Poor Bird. I'll get to hardware in a moment, but first some fun background. Bird and his friend hate the ePub standard. Meanwhile dozens of E Ink machines use or will be using ePub as the flagship format. Bird's real problem is that he is stuck on the ZML, his own standard, and dislikes the idea of a common e-book format. For the enlightenment of latecomers, Jon Noring and I are the villains in the Bird's universe. Evilly, we started OpenReader and in effect prodded the IDPF, the main e-book trade organization, into doing standards. Wicked! To PG's credit, it now offers ePub among other formats--nice for users of the Sony Reader and many other machine. But Bird has never forgotten our sins and snipes away at us on everything, hardware issues included.

As for $50 e-book machines--we have 'em: used PDAs and iPods, lol. ( Update: Joey's already beaten me to the punch.)

And, yes, thanks to Pixel Qi and E Ink, some interesting possibilities are ahead to reduce hardware prices and sharpen the view. Exactly when will these good things happen? As I've said before, who's to say for sure precisely when? But we should be looking ahead to the time when e-book technology is going to get much better.

OK, enough. Happy Turkey Day, eveyone, Bowerbird included. Just be careful, Bird--lest people discover your true species and pop you into the oven.

David Rothman
TeleRead
(News and views on e-books)
http://www.teleread.org

Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:

i wait all year for this time.

what, you ask, thanksgiving?

well, yeah. but not exactly...

see, 4 years ago, david rothman of teleread.com -- who's
affectionately known as "the idiot" by david moynihan --
made me a little bet, and every year at this time i revisit it.

david, like his best buddy jon noring, had repeated for years
that "within 5 years, we will have cheap high-quality screens,
and e-reader-machines will be readily available for just $50."

well, along about 2001, i started pointed out to jon noring that
he had been spouting that line for 5 years already, all without
his big "prediction" ever coming true. finally, after a few years
of that, noring finally stopped spewing that particular untruth.

but rothman never got the message, and kept on babbling
his insane prediction. i called him on it, repeatedly, such as:
>   http://www.teleread.org/blog/2005/11/29/you-can-buy-the-mit-100-laptop-for-200/

rothman responded, in november of 2005, with:
>   Folks, tune in a year from now, and we’ll see who’s right.
>   The MIT Media Lab has suffered its share of debacles,
>   but I’d bet my money on it in this case

so i took rothman up on the offer, even extending out the bet.
i said that if there were a $50 e-book machine within 5 years,
i would buy it for him, or -- if he preferred -- a tofu turkey...

so every year, around this time, i "check back" to laugh at him.

2006 came and went, and i was right. 2007 and 2008 as well.
now it's 2009, and there's no $50 e-book-machine out there.

so, after checking back for 4 straight years, i'm _still_ right...

rothman's crystal ball is severely cracked. it always has been.
that people listen to the man is a testament to their stupidity.
tech-wise, he couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag...

and has david learned anything? nope. he's still just as stupid
as ever, still acting like a cheap machine is "around the corner",
still using his blog to trumpet up whatever bucket of gullibility
a screen-technology p.r. person is willing to type up for him...

meanwhile...

my bet that it would take until 2011 to hit an inexpensive
price-point is looking to be accurate as the years roll by.
key to it is if/when the pixel qi screen attains its promise.

but now in 2009? well, david, you were wrong, i was right.

at any rate, have a very lovely thanksgiving, everyone...
even you -- david -- and i hope that crow tastes good.

-bowerbird
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