A Silicon Valley product development consulting firm called the Nielsen Norman Group (not to be confused with the Nielsen ratings company) published a study last week comparing reading performance with a book to reading with an e-reader. The results--which are suspect because there were only 24 people in the test group--find that users of the Kindle 2 and iPad read 10.7 percent and 6.2 percent slower, respectively, than on paper or with books.
If the iPad doesn't succeed as a consumer electronics device--its initial target market--it may find a successful second career as an electronic textbook reader.
If you're concerned about the privacy implications of reading digital books, take a look at a nice guide put up yesterday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I used to own a copy of National Geographic magazine from 1911. It was packed with black-and-white photographs of "natives" and village ethnic minorities in various countries posing awkwardly in ceremonial costumes. The issue was part of a larger collection that included most copies of National Geographic published in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, and several dozen copies from the 1920s through the 1950s. It took up two rows on my bookshelf.
Move over, Kindle, a new e-book reader is in town -- and it's coming from a newcomer to the consumer electronics universe. Britain-based Interead is the first company beyond heavyweights Amazon and Sony to offer both a hardware reader and a sales pipeline for acquiring ebook content.
Imagine bringing home a music CD from Best Buy and discovering that it will only play on some of your stereo equipment. Moreover, you're limited in the number of times you can switch the CD from one stereo to another.