carlo said:

There should be something wrong if in 12 years what was good for a half-million-dollar research project isn't even good for a forest village.

well, that technology _did_ move _very_ fast in those 12 years, so i don't believe one could always say that unequivocally -- for instance, there's no reason to make the third world wait 12 years to get the cell-phones we have now, when we can give them to them immediately -- but nonetheless, it _is_ true that 12-year-old computers _can_ display an electronic-book just _fine_, if we use its resources _wisely_, rather than imposing bloatware on it instead... it's possible to build a state-of-the-art viewer that runs under windows95. i know, i've done it. -bowerbird