e-book

(Electronic-BOOK) The electronic counterpart of a printed book, which can be viewed on a desktop computer or a portable device such as a laptop, PDA or e-book reader. Numerous e-books can be kept on portable units for traveling, eliminating weight and volume compared to equivalent paper books. Electronic bookmarks make referencing easier, and most readers allow the user to annotate pages.

Although fiction and non-fiction books come in e-book formats, technical material is especially suited for e-book delivery because it can be searched. In addition, programming code examples can be quickly copied, which is why CD-ROMs that contain the entire text of the work have been included in the back of many technical paper books.

E-Book Formats

The major problem with e-books is the many formats competing for prime time, including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Reader, eReader, Mobipocket Reader, OPS, OpenReader and Kindle.

Although it would seem a no-brainer, most formats do not support dictionaries and encyclopedias very well. They have a search capability, but not a direct lookup, which means if a person looks up the term "network," all the definitions that contain the word "network" will be retrieved rather than the single definition of that term. The results are akin to the mountain of results retrieved by a search engine.

Amazon's Kindle

In November 2007, Amazon.com revolutionized the e-book market with the introduction of its Kindle e-book reader and e-book inventory. This is the first e-book to offer free, wireless access to download e-books and search the Web (see Kindle). See PDF, OPS, Open eBook, Mobipocket and OpenReader.

A Software E-Book

ThoutReader is used to read e-books in Osoft's open format. Note the two "+" icons (upper right). Found on every page, they allow notes to be distributed from professors to students, from group leaders to team members as well as from any reader of the book to all others via Osoft's servers. Osoft is the first e-book vendor to support the OpenReader format. For more information, visit www.osoft.com.

A Specialized E-Book

The Rocket eBook was one of the first handheld e-books. Introduced by NuvoMedia in 1998, other models followed, including one with a larger color screen. However, due to the many PDAs and e-book formats that followed, Gemstar, which acquired NuvoMedia in 2000, discontinued the devices in 2003. (Image courtesy of Gemstar TV Guide International.)

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