I think Dvorak has it right about e-books
 

And if you follow technology, you'd know that the next time Dvorak is right about something it will probably be the first time.

I think this is what the wonderfully misnamed Vook is aiming for...and I also think the release of the iTunes LP format is a preliminary look at a container for such data.

I chuckle every-time I think about what Jobs must have done the first time he used a Kindle -- hurled into into a wall with a stream of obscenities.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353802,00.asp

No worries! I'm sure we'll have animated, flashing, muzak-playing eBooks with unhyphenated MS Word quality typesetting and layout in no time!

- Ahi

Oh. Ye. Gods. NO!

A book is meant to be READ - not to "entertain" mindless idjits with movin' pitchers!

Derek

I expect worse quality and more annoyance than you're describing.

Simply horrible idea.

This is the problem with letting non-readers come up with ideas for new ebooks and ebook devices: they immediately start to throw in all the crap we read books to avoid.

The lack of audio-visual idiocy in a book isn't a bug, it's a feature. Hell, it's the entire point.

IIRC, that's called a "Tablet PC", and the data set described is called "hypertext with multimedia". My ancient copy of MS Bookshelf did all of that. So does MS Encarta, Wikipedia, and a whole cartload of websites; some of them are even well designed.

How this relates to an ebook reader, I'm not exactly clear on. I'm resisting asking the question, "Is everyone in publishing a stupid, ignorant fool, who's been living under a rock for the last two decades?" That would be wrong of me.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

Actually, the problem is that they haven't been reading books these last two decades, per Steve Jobs's orders. Still, if you ignore the fact that this will do nothing for book readers, it might get TV/gaming addicts to read more... perhaps?
Anyway, I haven't the faintest what the point is, or how Video-books (the abbreviation sounds rather like a marketing term, and I prefer not to utter those things) relate to books, nor which demographic they're hoping to reach with this. I'm still waiting for them to reinvent proof-reading.

But, but, but ... Dvorak was quoting someone from the _publishing_ industry, ignorantly lamenting that his own industry hasn't invented a technology that already exists. Not only hasn't he been reading books, magazines, and sundry other things, but he apparently never looked on his secretary's desk to see how she handled his email and shops for his nieces' Bat Mitzvah gifts!

Was a cheap, cheesy black and white display with a few control buttons, powered by an obsolete processor, running a decades old OS and with a low speed wireless data connection a shock to his system? Amazon's genius wasn't in inventing any _thing_; it was putting them together in a novel arrangement, and finding a way to make it easy for their customers to demand to give Bezos money.

It's like Obama's Blackberry. The US government was almost brought to it's knees by the _head_ of the government wanting to keep a communications device that's as common as dirt.

Boggledly,
Jack Tingle

Absolutely not! Some of them have been under there for three decades. :D

Why are we building classes and then waging class warfare against them?

I'm rather sure that any platform as described in the first post would come with the ability to tone things down to "just text".

Agreed...and expensive.

I like Dvorak, he's usually right in his predictions, but when he is wrong he is gloriously wrong (Blogs will never take off, Twitter will never take off).

The possibilities of the Apple tablet are so very very obvious. I think the main limitation we have is technological (battery life on large touch screen) and that's why Apple has taken so long.

Replace it with non-bookmakers/non-typographers and I'll agree with you.

- Ahi

The whole idea is not really about reading, it is about getting the non-reading masses interested in a new type of gadget. So while actual readers will stay away from such devices, it might actually sell quite well. Remember Jobs said "nobody reads anymore". he obviously wants to go after the big market of non-readers with his tablet. They want the gimmicks. And if a few prolific readers actually buy one for reading, that is just an unexpected side benefit.

Nice idea, unfortunately as seen by history during this digital age, as soon as a product becomes interactive suddenly there is a new market for advertising. Start producing interactive book with speeches and colour, and you'll start seeing public domain and free books plastered in advertising in an attempt stated by the author to "help keep the content free for the user".