The iPod Effect

Over just a very few years, Apple’s iPod has changed the music industry practically beyond recognition. Today The Telegraph suggests that the latest generation of e-book readers might well be on their way to doing that for the book industry:

Electronic book readers -- also known as e-readers -- are the book equivalent of the iPod. Just as your MP3 player allows you to store thousands of songs and CDs on the device, so e-readers enable you to cram thousands of books into a slimline, lightweight gadget that’s less than the size of a paperback.

And while e-readers have been around for a while, it’s only in the last year or two that the technology has got to a point where they are a viable alternative to a real, dog-eared book. One of the biggest challenges was developing screens and fonts that would be easy on the eye - after all, no one wants to feel as though they are staring at a computer monitor while reading a novel. The introduction of “eInk” technology and the creation of low-glare screens has made electronic type more readable.

The piece includes reviews of Amazon’s Kindle, the iRex iLiad, Sony’s PRS-505, the Ectato JetBook and the Netronix EB-210 and it’s here.