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Old 07-04-2009, 08:27 PM   #15
emellaich
Wizard
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Posts: 1,101
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Device: Palm>Ebookman>IPaq>Axim>Cybook>Kndl2>IPAD>Kndl3SO>Voyager>Oasis
Well, I hope I am wrong on this. However, an ebook reader needs to be able to pull an entire book into memory so that the person reading it can take the book with them when they go out of range.

Of course, there is no reason web sites can't publish an entire book as one HTML file. For that matter, it is likely that txt ebooks (ie, Gutenberg) can be pulled in as entire files. However, I don't see it as too likely that Amazon, Fictionwise, etc will get into the business of publishing books as web pages. Depending on how cache is handled, it also doesn't make it easy to bring more than one book with you on trips, etc.

I'm sure I will be trying to figure out someway to hack this. It does support USB. There is no reason there can't be a browser extension that interprets epub for display in the browser, and you may be able to plug in a USB key loaded with files. As long as the browser can point to local storage, you could work something out.

Hopefully with the help of all of the developers here, it won't be too tough to crack and add in these capabilities. My point is not that it can't be used as an ebook reader, but that it won't be designed that way out of the box.
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