Consortium wants e-books to show images, text
By Yoshiko Hara
EE Times
September 22, 2003 (12:12 p.m. ET)
Tokyo - While retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. ceased electronic-book sales in the United States earlier this month, a consortium of about 200 companies is just taking shape in Japan to promote the development of e-book terminals and content. The Electronic Book Business Consortium believes it holds some cultural and technical advantages over U.S. efforts, including an ability to display images as well as text. It is also considering making e-books available on cell phone platforms.
"The consortium's mission will be not only to discuss how to make Japanese-language e-books, but also to invite participation internationally," said Yuusuke Suzuki, president and chief executive officer of eBook Initiative Japan Co. Ltd. In a demonstration, Suzuki showed how texts in various languages can be easily converted to e-books. His company, a distributor of e-book content, is one of the four primary proposers of the consortium.
The consortium's founders said they are suited to creating a new form of reading experience for the 21st century.
"It was Japan that changed text-based telex to image-based facsimile. Fontless image data can be used everywhere in the world," said Masaki Akiyama, president of Panasonic System Solution Co., a part of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., another of the main proposers. Electronics giant Toshiba Corp. and publisher Keiso-Shobo Publishing Co. Ltd. are the other main backers.
Machiko Satonaka, one of Japan's most famous cartoonists, welcomed the e-book effort. "E-book is often considered a technology issue, but it's a culture issue," Satonaka said. "Japan has ample cartoon content, but even so a lot of cartoons have been lost in the past. With the establishment of an e-book business, once a book is created it will be digitized and stored, and won't ever be lost."
The consortium will form several working groups that will discuss the e-book platform and business, compression technologies, international collaboration, e-book distribution and how e-books can revitalize existing bookshops. The consortium said it will accept multiple display formats and viewing platforms. No specific data format is defined for e-books at present. It is desirable for viewers to be able to "read various data formats," Suzuki said.
New books, old system
The consortium intends to work with existing book distribution systems, which comprise publishers, wholesale agents and bookstores.
Though the consortium said it intends to support multiple data formats and e-book viewers, Matsushita has already developed a prototype e-book viewer and the consortium will initially promote e-books suited for that viewer.
Matsushita's prototype shows two pages side by side, mimicking printed books. It has two 7.2-inch monochrome LCDs with XGA (1,024 x 768-pixel) resolution in 16 gray scales. The LCD requires power only when writing a new page, so two AA batteries can power the viewer for three months when 80 pages are viewed every day, according to Matsushita. The company is currently developing a color version of the LCD.
Matsushita plans to introduce the viewer, dubbed SigmaBook, in Japan this November with a suggested retail price of about $340.
E-books have a checkered history. Once viewed as a next-generation publishing medium, the readers never caught on with the public. Barnes & Noble suspended its e-book efforts earlier this month. Five years ago, a different e-book consortium was formed in Japan by about 150 companies. Sharp Corp. developed that consortium's viewer prototype, but the consortium was dissolved after several years.
Sharp has since shifted its e-book focus from dedicated readers to existing devices such as PDAs, electronic dictionaries and cellular-phone platforms. Newer cell phones with QVGA (320 x 240-dot) displays are emerging as an e-book reader platform, the company said.
Working with Cybird Co. Ltd., Sharp began distributing e-books in June to its latest cell phone for the J-Phone network. Toshiba has started to bundle dictionary content into its latest cell phone. Other distributors have begun similar services for the KDDI Corp. network.
The Electronic Book Business Consortium said it will consider making cell phones one of its e-book viewer platforms.
