Companies like Microsoft and Sony continue to work on new ingenious ways of taking traditional objects and turning them into digital ones. Microsoft has made great strides in the Tablet PC market (if you stop to consider how far tablet computing has come in the last four years, you would find progress has, indeed, been made). Sony has changed the way we look at digitally based entertainment with products ranging from MD players to their envelope pushing PDA's (the Clies). In each case, however, both companies continue to flounder about in their determination to lock people into their way of thinking. The Tablet PC version of Windows is truly great - if you use it in conjunction with their other software products like Office. The access I have had to the different tablet products being offered which use Microsoft's operating system have tons of imaginative ideas built behind them, but each time I sell or take back the latest Tablet PC I have bought because it doesn't work the way I want it to work. The handwriting recognition doesn't work with many programs I choose to use or the UI is simply too inconsistent for me to take the time to learn it. I have found the response from people in the medical field quite different, as applications have been customized to take advantage of many of the options one has when using a Tablet PC style notebook (scribbling notes and prescriptions are the favorites of doctors I have had the chance to talk to), but this is the exception, not the norm.
Sony has apparently come out with yet another paperless book reader - the Librie. Most amazing about many of Sony's new products (including their wanna-be iPod killer, the Network Walkman NW-HD1), is that many of them ignore the ancestry that Sony was once a supporter of - products that made people freer, not more tied down to a particular architecture or into a particular vendor (Betamax, for example). Take the fact that the NW-HD1 does not play files other than those in Sony's proprietary format. Mossberg notes,
One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus. This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, and because it has features that extend battery life.
While the comments on superior sound and battery life may be important, more important is the fact that you are stuck with Sony if you want to move your ripped music collection to another player. The least they could have done was to support MP3's in addition to ATRAC3. Another product they have recently released is the Librie, a book reader with a fantastic screen and portability very similar to current-day paper back books. An article in the Frankfurther Allgemeine points out,
Hacker machen Librie frei
Denn auch Gerätehersteller verkaufen heute nicht mehr selbstverständlich nur Geräte. Jedenfalls nicht dann, wenn sie Sony oder Philips heißen. Sie bauen Geräte, die Verlegern gefallen. Das müssen nicht die sein, die auch den Gerätekäufern gefallen. Genau nach diesem Muster ist der Sony Librie gebaut. Außer gemietete Bücher zu studieren läßt sich mit ihm gar nichts anfangen, obwohl er intern sogar mit dem rechtefreien Betriebssystem Linux läuft.
Das macht die E-Book-Anhänger wütend. Mitte Juli hat eine Truppe von Hackern den ersten ernsthaften Anlauf begonnen, die Sperren des Librie zu knacken und beliebige Software darauf zum Laufen zu bringen. Zum Beispiel solche, die beliebte Dokument-Formate wie PDF oder Websites anzeigen kann. Eben das, was der ganz normale Nutzer braucht, wenn er wenigstens seine eigenen Dokumente aufspielen und unterwegs lesen will.
(E-Bücher: Ein zäher Hund namens Gutenberg)
For those of you who can't read German, the first paragraph laments the fact that Sony has obviously put more work into following the desires of the publishers than that of the reader/purchaser. The article continues to explain how hackers are working to make the eBook read more than Sony's proprietary format of document.
What is thoroughly discouraging about many new products on today's market is that they make me think more about the format of the digital items I buy rather than simply buying them and using them like I do physical objects. I spend more time making sure I have a document in a portable format than I do making it or using it. This is what has pushed me to use products whose primary purpose seems slated at making my life easier by allowing me to view the items I want in the format I want. While many companies should get kudos to the great work and innovation that goes into their new products, they miss the mark in regards to their true ease of use. They want us to be permanent buyers of their wares and try to make us so by tying us down to their proprietary format. The glaring mistake they are making is that they are irritating me (and many consumers like me) in the process. Give us a product that we don't have to worry about and we will come back and buy more. I promise.
