...E-books have numerous benefits. Eliminating paper saves resources. E-book readers take up little room in travelers' backpacks and purses, and yet can store the equivalent of a whole bookshelf. You don't have to go anywhere to buy or borrow an e-book title. For the vision-impaired, the ability to adjust font size can mean the difference between being able to read a book and having to hope that the publisher will eventually release an audio version. Some e-book readers double as music players, and some even have a speech capability for reading books aloud.
BAD
...Unfortunately, the world of e-books is Balkanized, with multiple incompatible file formats and digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and devices with varying support for both. Books in the public domain are widely available in PDF and other standard formats. But copyrighted material is another story. Amazon's current Kindles can obtain commercial e-books in Amazon's AZW file format via wireless download only in the United States (in early October, however, the company announced a Kindle capable of downloading content in most countries).
Source: PC World, Wednesday, November 4, 2009; 12:19 AM published at http://www.washingtonpost.com/
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