A new gadget could spell an end to books as we know them. Researchers at Hewlett Packard have developed a prototype electronic book which can hold a whole library on a device no bigger than a paperback. The brushed metal device is about one centimetre thick and looks like an oversized handheld computer. The technological tome is dominated by a screen and a series of touch sensitive strips that allow the reader to navigate through the book. E-books are loaded on to the device using a standard USB port on a computer. The developers were keen to retain features of traditional books that people like while trying to dust off their out of date image. "We've been looking at the power of the book as a way of consuming information" said Hewlett Packard's Huw Robson. "We've been using them for so long that we're very comfortable with the idea of paging through something".

To keep page turners happy, Mr Robson and his team have fitted the e-book with a small but powerful computer that animates a turning page when the reader is ready to move on. The pages are turned by running a finger along one of the strips. Stroking the strip at different speeds allows the reader to speed read or casually browse the book.

View :Full Article | Source :BBC News

Good for the environment,
but it will never replace the feeling of thumbing through a favorite. Besides, my eyes hurt from staring at screens for too long...

Hey thats very good, but doing away with books could also be a bad idea.
Everytime you want to read you would have to look at a screen, and I do enough of that with TV and on the PC, so definetly don't need a book that has a screen on it!

I don't like this idea. I not only enjoy being able to pick up a book and read it or thumb through the pages, I collect books. Plus, what happens when the thing breaks while you're reading it?

I think we're going to see a lot more of this sort of thing soon. With PDA's becoming more and more sophisticated, it won't be long before we could have newspaper's being delivered electronically to a handheld pad, and picture frames with a digital image that can be changed at the flick of a switch.

I'd quite like to have a look at one of these new 'books', but I doubt it can be a substitute for the real thing. It'll probably be more useful for taking on holiday for example, where the luggage space saved by taking one of those instead of a pile of books would make it worthwhile.

One more reason not to pick up a book....Sounds like another tool for the average yuppie.