Here is a tantalizing piece of news from the New York Times,
reporting that the newspaper will partner with Microsoft to work on the
Times Reader, an e-book software that will make reading news digitally a lot more like flipping through a paper.
According to CNet,
The new software, which uses the Windows Presentation Foundation engine built into Vista, maintains the look of the New York Times' print edition using the same fonts, but aims to capture some of the flexibility that software can enable. The software allows for the inclusion of hyperlinks within the text, as well as the ability to play multimedia or annotate a story with comments. The content can be stored on the PC for offline viewing, but can also be updated continuously when a computer is connected to the Internet.
The software won't be limited to the New York Times. By end of summer, other newspapers and magazines will be able to download developer kits to work on their own Vista onscreen reader editions. It's only too bad that most dedicated e-book readers wouldn't run Windows Vista.
Related: TeleRead's
take on how this partnership notches up the battle between Microsoft and Adobe. Also, check out
this speech transcript when Times Reader was announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.