Just how well did my $155 DT 375 Web tablet do at downloading e-books from the Fairfax County Public Library? And how about the Fujitsu tablet I’ve picked up—driven partly by my interest in the issue of recycling used tablets for schools and libraries?
About both machines, alas, you’ll have to be in suspense for now. Because the library serves up Adobe and Mobipocket e-books with the usual proprietary formats and company-specific DRM, I was SOL. The DT uses the Windows CE operating system and lacks software able to cope with Adobe DRM, and as for Mobipocket, the FCPL server refused to authorize access from more than three of the Rothman computers. I was already e-booked up. So I’ll have to wait until the library gets around to helping me. Oh, and the Microsoft PDF viewer on the DT also didn’t work with the ad-supported Wowio e-book service. Simply put, when I vent against the Tower of eBabel and consumer-hostile DRM, I’m just reflecting my own traumas. No wonder e-books haven’t taken off!
Microsoft’s shameful reversal on e-book standards
For the industry, the solution at this point is obvious—to get behind the epub format standard coming out of the International Digital Publishing Forum.
I’d have vastly preferred OpenReader, but the time for OR as a separate standard is past. Best to focus on turning around the IDPF specs so they reach the level of technical virtuosity of OpenReader and, for example, allow more durable interbook links.
VHS/Beta territory
OpenReader, of course, wasn’t an exercise in vain; Jon Noring and I and like-minded people did prod the IDPF into addressing standards issues far more seriously than before. Earlier the IDPF had backed off from its original standards focus. Initially, then-Microsoft executive Dick Brass was promising that e-book adopters would not be up against VHS/Beta horrors. Hah!
Today, ironically, Microsoft is one of the chief villains in the e-book standards area. While Adobe has been in the thick of the IDPF standards efforts, the Redmond gang is going about standards on its own, to hell with the IDPF. Chief Software Architect Bill Gates‘s people will apparently use hardware/software gotchas built into Windows Vista and related products to herd customers toward Brand M e-book software. Similarly, while I doubt that even Jeff “One click” Bezos can match Microsoft’s passion for proprietary approaches, Amazon is pathetically behind Adobe in embracing open standards. Granted, Adobe at times tried to promote Flash usage via the IDPF standards, but even with that considered, Bill McCoy took them more seriously than Amazon has so far in the case of Mobipocket.
Twist, twist, twist BillG’s arm, and Jeff B’s, too, if they doesn’t come around
What to do about Microsoft and Amazon/Mobipocket? Perhaps it’s time for publishers, schools, libraries and others to say: “We’re not going to be as enthusiastic about your various business initiatives if you don’t catch the standards religion.” I’d prefer that federal legislation not be necessary to spare consumers all the grief that the Tower of eBabel has created. But you never know what might happen. I can even see the DRM interests—whose technology generates pure hatred from inconvenienced consumers—pressing someday for mandatory interoperability in DRM and formats. Better for this goal to be reached instead by good old-fashioned arm-twisting in the private sector and among the people who buy computer products for schools, libraries and other parts of government.
Gates the unCarnegie—at least in the e-book area
Bill Gates was supposed to be Andrew Carnegie reincarnated. Did the real Carnegie insist that library books be printed only in certain formats? Since Gates is still prominent in the leadership of the Gates Foundation, it’s all the more important that he support e-book standards if he truly cares about education and libraries. As for Jeff Bezos, he should be talking about enlightened self interest if nothing else. He is out to dominate Net commerce in books and other areas. An enlightened approach toward e-book standards would be one way to reduce the possibility of ant-trust action in the future when such measures are more likely than under the Bush Administration.
Update on the DT vs. the Fujitsu: The former is winning because it’s more comfortable to hold during reading, and the screen, while only 800 X 600, looks great with uBook. I may well return the Fujitsu or sell it—I paid just $225, excluding the price of the CD-ROM and WiFi card (any takers?). The Fujitsu is a good machine, but the DT makes it a little redundant for Carly and me, with its better-than-expected screen. Any Tablet PC is better than none, and it isn’t as if the Fujitsu is a disaster. But because the DT has an eight-inch screen, as opposed to the Fujitsu’s ten-inch display, I actually have the perception of higher res. The downside of the CE-based DT, of course, is less of a choice of app software.
This isn’t, by the way, the last you’ll hear from me on the topic of low-cost tablets. In the next week or so I’ll pass on some buying-related advice and thoughts on tech support.
Reminder: I’m hardly a DRM booster. The best solution would be no DRM to clutter up the standards questions. If only the big publishers grasped that DRM costs them more lost e-sales than the piracy it supposedly prevents! Dream on, eh?
Adobe, Mobipocket, Wowio…I read a lot of ebooks, and yet I don’t use any of those. The only proprietary ones I read are from eReader; everything else I read is from Baen, public-domain sites, or, ahem, elsewhere. With so many freebies around, it’s easy to forget that there are proprietary books out there.
Hey, Chris, I’m delighted you’re happy with the selection of books untainted by DRM. I myself want more variety. I’d like to read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union as an e-book, for example, but I doubt that HarperCollins will do it without “protection.” Thanks. David