The Digital Word

I'm not sure I'd call myself a tree-hugger; perhaps a first cousin of one, for you almost have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to the realities of deforestation not to worry as the rain forest is being razed at the rate of one of our smaller states a month to make room for cattle gracing, corn or sugar crop (for bio-fuel), etc., leaving the planet to gasp for air.

And that is why--to do my little part--nearly a decade ago now, I was one of the first buyers of the Rocket eBook (since renamed the Planet eBook, and now no longer available). It weighed near enough a pound, had 16 megabytes of RAM, and storage expandable to a whopping 32 MB. It had a nice--in my opinion--backlit screen, a serial, pre-USB, connection, and it didn't harm trees.

It was battery hungry, however, and as such did not, in the end, get as much use as my tried and true tree-books.

About four years ago (may have been longer) I started to see rumors about a "digital ink" developed by Sony, and a year later read that Sony had in fact released a digital ink book reader in Japan (with no plans to market one in the United States, however--lamentably).

Fast forward another six months, and something had made Sony change its mind. Coming soon, to a Borders near you: the Sony Reader (PRS-500).

I was one of the first customers, honest. And this is the reader I still have, and actually love, although since then Sony as brought out its sequel, PRS-505, and Amazon has brought out Kindle, and now, a couple of months back, Kindle 2.

The sweet thing about digital ink is that the reader only draws energy from the rechargeable battery when it "turns" (paints) a new page. Once the page has been painted, it is like paper, it's displayed without drawing any power at all. When Sony talks of Reader battery life, they measure it in number of page-turns. Kindle, which works on the same principle, is a little more power hungry since it also talks to the internet a lot (for downloads and Wikipedia access). Sony's current reader claims 7,500 page turns from a fully charged battery, while Kindle says it's battery charge will last up to 2 weeks (with wireless off).

 The downside, if there is one, with digital ink is that lacking backlight, you need good lighting to read it--as is, of course, true of paper books as well--and while the print is not as sharply contrasted as a paper page (the Sony Reader background is not crisply white, nor the letters crisply black) I still find it a pleasure, actually, to read the Sony Reader, and I've never had a problem with legibility.

All this to say that the eReader is here, and that between the two giants Sony and Amazon, they may--in the long run--have a positive impact on tree-preservation, not only through books but also newspapers; especially now since not only the Seattle Post Intelligencer, but also the Christian Science Monitor, have ceased their print editions and will now operate as digital-only papers (although the CSM will print a weekly magazine, with more in-depth coverage of current stories).

I gather that it will not be long before the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor follow New York Times and Los Angeles Times in also becoming Kindle editions, to be downloaded automatically over-night, to be read, like any morning newspaper, with the coffee in the morning, sans dead trees.

The CSM, as did the Seattle Post Intelligencer, sites the economic advantages of an online-only edition in its efforts to stay viable, and even expand its coverage but fielding more journalists, especially abroad.

Not a word about trees, however; but in my mind, that is the sub-text.