Silverio Carugo wrote:
I have been doing substantial research on the issue of e-books and ebook readers, especially the standards-based answer to the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is technologically a good step forward, but it is should not and cannot be used for a number of reasons: 1) It's a proprietary format 2) DRM is mandatory 3) Only available in the US 4) All book distribution must flow through Amazon I have been working for many months on the "epub" format, which is an open standards-based alternative to the Kindle that is supported by a number of companies including Sony, Google, Adobe and others. The most popular Kindle alternative is the Sony ebook reader but there are alternatives. Why use the epub format instead of PDFs? Ever tried to read a PDF on a smartphone? PDFs have a fixed format that only allows you to zoom and scroll. Epub documents reformat and optimize themselves for your reading device. Anyway.... I have invested a large amount of time on epub documents, and I have already started to produce some academic texts in this format for a homelessness research project at my university. I would love to talk to anyone else here who may have an interest in this method of book production and distribution. Evan Leibovitch Open Source Architect York University Toronto |