So -- do you read on the road -- electronically?

[kinzel]

Once upon a time lots of people were reading on their Palms, on their laptops, on their Rocket Ebook readers... but somehow the readers started locking folks out...

Here's a group trying to have a generic ebook reader built that will do what ebook readers should: let you read the public, non-proprietary formats favored by most of the ebook reading public.

Comment here if you like, but it might be better to comment there and get your name on their list. And take this news elsewhere -- are you listening, John Scalzi?

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Double the size and I'll be interested, the screen is just too small as far as I'm concerned, it's the problem with all of them. Paperbacks are about the right size for reading in bed...

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

But if you make the screen larger, you make the device less portable. 6" diagonal works out to 4.8" x 3.6". I drew a rectangle in those dimensions on a piece of paper to check it out, and I have to conclude that it's really not that bad. A bit smaller than a paperback book, but not too much so. Though I don't have any problems reading books off my PDA, when it comes to that.

The big showstopper for me will be the price. If it were $200 or less, it would be a better option. But I'm personally hoping that the OLPC laptops will eventually make their way to the public in some form for $200, and in that case I'd definitely get one of those for my ebook reading needs instead.