June 16, 2009

We have heard about electronic book reading devices for 40 years. One proposed name was Dynabook. There are a few readers out there today. They offer useful beginnings. But they are not yet what I need.

Karen De Koster has written why Amazon's Kindle does not make the grade.

As a scholar by training and an author by trade, I know what serious students need.

1. A screen with at least 600 dots per inch (like paper)
2. A way to change the type size
3. A wide range of easily downloadable digital books and materials
4. Pricing of these materials to reflect no printing costs, shipping costs, or inventory costs
5. A way to add a voice-to-text program like Naturally Speaking
7. A way to add academic note-taking software like NoteScribe
8. A way to type in or speak in keywords for future retrieval
9. A way to listen to text-to-voice versions of the books (earphone jack, output jack for a link to a car radio input jack)
10. A way to download a speed reading training program like Ace Reader

By changing type size, you alter pagination. There would have to be a way to correlate retrieved notes with the original pagination, for citation purposes. That has been a technical barrier.

A user could use Carbonite or another on-line data storage system, so that he is not wiped out if he loses the device.

With Linux, the book reader should sell for no more than $200. Add more for Windows 7.