HP ebook reader is a real page-turner

Many electronic device manufacturers prepared for an age that never came. Ever since the Internet boom, and digital technology began to make paper obsolete, many publishers prepared for an age when books, too, would be completely digital.

After all, why destroy trees when all the information in a book could be put on an ebook reader? Not only that, consumers could get access to books with just a credit card number. This meant no more waiting for the new Harry Potter book, or waiting for it to arrive when it would be downloaded instantly. Also, ebooks gave the opportunity for anyone with an Internet-connected computer to get published, instantly.

Mobile electronic device companies prepared for this new age by releasing e-book readers to the market place. Yet this digital age of books has yet to arrive. Ebook reader sales were not as phenomenal as were predicted, even though ebooks sprouted all over the web.

No one is really sure why, this age of the digital book is not occurring, since the technology is already here for it. Perhaps it has something to do with the concept of a book. Books are more than just a collection of information like a computer program, but they have a cover and look good on the shelf. Collecting ebooks is no fun because there is simply no place to display them. It would be like collecting treasures and not being able to view them all at once, not even if they were in a vault.

As shown by their not-so-hot sales, ebooks and ebook readers take away something from the reading experience. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is doing something to make ebook readers similar to real book reading by adding a page turning function.

HP displayed this new technology at an event in Shanghai, and it is under development. A touch sensitive pad gives an ebook reader the advantage of "turning a page". They even figured out a way to distort the text, just as if you were reading a real book. Although I don't know if it has the, I would definitely recommend installing a program that makes the swish sound when you turn a page.

It seems so hard to believe that something as small as turning a page could make the difference between ebooks and traditional book sales. I will enjoy reading more on this story as it develops. In fact, it will be a real page-turner. (Oh, man, I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.)