Looking for a next generation eb1150

[mogui]

I think we shouldn't have to worry about the obsolescence of our eBooks. Every device should support the reading of text (.txt) files as a minimum. Every file format should allow the extraction of the text to a text file. That way, if I spend money for a book, I know I can keep it forever and read it as many times as I wish. eReaders may change, but they will always read text files.

I know: This is somewhat of an idealistic fantasy. Text files are not perfect representations of what everyone wants in an eBook. We need 16-bit character formats for some languages. Not every eReader allows reading text files. Text is not always extractable from DRMed files. Pinocchio was a fictional character.

We should insist on a baseline functionality. All readers should support text files. All books should be either convertible to text files or obtainable as text files. We can include 16-bit character encoding in this standard. The people at Project Gutenberg understand this.

In Asia, one can pick up a cheap Mp4 player with a fairly big screen that will display text files for reading. Maybe I have to re-format the files to compensate for the fact that Asian engineers think word wrap is an extravagant frill. But it is quick and easy to do. So I can have an OK reader for about US$100. You can find them on eBay.

Anyone who wants to rent eBooks by buying them in a DRMed format should be allowed to do so without criticism. Whenever I take a driving vacation with my family, I rent a car. I like to put the high mileage on someone else's vehicle, and I like a new car for a road trip. Buying DRM is just a small extravagance -- like ice cream on a hot day.

[nekokami]

Word wrap a frill -- I know there are often no spaces between words in Asian languages. Mogui, do you happen to know if Chinese multi-character words can be broken and written on two lines? If so, there would be little point to word wrap.

[mogui]

It has never occurred to me to wonder if multicharacter Hanzi words should or shouldn't be split. When I write Chinese on my phone the splits happen wherever the line ends. I suspect there is no standard for this. Punctuation is placed with no spacing.

When I have occasion to teach or to do English copy editing, one of the hardest things to get across is the discomfort westerners feel with regard to the abandonment of spacing conventions. We really like to have one or more spaces after a punctuation character and none before them. We gag over signs like firextinguisherbox and cautionbrakesonhill and speedradarfield. I put in punctuation spacing when I write Chinese, but I have never asked anyone how they like it.

[nekokami]

I had never really thought about it either, but now that I do think of it, the Chinese text samples I have ready access to appear to be full-justified, but there is no variation in spacing per line. So I think multi-character words must break in the middle. No wonder the engineers regard word-wrap as a frill!

[mogui]

There is a different sort of understanding about space here too. When walking on a crowded sidewalk you will see people march boldly into spaces that do not yet exist. When the people meet head-on, instead of the crash you expect, each person deftly twists his body sideways and disaster is avoided. Unfortunately for this foreigner, turning sideways does not diminish my stature. It has taken me several years to learn how not to bump into people when walking. I cannot explain it -- my body knows.

One day my wife and I were walking down a deserted alley which was about three meters wide. A man came riding toward me on a rickety old iron bicycle. As he approached me, he chose not to veer to either side. Rather, he came to a screeching halt right in front of me and stared at me as if he didn't believe I could possibly exist.

On buses and in other crowded places there is no taboo about bodies touching. People press into whatever space is available. One day a man put his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. The strange thing was there were many other seats available. Somehow he ended up sitting in the aisle.

The people are very friendly. it is common to see friends of the same gender walking holding hands or with their arms around each other - pairs of men too. It stressed my western sensibilities the first time a "buddy" put his arm around me when walking. I am still uncomfortable with it. But it warms my heart the way a lovely girl will seek contact when we are walking together. Yes, it is a very different culture.

Is the spaceless writing a metaphor for social interaction? Does the diminished or nonexistent boundary between characters reflect that between people?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by mogui

Is the spaceless writing a metaphor for social interaction? Does the diminished or nonexistent boundary between characters reflect that between people?

That's a great metaphor. I have no idea how well it would hold up as a theory, but I like the image a lot.

On reflection, though, it seems that this sense of low personal space is fairly common in Mediterranean countries as well, and they do put spaces between words. (That still doesn't impair the fineness of the metaphor.)

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by nekokami

That's a great metaphor. I have no idea how well it would hold up as a theory, but I like the image a lot.

On reflection, though, it seems that this sense of low personal space is fairly common in Mediterranean countries as well, and they do put spaces between words. (That still doesn't impair the fineness of the metaphor.)

Of course alphabet systems first existed without spaces. They were added fairly lately along with upper/lower case and punctuation. It is a maturing of the system to make it simpler to interpret.

Dale

[nekokami]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_%28punctuation%29

Spaces were not used to separate words in Latin until roughly 600 AD – 800 AD. Ancient Hebrew and Arabic did use spaces, partly to compensate in clarity for the lack of vowels. Traditionally, all CJK languages have no spaces: modern Chinese and Japanese (except when written with little or no kanji) still do not, but modern Korean uses spaces.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interword_separation

The early Semitic languages—which had no vowel signs—had interword separation, but languages with vowels (principally Greek and Latin) lost the separation, not regaining it until much later.

Much of this latter article seems to be unreferenced, but this particular quote is tied to Saenger, Paul (2000). Spaces between Words. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4016-X. This is a fascinating subject. I've always liked learning about writing systems.

[mogui]

Thanks Neko and Dale. Again, you work while I sleep!

I am thankful for our modern conventions. The lack of spacing makes me uneasy -- like reading is more of a puzzle than a pleasure.

It makes me wonder if there isn't a fundamental difference in cognitive processes while reading. Firstly, one transforms the hanzi images into meaning without going through any auditory decoding. Of course, we so so in English as well if we sight-read, but it is fundamentally a two-step process -- especially while learning. It is not quite saying the Asian languages are representational rather than symbolic, but it verges on it.

In Asian languages a sentence is still an idea. But having everything jammed together seems like it would lend ambiguity and require a more complex sorting and categorizing process during the decoding phase. Ambiguity is more of a problem in Chinese, I think, as there are many homophones and meaning is often sorted out from context. Additionally the general taboo against ending a syllable with a consonant so reduces the code space of the language that to represent all of the meanings required, homophones are needed.

My Chinese friends tell me the idea of "story" is different for them. Where we summarize at the beginning and tend to presage conclusions, they will literally leave you in the dark until the final paragraph (assuming there is such a thing) whereupon they draw together all of the loose ends and present the idea it its totality. This is probably more exciting intellectually for the reader, but it make it much harder for a poor waiguiren to teach English composition

[Rob Hudson]

I am thrilled to have stumbled onto this forum, and I'm even more thrilled to see Garth at ETI jumping into the fray.

I have a bit of a unique perspective because I am primarily concerned with using the eBook devices for commercial applications.

My company uses the ETI-2 extensively for newspaper delivery. Newspaper carriers download their route delivery lists onto the ETI-2 device, and have the device mounted in their vehicle.

This is vastly safer than any paper or E-Ink system. People are driving around in the dark while trying to read and tossing projectiles out of their vehicles... *shudder*. There's no 100% safe way of doing this, but the ETI-2 solution is by far the best and safest in the industry.

These photographs really illustrate the point regarding backlighting:
eBook Devices used for night time newspaper delivery

I echo the thread author's desire to see a next generation backlit device with most of the features he requests.

Whether ETI decides to tackle this by retrofitting ETI-1 or ETI-2 technology, or by developing a next-generation ETI-3 device, I'm confident that they'll come up with some good solutions.

ETI has some brilliant minds. Personally, I'm excited to see what they could produce if they put their minds to a next-generation ETI-3 device.

Rob Hudson
rob@mydistrict.net
MyDistrict.Net - Newspaper Circulation Software

[DaleDe]

Hi Rob

Thanks for sharing your unique use for the ETI-2. What a great application of technology to solve a real life problem. Interesting that email is also included in the product as well as the custom route lists. The screen display would seem perfect for you in your application.

Dale