"Jonathan Sachs" <xxxxxxx@earthlink.not> wrote in message
news:thmh919jtg4r571utpdnvfvma1ssf4sr7e@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 28 May 2005 12:42:29 -0700, "Alan"
> <info@optioncity.REMOVETHIS.net> wrote:

> 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.

Thanks for your feedback, Jonathan.
Since I want my e-book to have a cover, if you opened that and had
two 6 x 9 pages displayed, that would be even better for me.
However, the need to have multiple pages that you can physically
'turn' seems to me entirely psychological unless I am missing something.
I don't feel that need at all.

>
> 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.

You could be right --- it's perhaps the least necessary of my 'specs', and I
would
likely jump at a reasonably priced device with all my other 'requirements'
but not that one
My tv remote shows me that you can get pretty far with a few buttons.
Yet ... you need to be able to do a search on author, title, keywords,
etc.
I wonder if a requirement that you talk "into the open e-book",
combined with a few strategically placed pickup microphones, couldn't
substantially filter out the background? Or, how about a wireless, clip-on
microphone? Of course, at the beach, I'll have to clip it onto my hat :-)
Surely the acoustic engineers can solve this little problem.

regards,
alan