Saturday, April 29, 2006

Microsoft & Times Trying a New Electronic Edition Format Microsoft Software Will Let Times Readers Download Paper. With Microsoft's new Windows Vista software virtually any newspaper, magazine or book can be formatted into an electronic version and read online or off. By Katharine Q. Seelye [NYT > Media and Advertising] CNet version of the same story,  by Ina Fried, Microsoft, NYT Partner... ... and more from the home site of the ASNE Annual Meeting, where Bill Gates unveiled the software, saying people will accept the idea of "long-term immersive reading" with the right "form factor" machine. (Light and book-sized, apparently.) The site includes MP3 audio of part of Gates' speech, chopped off in mid-sentence. The ASNE account of the event quotes Tom Bodkin, assistant managing editor and design director at The New York Times, saying he's a "complete convert" to the new page-display software. In what I hope is an unfortunate paraphrase by the ASNE reporter, Bodkin refers to the software having "the look and feel" of the newspaper. Tell that to my neighbor with the new puppy, or to the moth I was just trying to swat with yesterday's paper. (The program may bave the "look" the designer wants, but the "feel" part of that software cliche definitely needs quotes around it.) Reactions: Dan Gillmor has questions, including "what's in it for consumers?" Jeff Jarvis calls it two steps backward and points to several other newspaper presentation systems. Dave Winer says Gates is helping the Times turn the clock back. Part of the pitch for the new program appears to be that it reformats the paper's contents to fit whatever configuration screen it's on, from Pocket PC to widescreen monitor. However, it relies on features of Microsoft's next version of Windows ("Vista"), rather than using non-proprietary Web standards, information display technologies like XML, RSS and CSS that are more easily portable to other kinds of devices. Hmmm. As much as I'd like to try browsing an electronic New York Times on a portable tablet, I'd like to choose whether to have it on a my Palm handheld, or a PC or in a Macintosh tablet, which doesn't exist, hasn't been announced, etc. But Apple did put software for handwritten input in OS-X a couple of editions ago. And it did have the basic idea, even if it was before its time. Meanwhile, here's some optimism about eBooks from someone at another company in the read-it-on-screen business. 4:32:48 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2008 Bob Stepno. Last update: 7/19/08; 1:13:15 PM.