5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010

[hidari]

Originally Posted by FireRunner

I think only two things need to be improved:

1. Speed of the UI and executing functions.
2. Screen fading. Right now all of the readers flicker.

The Cybook and Opus do not flicker either....IF you cancel the flashing.....

[Mathlete]

Earlier today, I was thinking that a smart implementation of multitouch will make e-readers feel more "browsable" like real books are. Right now, I can take an anthology of poetry, open it in the middle and and flip around randomly until I see something that looks interesting. Imagine if I could do something like that on a screen.

Example:
I open an ebook and get the title screen by default, but I want to go right to the middle so I use a "pinch together" gesture with my thumb and forefinger to "close the book." However, this doesn't take me back to the library menu, it gives me an image of the closed book oriented so that the spine and the front and back covers are facing away from me and the pages are slightly fanned out. Now I can put my finger on an arbitrary spot in the middle of the book and swipe to have it open to that page.

After that, I can leaf through the book quickly using one finger for single page turns, two fingers for turning 5 pages, and three fingers for turning 20 pages. When I get to a poem with long lines that wraps in a way that looks ugly, I can use a twist gesture to make the screen go from portrait to landscape mode (motion sensors that do this are obnoxious for e-ink).

Anyway, people dismiss multitouch, but it has the potential to make getting around an e-book feel much more intuitive—especially for non-linear or "episodic" forms like newspapers, magazines, reference/textbooks, or anthologies.

[fugazied]

They missed the biggest thing: competition between B&N, Fictionwise, Apple and Amazon as well as increasing e-book sales forces publishers to remove DRM. That would be the bigest change in 2010.

Wishful thinking maybe hehe.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fugazied

They missed the biggest thing: competition between B&N, Fictionwise, Apple and Amazon as well as increasing e-book sales forces publishers to remove DRM. That would be the bigest change in 2010.

Wishful thinking maybe hehe.

I hope so, but wouldn't count on it happening due to competition necessarily.

[DawnFalcon]

It's amusing watching Wired making mistakes like conflating sub-pixel rendering and colour and so on, but honestly it's yet another not-very-well-written article.

Also, the only major things the software needs are folders and better core renderers.