Quote:
Originally Posted by BranMakMorn
Is this possible at all? Is it something only a tablet with more refined sofware and compatibility could do?
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At the moment, I think that that's only going to be possible via some sort of tablet PC and a copy of some software that lets you edit PDFs, if you want cross-platform compatibility, as AFAIK, there's no agreed format for PDF annotations external to the PDF itself.
If you drop the cross-platform part, then I'd expect that all devices offering PDF annotating are going to find they need to support the copying of annotations to desktop PCs, etc, as so many users are going to demand it, but right now we're at the 'leisure ebook reader' stage rather than 'academic ebook reader'.
Don't, however, imagine that that's by any choice other than the fact that eInk screens have only been available in the smaller sizes until very recently - there are many of us watching the impending arrival of larger screen readers with great interest, but we're fairly pragmatic about it...
For instance, one of the problems with scaling up the existing eInk displays relates to the fact that they currently have a glass substrate which is fragile and larger screens mean issues such as case rigidity become even more significant. Some of the CES pre-announcements sound interesting in that regard, but some alternatives have been a while in appearing, so it's still not quite the era of the 'academic ebook reader' - you're not alone in awaiting it though!