Switched On: Making book with ePUB

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Switched On: Making book with ePUB

Ross Rubin ( @rossrubin ) contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology.

The ePUB standard, developed by Adobe, allows consumers to purchase books at a variety of digital stores and use them on a wide range of compatible devices without the manufacturer having to explicitly support them. That may sound a bit like the PlaysForSure initiative that Microsoft tried mounting to challenge the iPod but ultimately shifted away from (at least for MP3 players) in favor of the Zune, but ePUB has a better shot than PlaysForSure did.

First, unlike PlaysForSure, which was playing catch-up to the already dominant iPod, ePUB is appearing relatively early in the market; it need not break anyone's "stranglehold." Second, after attracting the support of Sony, the format achieved a significant coup with the support of Barnes & Noble, which noted last week that it was "excited" to be supporting the format in its forthcoming Nook e-reader.

Like Sony did and like Amazon would have to, Barnes & Noble moved to embrace ePUB after pursuing its own proprietary file format. Even more impressively, the bricks-and-clicks bookseller is embracing ePUB while innovating in rights management; Nook users can lend each books out once each for 14 days . The Nook ...

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http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/25/switched-on-making-book-with-epub/

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/25/switched-on-making-book-with-epub/