The captain’s log
When I used to watch Star Trek, one of the things I really wanted was one of those nifty tablets that the short skirted PA used to hand to Kirk. I used to use my Etch-a-Sketch to pretend but it wasn’t the same. Then when the Next Generation came along the tablets had gotten sleeker and I still wanted one.
Having read books on my Palm for the last four years I can confirm that the small screen and the back lighting make it a tiring experience, and the fact that I didn’t have to lug a ton of books around was the only thing that made it worthwhile.
So I’ve been following the e-book reader market with some interest. I like the look of the Sony e-reader but it’s not available, I like the iliad but it’s a fortune, I’m not so keen on the Amazon Kindle, largely because it does too much, I don’t need phoned updates and I don’t want to subscribe to things. I just want to read books.
At last… the Bookeen Cybook gen3, which I stumbled across when I was doing almost random ebook searches. It reads mobipocket files (one of the palm formats I already used) it reads html and text files (and pdf files if they’re more text than images). It weighs less than a 400 page paperback and the screen… oh my. E-ink is just lovely. This photo shows you the cybook on top of a page of photocopied text. The screen is legible, no backlighting so no flicker, no juice needed except to turn the pages (they claim up to 8000 page turns per charge).
It’s not perfect, finding your book is slow if you have lots on your card, but the reading experience is a joy. The screen appears solid, just like paper, just with a slightly lower contrast ratio (more like financial times than a glossy fashion mag).
It’s like being in the future, bring on the flying cars.
Tags: books, ebooks
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Hence forth you shall be known as Yeoman Wyke.
It does mean that you will either have to wear a mini-skirt or get transported down to an unknown planet wearing the red uniform.
Your choice…
…..and I was just amazed that Homer’s Iliad was suddenly so popular again. Ah, we classicists… Just off to unfurl my scrolls…….