21/06/06

eBook Update: Standards and devices

Almost terrifyingly, the manufacturers of a number of eBook devices seem to have only just got together to agree on standards in interoperability.

I have to say that everything I’ve seen and heard about the second coming of the eBook - the evangelical ‘iPod for Books’ seems to be vastly exaggerated. In the UK at least, Sony, whose reader device has been lauded and touted to much fanfare, but which has gone suddenly quiet, will not, apparently, be launching the product. I went into my local Sony store to enquire about availability, only to be told that they had no plans to launch in the UK. This was then corroborated by the IT director of a mjaor UK publishing house, whom one would imagine would know about such things.

On the other end of the scale, the really quite good looking iLiad device (not two words you really want to put into Google and try to find a device, given that the Iliad is one of the most commonly available free ebooks around, being just out of copyright) also seems to be stalling a little.

After much talk of a Spring launch there is still no news. Which is a shame. The iLiad clearly trumps the Sony device on many grounds - unsurprisingly given Sony’s predisposition to DRM, accessibility is one of them - and also features wireless and networking capabilities to take it well beyond reading ebooks: RSS, bluetooth, MP3 support and more. See here for a direct comparison.

I for one am hungry for a device to test, but also to use. And I think these guys are really missing a trick by not marketing direct to the UK publishing industry, particularly just before the reading-heavy summer holiday period when, let’s face it, the last thing you want in your suitcase is all of those manuscripts which only blow away on the beach anyway.

So, I’m all for standards:

In an effort to create a more seemless experience for both publishers and customers, many of the major software companies and device manufacturers in the e-book market are backing new common standards being drafted by the International Digital Publishing Forum. The new standards will address how e-books are produced and read.

At present, there is no common standard used by producers and manufacturers. As a result, customers can’t read a Palm e-book on a Microsoft Reader, noted Nick Bogaty, executive director of the IDPF. If companies adopt the new standards, not only will customers be able to read e-books on different devices, but e-books will be cheaper and easier to produce, which should lead to more titles being available, said Bogaty. “We’re looking to create the MP3 for e-books,” Bogaty said about the goal of attaining file flexibility.

but shouldn’t this have been decided, well, quite some time ago? How long will it be before we see implementation of this?

For reference: The standard documentation and lots more scary spec documents

At the BEA, which I still need to write up, Nigel Newton whizzed through all of the devices he had been exposed to. He was pretty glib on each of them, and quite dismissive. At the time I thought it was a posture - but maybe, again, Nigel will be proven right?

Maybe I shouldn’t find this amusing, but there are two groups working on the creation of standards. That is a good start.

Posted by Peter Collingridge in Future of the book, Publishing.

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