The Sony Reader apparently uses just a mobile version of PDF, which can’t support hyperlinks–but the iLiad can. The iLiad appears to “support PDFs created at least up until Acrobat 5.0,” according to Nick Hampshire’s post in MobileRead. No mention of DRMed PDF, but my guess is that like the Sony, the iLiad won’t support it. Oh, the joys of the Tower of eBabel. (Time stamp changed.)
Update, 9:38 a.m.: Maybe there is hope for DRMed PDF on the iLiad later this year. Thanks, Henrique. I’ll send this off to iRex for a definitive answer. I also wonder if DRMed PDF capability is on the way for the Sony, too. While I’m grouchy about present incarnations of DRM and PDF, I’m all for here-and-now solutions for their victims.
I went to Irex Towers yesterday, and will have lots of things to report tomorrow, at the risk of turning this into a device blog.
feel free to do so…^^
Go for it, Branko. It’s good Here and Now stuff. At the same time, I agree with you on the need for balance. The solution isn’t to reduce gadget news but to increaes other kinds.
Personally I’d like to read more about actual books and e-authors.
Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti has done some wonderful commentaries on the actual publishing scene, but quite understandably is now deep into a book project and must limit her contributions.
Especially I’m hoping for well-done reviews of e-books. We have a potential reviewer in David Faucheux, but he is blind and of course must cope with the horrors of DRM. Hmm. Perhaps I should check with a lawyer acquaintance about the legalities of volunteers stripping encryption from e-book titles so his synthesizer will work out them–I wonder if the DMCA language would specifically cover this.
Volunteers? Reach me.
Thanks,
David
(who’d be doing the review act if he had the time)
I was told that the Iliad was supposed to be able to read encrypted pdf’s, but because Adobe is changing it’s Drm it just was left to later in the year (in a future soft upgrade).
Branko – Go for it, bro. – I’m certainly waiting for any Iliad info with bated breath! No danger of Teleread turning into a device blog with so much good news out there in the digital publishing world .
I believe we are absolutely on the brink of a revolution/evolution in publishing and it is exciting to see it taking shape one bit at a time.
I have to say that, on some level, I really don’t care about encrypted PDFs. Adobe’s DRM scheme is probably the worst in the field, down in the pit with Microsoft.
I think there are a lot of people and companies with their own PDF content, which is most likely not encrypted, that would be the real use of PDF on these things. Interesting to hear about the Sony though.
So is the Iliad and the Sony using some version of Adobe’s PDF viewer, a third party viewer, or one they wrote themselves?
“Interesting to hear about the Sony though”
i agree
so…when is the new info ablut the Iliad going to arrive…:-)
Somehow I just can’t wait…^^
Patience, grasshopper! I won’t have time to get started until the end of the day, but have enough information for three blog entries, so that’s probably just how I will approach this: piecemeal.
Nice. Looking forward to it.
It would be nice if there was a version of the eReader.com reader for the iLiad, or for Linux in general. I expect I will be avoiding buying books from there in future, if they don’t offer more options, especially seeing as .LIT books are often available as a replacement and can be converted to HTML.
DRM books are a pain in the ass !