E-books v. P-books

Baya Agarwal; Mar 25, 2009

Photo by: Humuku

As the world is moving towards the e-age, the popularity of digital products is also increasing at an exponential rate.

The decade long battle between the advocates of the paper books and ebooks (electronic books) seems to have ended.

Though paper books still hold the old charm, ebooks are definitely trendier!

The several advantages of e-books are now acknowledged by many, and is evident in the figures released by Google in February, early this year.

From font size adjustment to the portability of the device - that's more books and less mass - everything is just right.

Future books

If for office goers, Mac books were the next thing, for students it is the ebook. Keeping in mind the popularity and race in the digital world, the day is not far when most students will carry ebooks, instead of paper books to school.

The more recent development in this revolutionary technology has been the speech enabled text feature. Introduced in Kindle, it can read a book aloud to the user.

A switch mode between reading and listening makes it convenient for the individual to decide what he wants. This will not just make learning easier for differently-abled students, but would also enable a large segment of the world population to access books.

This latest development is also seen as a major move towards the success of ebooks among the differently-abled population.

Supporting the ebooks

Those paper book lovers who turn green with envy when they discover the success of ebooks, must know that they are in fact greener. Using ebooks is a new way of showing concern towards the environment.

Even though they require power to be read, their production does not cause any harm to the environment in the form of logging, etc.

Read more:
Amazon unwraps kindle
Free e-book downloads
Wireless reading devices

J K Rowling’s refusal to not releasing any e-editions of her famous Harry Potter series, has not dissuaded authors who view ebooks as an indefinite way of earning royalty.

Though many do feel that ebooks are wrong for writers, some feel they are better and more easily accessible.

In February, Google had declared reformatting more than 1.5 million books for being read on iPhones and other e-reading devices.