On Sat, 28 May 2005 12:42:29 -0700, "Alan"
<info@optioncity.REMOVETHIS.net> wrote:

>I know there have been some ebook-type reader marketing failures, but I
>think it's because no one has 'got it right' yet. I would be interested in
>hearing what other readers would consider 'getting it right', as I
>continue my search.

I'll reserve judgment on whether it's possible to "get it right,"
since up until last week I never in my life seriously considered
buying an e-book. (I am buying one soon because a particular book I
want to read is available only in that format. I will probably print
the pages out to read them.)

That said, I think that if the e-book concept is viable at all, the
limitations of current display technology are the main thing holding
it back. LCD displays are too low in resolution to be read easily for
long periods of time, and too reflective for use in brightly
illuminated places. The lack of bandwidth (displaying only one page at
a time) is also a major drawback, a practical one for some users and a
psychological one for others. I think that when and if the e-book
becomes popular, it will consist of a bound volume of electronic
paper, rather than a "slab" with an LCD screen.

I will caution you about the use of voice recognition.
Limited-vocabulary voice recognition can be pretty reliable, but its
performance is likely to be seriously degraded by background noise.
Until their attention is drawn to it, many people do not realize how
loud the background noise is in many common environments: buses, city
streets, even the beach. I would be very skeptical of an e-book reader
whose user interface depended on voice recognition, and considering
the resources required, I would question the wisdom of offering it as
an option.

My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.