Google Tech Talks
June 26, 2007
ABSTRACT
An electronic book is defined as a digital book that not only captures the affordances of a physical book, but also transcends the limitations of its paper counterpart. There is much debate as to whether the use of the book metaphor is appropriate for an electronic document. User studies suggest that current popular document presentations (HTML and PDF) are not always the most convenient, or the most comfortable, for the reader. On the other hand, while realistic physically-based computer models of books have been around for years, they are rarely deployed in practice. I suggest that this happens not because of any proven drawbacks, but is purely…