Tag: PDF

The depressing same-ness of the ebook reader industry

This is what qualifies as news these days in the world of ebook readers.

As for features, the device is simple but practical: SD card support guarantees easy storage of eBooks and music it’s an MP3 players too, and Foxit, a company most famous for its lightweight PDF software, guarantees the device will read PDFs very well—a factor that help mitigate the reader’s lack of a Whispernet-type service.

So, this ebook reader is exciting because it’s sure to be really good at handling a file format that, while common, isn’t particularly well-suited for ebooks.

via Ebooks: $260 Foxit eSlick eBook Reader Makes Its Way to Cheapskate Readers.

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A small step forward, a giant step back

The  world’s  leading  provider  of  e‐reading  solutions,  Netherlands  based  iRex Technologies  (www.irextechnologies.com),  has  today  announced  that  it  has  reached  agreement  with  Adobe®  to license  the  Reader  Mobile  9  SDK  which  provides  support  for  the  PDF  and EPUB  file  formats  plus  support  for Adobe’s content protection technology which it will offer on its iRex DR1000 series.

It’s great that iRex is supporting EPUB.  The more support this format gets, the more likely it is we’ll have a standard format for ebooks across all platforms instead of all these competing formats.  Imagine if you needed a different web browser for different websites you visited (Beyond the terrible websites that only work in Internet Explorer).

And reflowable PDF support is fine – PDF isn’t an open standard, but it’s widespread enough that it doesn’t have the large drawbacks of some of the other formats.

Of course, no format support is complete without the inevitable DRM announcement.  It’s nice to call it “content protection”, but we all know it’s anti-consumer technology that doesn’t work.

An extra kudos to iRex for including this message on the email they sent me with the attached press release (a PDF) – “Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this e-mail on paper.”  I not only considered my environmental responsibility, but also my convenience, and didn’t print a piece of paper for me to lose.

You can see the press release here.

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The eSlick at CeBIT

Foxit will be showing off their new eSlick at the CeBIT Global Conference and Expo in Germany at the beginning of March.  They’ve already sold out of their first batch of them, and expect the next shipment around April.  At $259, the price is very competitive.

They are also using their experience working with PDF software to add value – they include software to convert “any printable document” to PDF for display on the device.  That means it’s probably safe to buy one for your mom and not worry that she’ll have to learn the difference between mobi and epub and all the other competing formats out there.

If you’re going to be attending the conference, I’d love to hear about their exhibit.  My travel budget is currently insuffiecient for a trip to Europe. 

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