History of e-books

1. History of e-book
by
Debalina Maitra
EDCI-5760

3. *
An eBook is an electronic version of a
traditional print book that can be read by
using a personal computer or by using
an eBook reader.
Users can purchase an eBook on
diskette or CD, but the most popular
method of getting an eBook is to
purchase a downloadable file of the
eBook from a Web site (such as Barnes
and Noble) to be read from the user's
computer or reading device.

4. They are popular because they
enable options similar to those
of a paper book - readers can
bookmark pages, make notes,
highlight passages, and save
selected text. In addition to
these familiar possibilities,
eBook readers also include built-
in dictionaries, and alterable font
sizes and styles

5. The electronic book (eBook) was born in 1971,
with the first steps of Project Gutenberg, a
digital library for books from public domain. It is
nearly 40 years old, already. But this is a
short life compared to the 5-century old print
book.

6. 1993: A company, Digital Book Inc, offers customers a
floppy disk containing 50 ebooks encoded in the
Digital Book Format (.dbf) format.
1995: Amazon starts selling printed books online, and
soon comes to dominate the market.
1996: Project Gutenberg announces that it has
digitized 1,000 books. Its target is one million titles.
1998: The first eBook readers appear in the market:
The Soft book and Gemstar’s Rocket eBook Reader
(pic)

7. The internet went live in 1974, with the
creation of the protocol TCP/IP by Vinton
Cerf and Bob Kahn. It began spreading
in 1983 as a network for research
centers and universities. It got its first
boost with the invention of the web by
Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, and its second
boost with the release of the first
browser Mosaic in 1993. From 1994
onwards, the internet quickly spread
worldwide.

8. In1998,After17years of going it alone, Michael
Hart linked up with the University of Illinois PC
User Group.
By the end of 1998 he had over 10000
volunteers and1600 eBooks had been keyed
in! e-texts are named as ebooks. On 1998
there were 7000 titles indexed and searchable
by title, author or subject.

9. 1999: Several online retailers start selling e-
books, such as eReader.com and eReads.com.
2000: Microsoft releases Microsoft Reader,
dedicated e-book reading software. It could be
used on Windows computers and Pocke tPCs,
and used Clear Type technology to ensure the
type was legible on small devices. Stephen
King’s Riding the Bullet is offered in a digital
format, to read on a computer.

10. 2003: EBooks stumble as
demand remains poor and
paper books remain a steadfast
favourite; Gemstar closes its
doors in July, Barnes & Noble
stops selling eBooks at its
online store. Critics say the
eBooks trend will not last.

11. 2004: Sony releases the Librié,
the first eBook reader to utilize
eIink (electronic ink) technology.
Gone is the annoying glare from
backlit screens in earlier eBook
readers or on PDAs that strain
the eyes. Now, words on the
screen have almost the same
clarity as words printed on paper.
2004: Google Print and Google
Book Search, which would later
become known as Google
Books, are announced at the
Frankfurt book fair.
2005: Amazon acquires
Mobipocket, a software company
that built ebook reading software
for portable devices.

12. 2007: Amazon unveils the Kindle, a dedicted e-book reader that
can download e-books over Wi-Fi or the mobile network from the
Amazon website.
2008: Books on Board (booksonboard.com) starts selling eBooks
for iPhones, the first online eBook store to do so. A collection of
European digital libraries with digitalized paintings, books and films
,is officially launched.
August 2009: Sony links with libraries via the Overdrive digital
network to enable people to borrow eBooks from libraries. Among
the countries that have eBook borrowing are the United States and
Singapore (no, Malaysia doesn’t have it).

13. October 2009: Amazon.com releases Kindle 2, and ships
it to more than 100 countries (no, Malaysia is not among
them). In this month also, Barnes & Noble releases its
own eBook reader, Nook.
November 2009: Students of the private Canadian
secondary school, Blyth Academy, are supplied with
Sony Readers loaded with their textbooks. It is the first
school in the world to do this.
December 2009: Five major publishers, Conde Nast,
Hearst, Meredith, News Corp and Time Inc, announce
that they will join forces to develop a format and an
online store to beat Amazon.com’ s stranglehold on the
eBook market. And on Christmas day, eBooks outsell
physical books on Amazon.com for the first time ever.

14. January 2010 – At the Consumers electronic show, many
new e-readers from Asus, Sony, Plastic Logic, Samsung
and more, drive a frenzy of attention to e-readers and
ebooks.
April 2010 – The Apple iPad debuts, and the iBookstore
sells half a million e-books in less than a month. BENQ
and True Digital Form a partnership in Asia, and create a
new Bookstore, creating a true e-book conglomerate
arises in the east.
May 2010 – Penguin Publishing and Amazon have a
falling out, and Penguin has pulled all e-books from the
Amazon Book Store and has decided to setup shop with
Apple. Google Editions is slated for an August release
that offers publishers and authors a platform to sell books
directly from their website, having Google host the Book,
Checkout process and more, seeking to change the
current e-book distribution methodology.