The Advent and Evolution
of E-Readers

chillibreeze writer — Harsha Unnikrishnan

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Are you an ardent book-lover who never seems to be satisfied with the volumes you read? Have you ever felt your reading limited just because you cannot afford all the books you want to read, or because you cannot seem to find enough time to hit the bookstores or the library? You don’t have to worry anymore, as E-Readers are the current rage in the market!

An E-Reader or an EBook Reader is a portable electronic device dedicated to the storage and reading of electronic books. The entry of EBook Readers into the consumer market has altered and revolutionized the reading habits of people to a large extent, a change which could almost be compared to the revolution brought about by the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg about 600 years ago. While Gutenberg’s invention brought about a heavy influx of printed information in the form of printed text, paperbacks and hardbacks, the arrival of E-Readers has accelerated the digitization of information already started by the advent of computers and the internet not too long ago.

The spectacular journey of the modern day EBook Readers could be traced back to 1971, when the first ever EBook of Project Gutenberg, The Declaration of Independence was created by Michael Hart. Project Gutenberg then went on to become the first and one of the largest of the many digital libraries available on the World Wide Web today, making over thousands of EBooks free and accessible to the general public. The EBook movement on the web flourished rapidly when the online publishers began to create digital copies of the public domain books and distributed them on the web. Soon enough, big giants of the publishing industry including the likes of Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble etc. entered the EBook arena, making them all the more popular.

Though the EBooks were gaining all this popularity, the more traditional readers preferred their good old paperbacks and hardbacks. The main reason was, while EBooks could be read only on computers or laptops, the conventional books offered the comfort of being read anywhere and anytime. This lack of popularity of EBooks among the traditional crowd was what stimulated the development of dedicated EBook Readers. Though the first of their kind, the Soft Book Reader was launched in 1998, it failed to garner much popularity owing to their high costs and limited available content. Next year, another reader eBookman appeared with an additional feature of playing and recording sounds.

By this time, a company called E Ink Corporation had developed a brand new display technology called the E Ink, which imitated the look of the normal ink on paper. It was Philips who developed the first EBook reader employing the E Ink technology. In 2006, Sony unveiled their first EBook reader, along with their own indigenous online bookstore. In addition to this, the Sony Reader also supported EBook formats like PDF, ePub, RSS feeds etc. and could also play MP3 audio files.

The following year saw a huge turning point in the evolution of the E-Readers – the launch of the Amazon Kindle. The biggest plus point of the Kindle was that it was backed by the enormous collection of EBooks on the Amazon online store. It came with a unique wireless connectivity that linked it directly with the Amazon store, and the user could purchase and download a book within a matter of 60 seconds. The exclusive screening of the Kindle on the very popular Oprah Show in the US raised its publicity to incredible heights. The first version of the gadget was soon sold out, and Amazon launched a more polished and improved Kindle2 in 2009. The E-Reader movement had truly taken flight by now as another American company Barnes and Nobles came with their own reader called Nook, offering tight competition to the Kindle. This tight competition between the two brands led to the launch of new and improved versions of the respective readers, and the cost of the E-Readers came down drastically to more affordable rates. Though many other companies later entered the arena with their own E-Readers, Kindle and Nook still remain the giants in the market with their newer versions with bigger screens and 3G support.

Last year saw the entry of India into the E-Reader business with the launch of the two home-developed E-Readers – Infibeam Pi, and EC Media’s Wink, both making use of the E Ink technology. The biggest advantage of the desi E-Readers over the likes of Kindle and Nook is that they support about 15 Indian languages.

The advent of E-Readers has enhanced the market of EBooks to great magnitudes. Amazon recently announced that the sale of their EBooks has reached an all time high ever since the introduction of Kindle into the consumer market. What makes an E-Reader so popular? With their prices dropping continuously, the E-Readers provide the book-lovers a more affordable solution to their reading requirements – EBooks cost much lesser than their printed counterparts. You could carry around a full-fledged library in your pocket, and regular trips to the libraries or bookstores could now be forgotten. The E-Ink display provides excellent battery life and a reading experience which nearly matches that of an ordinary book, and unlike the backlit LCD displays it is not hard on your eyes. And to add to all this, an E-Reader could actually save the planet’s forests!

With the market giants constantly on the lookout for more improvements in their products, and the entry of newer companies into the arena, the E-Reader market is all set to touch new heights. Be it Sony, Kindle or Nook, or the desi Infibeam Pi and Wink, or even an Apple iPad, the choices are many, and the market is huge. Surely, the E-Readers are here to stay.

 

 

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in July, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

 

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—About our writer: Harsha Unnikrishnan has a B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from M.G University, Kerala. Just out of college, she loves reading and has a zeal to write.

 

 

 

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