Increased usage/penetration of digital portable devices
Back? The future of books
Description:
Digital paper and ink eBook readers are not the only electronic devices that allow the viewing of eBooks. Other electronics like pc’s, laptops and phones are perfectly capable of displaying an eBook. The advantage these devices have over the digital ink readers is that they have their own backlight (which allows for perfect reading in the dark) and that they can display color. The drawbacks are that it is not so easy on the eyes as digital paper and needs a continues source of power to display its content. Other than this most of the devices are not very portable and very heavy. One of the devices that do not have this last drawback is the mobile phone and is in effect perfect to show digital books on.
At the moment most phones are not readily equipped to read eBooks and if they are, only a limited amount of formats will be available to be viewed. Also when reading something on a cell phone the screen has to be turned on which in turn drains the battery rather quickly. But technological advancement in mobile phones could soon change this, in effect giving all cell phone owners the opportunity and ability to read eBooks. This development could be a very serious threat to the printed book industry.
Enablers:
Digital format extension
Most current mobile phones do not support any kind of proprietary eBook format and even the more advanced ones that do only support a limited selection of the available file types. This does not make it very interesting to use a phone as an eBook reader because a more advanced and thus expensive phone has to be used and even then, only a limited selected of books can be viewed.
Making phones more “eBook ready” in the future will bring a stop to this and will make the mobile phone a suitable reader for eBooks. If every phone would support all of the major file types a potential huge market for digital books opens up making life hard for traditional printed books.
Increased battery life
Mobile phones need a continues source of power in order to keep operating. Current battery life of phones is fairly long because they switch off most of their functions when not in use. Reading eBooks on these devices on the other hand requires the device to be fully operating and will drain the battery quickly. This makes it not a very suitable platform to read books on, as people like to have their phone standby and working in order to stay available to the rest of the world. Reading eBooks would drain the battery and the user will lose connectivity.
Already new batteries with drastically improved efficiency and lifetime are being tested and when implemented into phones will make the device capable of displaying an eBook for a long amount of time without losing trivial battery power. This will make it a very good choice for a mobile digital book reader, as it is something you carry around you all the time already and has color and a backlit screen.
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Inhibitors:
Third world countries
Third world countries may not see any penetration or usage of digital portable devices at all and will be put in an situation of disadvantage if traditional books are replaced by eBook. Since in most African countries the education system still relies on book, book printers and publishers cannot seize to exist. This may slow down the transition from paper and ink to e-paper and digital ink.