Originally Posted by
veb
This is strange.
I've never ever seen any use of these stupid eBooks. I mean, haven't you ever picked up a book on a cold wintery afternoon and just curled up and read a book?
I cannot justify the means to use some electronic device with no... pages to read a book. It feels unnatural, it feels weird. It's like abortion as hampa would say.
Has anyone here even had any personal experiance with them? Are they easy on the eyes, and work well? What!!
Books will always have a special place in my heart...
EDIT: The only thing that I can seriously think that "epaper" will be of any use, is for magazines and newspapers that have a one off use clause. Like, buy the New York Times, and it updates every day - but can't display anything else over X pages and from Y competitor.
They're quite easy on the eyes, like I said before, reading on them didn't hurt my eyes after three hours, unlike my computer.
These are already being used for things like newspapers and magazines, if I'm not mistaken the kindle even has an RSS reader and web browser.
At this point I still much prefer physical books, and often will purchase a book that is availible free as an eBook simply because I can read for long periods without eyestrain.
Originally Posted by
veb
It's handier and easier? What makes you think that?
We don't have an e-version of everything. I don't see an e-version of my girlfriend.
An electronic system for books is a pretty decent idea, because it does save on a lot of materials that are used to create the books, and also publication costs. But, I still think they're a long way off before they're ever going to reach a standard where my sister would go out and buy one.
I agree with you that books are special, as I said before in my post. But I honestly think, a great eBook would be indistinguishable from a normal book, but the information/stories that fit in it would be for the allocated pages.
One of the cool applications for these I've seen is the dutch edupaper project
http://edupaper.nl/inhoud/welcome (site is in dutch). The pilot project offers textbooks on ebook readers, reducing the cost and weight burden on students.
Another thing to mention is the fact that you can zoom in on text, which is good for the elderly who can't read the smaller print books. These give them a larger selection of books without having to have a magnifying glass or large print editions.
In my opinion, this is a cool technology with some much needed uses, but I'll still prefer real books.