How many people can afford a computer? How many people can afford an electronic book reader? Until they're as much as picking up a paperback book, it just can't happen.
Publishers absolutlely love the idea of printing on paper, binding, shipping etc. They don't pay for it anyhow...the students pay for it when they pay $150 for a book that is only good for 2 semesters.
um, you wouldn't need a reader for everybook. all you need is one reader for all 4 (or 5, or 6...) years of college. add up how much you'd pay on books and compare that to the cost of a reader... it'll happen eventually, don't worry.
I never sold any of my books back and have used many of them for references still. A lot of upper division classes require previous knowledge and sometimes, you have to look it up. Other times, it's just a book that I found interesting enough to keep, something like Asian Art History or a cool ecology book.
When we start having at least 300dpi lcd, or whatever technology it will be, screens, then I may be interested in reading entire books on a pc/handheld. Until then, I much prefer printed books that have resolutions exceeding 2400dpi. Even if publishers make an ebook only format right now I would go to a copy shop to have them print and bind it out on paper.
You can if you've got a PDA with a reader or a tablet/laptop. I've been reading books on my pda's since late 2002, and can't imagine going back to paperbacks. For one thing, my PDA has backlighting, so I can read when the lighting isn't very good. Also, I've got some serious portability (I've got +/- 50 books on my Dell Axim) since I don't have to carry around books with me when I want to read.
That being said, I do miss the ability to highlight, but at least for me, it's made up for by the ability to copy a section of text and be able to manipulate it.
ok, first of all, new kinds of screens are beginning to approach the readability of paper. they will likely be very cheap in the next few years. I estimate in the near future you could mass manufacture a quality ebook reader for $200. at that price it would be cheap because as some posters mentioned, textbooks at $50-150 a piece times number of textbooks adds up. publishers could sell the ebooks at far lower cost than printed and still make more profit, because ebooks are so cheap to publish in comparison. as for priacy, I'm sure there's a way to prevent that using a unique hardwre machine identifier chip or something. and if textbooks were so cheap (which they would be), there wouldn't be much reason to pirate.
I think I may be the only one that liked the idea. I had my whole book on a cd which I read on my laptop while sitting in bed. I even got the whole drowsy feeling and fell asleep often like I do with regular textbooks. I think it was a good experience. Too bad I had to pay for the 120 dollar book that came with the cd too. I liked the fact that the cd made the book interactive with videos and links to more info on the internet.
seriously though, in the near future it wouldn't be too expensive to make an e-textbook device that would have a beautiful reflective lcd screen and support highlighting/marking up.
for batteries: first of all if it's a reflective screen, the whole thing would use very little power. secondly, how about just hooking it to a charger every night?
for copy protection: how about just having a proprietary connector as the only way of getting data on/off the device, and then the school bookstore/library would have a unit to upload ebooks to the device
for batteries: first of all if it's a reflective screen, the whole thing would use very little power. secondly, how about just hooking it to a charger every night?
for copy protection: how about just having a proprietary connector as the only way of getting data on/off the device, and then the school bookstore/library would have a unit to upload ebooks to the device
If we all high high-res eBook Readers that were about the same size and weight as a small textbook, I'd be ALL OVER THAT SHIZ.
I got a textbook on CD from my physics prof. He wrote it himself. It was actually free on the first day of class, but I think reading it off the screen sucks. I'm going to print it out and put it in a binder so I have the material in lecture. Reading it off the poorly focused LCD projector in class makes my eyes water.
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