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e.book
An e-book or electronic book or digital book is a text
and image-based publication in digital form produced on, published by,
and readable on computers or other digital devices. Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited
audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups.
In the year 1990s, the availability of the Internet made
transferring electronic files much easier, including e-books. E-book in different formats were emerged and proliferated, some supported by
Adobe with its PDF format, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers followed multiple formats.
Spread of e-books
E-books continued to gain in their own underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books
that were in the public domain. The authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their
works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial catalogs of books became available over the
web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public.
Apple releases the iPad with an e-book app called iBooks
Between its release in April 2010, to October, Apple has sold 7 million
iPads. In the year 2010 Sony releases its second generation Daily Edition PRS-950 and Google launches Google eBooks
Free e-books services
Libraries in
USA began providing free e-books to the public in 1998 through their web sites and associated
services, In 2003, libraries began offering free downloadable popular fiction and non-fiction e-books to
the public, launching an e-book lending model that worked much more successfully for public libraries.
There are over 2 million free books available for download as of August
2009. Mobile availability of e-books may be provided for users with a mobile data connection
, so that these e-books need not be stored on the device.
Bookboon.com achieves over 10 Million downloads in one year — placing the company as the world's largest publisher of free eBooks.
E-book services
An e-book can be purchased/borrowed, downloaded. e-books are more like
rental or leasing than purchase. Amazon.com reported that its e-book sales outnumbered sales of hardcover books
for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010.
E-book format
Ebook formats and file types continue to develop and change through time
with the
advances and developments in technology. PDF and epub are growing standards, but are not
universal.
E-book advantage
E-books requires
less space than printed books. An e-reader can potentially contain thousands
of e-books, limited only by its memory capacity. At home, it can be an advantage that
an e-book collection takes up little room or weight.
E-book websites can include the ability to translate books into many
different languages, making the works available to speakers of languages
not covered by printed translations. An e-book may be readable in low light or even total darkness. Many newer readers
have the ability to display motion, enlarge or change fonts,
use Text-to-speech software to read the text aloud for visually
impaired, partially sighted, elderly or dyslectic
people. By e-book, search for key terms, find definitions, or allow highlighting
bookmarking and annotation are easy.. Sound, motion, nice
and enlarge pictures and animation and other several advantages of e-book are available to a reader.
While an e-book reader costs much more than one book, the electronic
texts are generally cheaper. Moreover, a great share of books are available free of charge.
E-book Drawback
E-books have a limit
of avalibility. Not all books are available as e-books. Paper books can be bought and
wrapped for a present and a library of books can provide visual appeal,
Again people use the e-books simply for reference purposes rather than reading for pleasure and leisure. |
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