E-books' holiday charge

[DonaldL.]

E-books' holiday charge

This holiday season will be a crucial test of whether e-books can cross over from geeky novelty to mass-market must-have. Major retailers are pushing the format -- and, of course, the gadgets they've developed to display it. Barnes & Noble unveiled its first electronic book reader last month, with access to all of the retailer's titles and then some. Amazon and Sony, which make the two best-selling e-readers in the country, have introduced new versions just in time to stuff your stocking. And this holiday, for the first time, Best Buy is devoting store space to educating shoppers about e-readers.

All told, about 1.2 million e-readers are expected to be sold in the last three months of the year -- roughly 40 percent of the entire year's stock. By the end of 2010, industry experts predict, 10 million people will be carrying e-readers. As for the number of e-books that people have read, they've lost track.

[Billjr13]

If B&N will support Sony e-readers they might sell a nook to me. I would like to get my wife one but not if we cant share books.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by Billjr13

If B&N will support Sony e-readers they might sell a nook to me. I would like to get my wife one but not if we cant share books.

Once Sony converts their store to ePub, you can put Sony's books on the nook, or any other reader with the exception of the Kindle.

AFAIK, you won't be able to put B&N ePubs on the Sony unless Sony updates the firmware to support B&N's DRM scheme.

So you'd be able to share books if you don't buy them at B&N.

[rcuadro]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Once Sony converts their store to ePub, you can put Sony's books on the nook, or any other reader with the exception of the Kindle.

AFAIK, you won't be able to put B&N ePubs on the Sony unless Sony updates the firmware to support B&N's DRM scheme.

So you'd be able to share books if you don't buy them at B&N.

You will not be able to put the Sony ones on the Nook until you remove the DRM... and if DRM removal is the answer then it can support pretty much any reader with Calibre and a little conversion action.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by rcuadro

You will not be able to put the Sony ones on the Nook until you remove the DRM. . . .

Is this correct? I was under the impression that the nook will support the current Adobe ADE (which Sony supports and isconverting all its books to) as well as its own eReader DRM wrapper. If true, then wouldn't Sony ePub books be readable on the nook? (I agree that until the conversion to ePub by Sony, the current Sony BBeB books would not be readable, but Sony has said all of its books will be converted and readers will be able to redownload purchased books in the ePub format.)

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Is this correct? I was under the impression that the nook will support the current Adobe ADE (which Sony supports and isconverting all its books to) as well as its own eReader DRM wrapper. If true, then wouldn't Sony ePub books be readable on the nook? (I agree that until the conversion to ePub by Sony, the current Sony BBeB books would not be readable, but Sony has said all of its books will be converted and readers will be able to redownload purchased books in the ePub format.)

Yes, rcuadro is wrong on this point. The nook will be able to read any ADE EPUB book (including libraries).

Eventually there will be an update to Adobe's SDK that will allow other readers to read B&N books, if they update their version.