on an iPad, the iPad becomes an eReader, even though it was an afterthought of the designers.

Now we have two categories of devices that have inched closer to each others’ afterthoughts. The old distinctions are gradually melding into a commonality that makes it hard to make meaningful distinctions between them.

This confusion is not only demonstrated by the buyers of these devices. It is also on display by the blogs and eMagazine sites that keep track on the industry. As an example, notice what the data below shows how differently the different blogs and eMagazines treat this distinction.

PC World: Single category: Tablets/E-Readers.

Engadget: Separate categories: (1) E-Readers, (2) Tablet PCs. The Nook Color, by the way, is reviewed under the E-Reader category, although it could just as well be classified as a tablet.

Computer World No classification of either device

ReadWriteWeb No classification of either device

ZDNet Three categories: (1) iPad, (2) Tablets, (3) E-Books and E-Readers

Crunch Gear No specific classifications. They use “Mobile” and “Gadgets.”

Laptop Magazine Separate categories for Tablets and eReaders

Cnet Separate categories for Tablets and E-Book readers as a sub-class of Tablets

Tabletreaderinfo Single category: Tablet/eBook Readers

Sometimes our classification system fails us. And recently the original eInk providers, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, have introduced what are in fact tablets, but were designed and promoted as eReaders as their primary function. They also include tight integration of the eBook seller’s sites and all the electronic media capabilities. Still, they are tablet computers underneath and eReaders by heritage.

I don’t have a solution for this failure to clarify. Although there are two clear divisions between these categories: eInk vs not eInk. But, this is not convenient terminology for anyone, although it does describe the difference fairly accurately. We will probably have to live with this confusion for a while until one or the other either disappears or does some more morphing closer to the other.

On my site I find that I spend more time lately reviewing the eReading capabilities of tablets than I do reviewing pure, eInk readers. The market is clearly moving away from eInk, although it could make a comeback. But, I can’t see how. It is a hassle to carry two devices with you when one is enough, and the way the technology stands today, the clear winner is the tablet with eReading software. I almost never use my old Kindle anymore. My 7-inch Galaxy Tab or iPad has taken over this function.

Nevertheless, there are many avid readers who prefer their old eInk devices, and they are the best way to read if you are out of doors. But I don’t see a bright future for this old technology. I am most curious as to how this plays out.  But confusion will reign for a while longer.

It’s official now.  Kobo has acknowledged that it is entering the tablet domain with a creature of its own, now known as the Vox. 

The Vox has a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution AFFS+ display with multi-touch, a 7-hour battery and 8 gigs of internal memory.  It will also support up to 32GB of SD storage.

It will feature Kobo’s own eReader software and have the same syncing ability with other platforms through Kobo’s cloud system that works as well as Barnes and Nobles’ and Amazon;s.   It is also priced the same as Amazon’s Kindle Fire at $200, but at this price is may be a little less than combustible.  The Vox has an 800 MHz processor tablet is running Android 2.3 Gingerbread as opposed to a custom Android interface and a 1 GHz dual-core processor on the Kindle Fire.

Kobo’s press release on the new product calls their new tablet “the world’s first social eReader.”  They further state: that the Vox  “. . .enables readers to start conversations with other readers and discover new books and authors through their social network.”  This means Twitter or Facebook, not exactly a new thing, but this is their pitch.

The screen is touted as having 1024 x 600 resolution AFFS+ display with multi-touch capability.  AFFS (advanced fringe field switching) is a good technology that combines internal reflection, new pixel structure, reflective polarizer and LED backlight.  The results in better brightness, more contrast, vivid color, excellent viewing angles and less power consumption.. 

Most of the new 7-inch tablets have gone with this new technology, and it will help read e-books better when out of doors and when someone beside the person holding the tablet want to read, too.

From the specifications it appears Kobo has emulated the Barnes and Noble Nook Color more than the Kindle Fire.  Kobo employs a single core processor that is rather slow.  So it is doubtful that it will sell well against the Fire.  At $149 or $139 it would stand a better chance.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new model introduced with an enhanced processor.

In the United States Best Buy and Fry’s will be taking pre-orders.

For those whose reading life encompasses electronic reading materials, life keeps getting better. We have had Gutenberg and Amazon for some time, and when Barnes and Noble decided that electronic delivery of books was in their future, our options were expanded once again. Border/Kobo was too little too late, but even so, it continued the expansion our options to acquire new reading material.

There have been many independent offerings of eBooks on the internet, but I have no way to keep up with all the sites where one may buy electronic titles. Few, however, offer the wide range of titles that Amazon and Barnes and Noble have.

Now, however, things have changed with Google’s entry into the market with Google Books. Google claims 3 million titles available, although many if not most are probably associated with the Gutenberg Project. On the other hand, it is not difficult to get contracts with the major publishers of electronic materials, and Google has done exactly that. Their new site is designed to be fully competitive with the established sellers.

Google has a difference with Amazon and Barnes and Noble: their eReader is web-enabled rather than app-centric. To visit their new site, Click Here.

The Google site is well organized and makes it easy to buy a book, and their search classifications are handy to zoom in to your area of interest. One feature I like is when you mouse over the cover, a popup window appears with a brief description of the contents. Barnes and Noble has the same feature, and Amazon could use it, too.   The screen shot below is of their home page.

For prices, Google are about the same as the other major retailers.  Many $9.99 books, but some are higher and some are lower.  Importantly, Google has a fair selection of the classic titles for free.

Google doesn’t sell any hardware for eReading, so they made their books readable on the web. If you log in to their site with your Google ID, then your reading is accomplished as a webpage rather than a specific standalone app that Kindle and Nook use. This also means that all the storage of your library is done in their cloud storage system. Barnes and Nobles does something like this with their multiple platform software and syncing. Amazon allows you to shift your local books to other registered devices. Both systems have their advantages, but I prefer to have my storage done locally. That way you do not have to have an internet connection when you want to read.

Another feature that will be handy for many is the ability of Nook and Sony Readers to read Google docs. Amazon, with their proprietary format, does not allow this. Having it available would allow Kindle owners to take their Google library with them, but Amazon seems to be adamant about not opening up ePub files on their system. As a convenience it would be nice, but not, apparently for Amazon.

I have downloaded about eight books from Google, and I find that regardless of the device I am using, I can read them. They have specific apps for Android, iPad, iPhone and iPods, and I am confident that a WebOS and Windows Phone 7 app will be forthcoming soon. BlackBerry has already been observed being able to use Android apps on their up-coming new OS, so it won’t be long before all hands are on board.

It looks as if Google is ready to claim a share of this new and growing market, and their approach is appropriate for their vision of web-centric services. For readers of electronic texts, it is all for the good.

There is a new use of eReaders that is fueling a boom in electronic readers and books:  A Kindle can serve as a brown paper bag for madam’s trove of racy romances with embarrassingly provocative covers.  “One Wicked Night is shown at right.

Hot romance titles are not a new genre in American lliterature.  They have been a staple of paper-back books for as long as there has been paper-back books. 

It turns out that holding one of these fast reading romances with a hot and happy ending exposes the lurid art on the cover to others.  This exposure is not welcomed by the women who read these kinds of books, and their solution is increasingly found by buying the electronic edition and read it on a Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader.  The readers don’t want their husbands to know of their taste for this steamy literature—similar to a husband who hides his Playboy from his wife.  And they don’t want others to see it either. (“Just for Tonight” shown at left.

According to industry statistics from Bowker, a research firm for the publishing industry, romance is now the fastest growing segment of the eReading market, ahead of general fiction, mystery and science fiction

“Romance,” said Matthew Shear, the executive vice president and publisher of St. Martin’s Press, which releases 40 to 50 romance novels each year, is “becoming as popular in e-books as it is in the print editions.”

The NY Times article also reported that  “. . .at All Romance, an online retailer that sells only romance e-books, sales have more than doubled this year, and the most sought-after titles are usually the raciest.”

These lustful lasses are an exceptionally profitable niche for publishers because of two characteristics:  they are fiercely loyal to an author, often willing to buy everything a particular author has written, once discovered.  And, secondly, they buy, on average, three books a month. 

An idea of the growth of this segment of the business is provided by  Sourcebooks, an independent publisher in Naperville, Ill.  In the first quarter 8 percent of total romance sales at Sourcebooks were from e-book sales. By the third quarter that number had gone up to 27 percent.

Another astonishing statistic is that nearly 75 million people read at least one romance novel in 2008.

The overall demographic of this group of mostly women  is they are between ages 31 to 49, something of a maturing, pre-menopausal group. They read voraciously, going through a book or more a week. 

Click here for the entire NYT article

Google has opened its eBooks store at http://books.google.com/.  The site is functional on a PC, but it is still not working properly for my iPad.  I haven’t tried the Android app yet.

The tale of the iPad is interesting, and the way it unfolded hints that it may be working before long. 

The site itself is typical Google: utilitarian and sparse in design, and somewhat confusing about what to do next.  For now, once on their shopping site (http://books.google.com/ebooks) the book availability section is organized like Netflix, with four or five color presentations of book covers with right and left facing arrows to indicate more selection of each category.

With your first arrival at this section, the top of the page looks like this:

except the length is full screen and one can read each entry.  From the green icons on the left, which is for Android apps, the blue is iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and the yellow is the web.  The red icon is for Nook and Sony.  However, if you don’t select one of these icons soon, they are replaced with color ads for various things.

The Web app works, and it is the first one I was successful in installing, and buying a book to read.  I chose Alice in Wonderland because it was only 32 cents—no financial sacrifice is too great for the benefits of my readers.

I then went to my iPad and attempted to download the iPad version, but the processes forced me to iTunes and then it failed to complete the process.  I have a feeling that this part of the application process has yet to be completed.  When I searched the App store for Google Books, nothing came up. I then tried to read my Web App book I had just purchased by directing the iPad to the web site.  All went well until I clicked on the “Read Now” button.  The process failed with the single notice on the iPad screen that it couldn’t complete the operations.  Clearly, something else remains to be done.

Back to the reading experience.  Once I downloaded the book on my PC it was available in my Google library, so I clicked on its icon to begin reading. It worked fine, and I was greeted with the following snapshot of the screen:

The screen shot above is actually only half the page, since it displays a two column layout, but I can’t show it large enough to be meaningful on my narrow format here.  Notice the left arrow in the left margin.  Their page looked and felt much like Kindle and Sony, but it is a web based experience, written through the browser rather than through the operating system.

I hope Google gets the problems with Apple fixed.  It would be a fine addition and competition for the other sites. (See Update below)

One other note: I found no listing of free books on their site.  I will search it more carefully during the coming days, but I am disappointed at their lack of facility in getting at the Gutenburg Project books and other sources that are free.  Being the cheap guy that I am, this is of paramount importance to me.

UPDATE 12/07/2010

Today the Google eBooks site has a working iPad app, and it is in the iTunes store.  It downloads correctly, and I was able to sign to my Google eBooks account and read my $.032 book.  The app is written for both the iPhone and the iPad, and is displays only in the portrait mode.  I hope this is corrected soon. 

Electronic reading, variously known as e-reading or eReading, has now added another nomenclature to our language: apps book.  This name represents a new form of written and multimedia expression, and though it is derived from an eBook, it goes beyond that into an entirely new realm of reader-author interaction.

As a general topic I have been writing about the new forms writing will be taking for some time.  Last week’s article, Digi-Novels (Click here to read) and a News of the Day entry on October 15 on self publishing options that have opened up lately, are examples.  The Future of eReading (Click here to read) is another article that touches on this subject.

But, apps book is a turn I did not anticipate.  Roughly, an apps book begins with an electronic edition of a title—nothing new in that.  What sets this new medium apart, however, is that it is sold (or given away) as an application that will run on an iPad, iPhone and, perhaps eventually, an Android phone.

Secondly, the app has in it ways that fans of the author of the book can discuss the book among themselves, and an ability of the author to enter into the discussions.  All these activities take place inside the application.  There is no need to jump around from browser to app or eBook to email.  These features are embedded into the app.

The inventor of this new medium is a Brooklyn NY publisher, Electric Literature. Electric Literature was founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum, who met as Brooklyn College M.F.A. students in 2006.

The book featured in their first app book offering is based on the book Adderall Diaries, by Stephen Elliott.  Here is what Mr. Elliott has to saywhat  about the venture:

“The Adderall Diaries,” his “memoir of moods, masochism and murder” based on his childhood in Chicago group homes, which was published in hardcover last year by Graywolf Press.

But Mr. Elliott says he has good reasons for producing his own iPad app, separate and apart from the e-book version of “Adderall Diaries” that is for sale, say, for the Kindle or the iPad reader from Apple. But those reasons are not the artistic, meta-fictional ones you might suspect — you know, so that when characters enter a bar, you suddenly hear music and a glass dropped by the waiter, or more fancifully, you can make them turn around and go somewhere else.

Rather than exploit the multimedia potential of an app book, Mr. Elliott said he wanted to include tools that cater to a special group: Stephen Elliott readers.

“As an author, I want you to have the best experience,” he said. “People want to talk about the books they are reading with other people. Why, with everything we know, wouldn’t you include a chat room with your e-book?”

Here is a link to the full NY Times article.

Who knows where this will lead.  The young firm that wrote the code of the new app has also developed another application that allows authors to put their work into this new format.  The fee starts at $600.

I certainly don’t know how this will play out.  But I can say that publishing is undergoing a radical restructuring, and much if not all of the restructuring is coming from new entrants into the industry. I am excited about what comes next.

Electronic reading is revolutionizing more than just what, when or where we read, although these changes are profoundly significant in themselves.  But the change doesn’t stop with those who read electronic media.  Another equally profound change is taking place on the supply side—the publishers and authors.

One manifestation of this change is the development of the Digi-novel.  With printed books, novels contained text, text and more text.  Some have illustrations and photographs, but all the visual effects were static.  They didn’t move, they didn’t update and their entertainment quotient was low.  Color was confined largely to children’s books—it’s expensive to print in multi-colors.

With a Digi-novel, all that has changed.  The text is still there, but the story is supplemented with visual effects.  A quotation from an article today in the New York times lays out the explanation.

On this week’s New York Times Tech Talk podcast, J.D. Biersdorfer talks to Anthony Zuiker, the creator of the hit TV show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” about his latest digi-novel, “Dark Prophecy.”

What’s a digi-novel? As Mr. Zuiker explains, it’s “the best of publishing, motion picture and social communities all kind of meshed into one experience.” Every 25 pages, readers get a code they can take to a Web site, where they can watch a video segment that bridges the chapters.

An iPad app with interactive features is expected next month, and this will give the publishing industry a large and growing audience for the new way of publishing.

If the eReading public responds to this enhanced presentation, then the adoption of this technical wizardry will be accelerated and expanded.  It will be accelerated because other writers will be forced to adopt the new medium in order to stay competitive.  And it will be expanded because more and more publishers of different types of reading material will join the revolution—they will have to.

Text books, which employ color more than fiction or essays, will likely be an early mover.  Video clips of historical interest for history books, animated graphics for mathematics and other scientific text books seem natural for the effects of digital printing.  Animation with full audio for children’s books should not be long in adopting the new medium.

In other words, digital publishing will extend far past novels.  We will see digi-texts, digi-stories, digi-essays, digi-manuals, digi-instructions.  It is beginning to happen because the power of electronics make it possible.  And the needs of readers for the convenience of taking a thousand or so books and magazines with them wherever they go can and will be satisfied.

I don’t have any doubt that this scenario will play out in this manner.  The detractors will eventually fall by the wayside, as they always have.  The new technology will triumph over the old, and our learning, entertainment and way of disseminating information will be changed for the better and forever.

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Ray Hendon

Gizmodo put this provocative video on their site, and, after seening it I am awed at what the future of eReading may look like.  To get an idea, simply watch the video below.  I can’t wait for the new, new media to arrive.

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