The MIT e-book prototype

• Hundreds of electronically-addressable display pages

• Printed on real paper substrates

• Typeset in situ

• Capable of being any book

  • the one-volume library

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The MIT Media Lab white paper by J. Jacobson on the e-book is accessible on the IBM Systems Journal page, http://www.almaden.ibm.com/journal/sj/363/jacobson

The paper describes the project of �realizing an electronic book comprised of hundreds of electronically addressable display pages printed on real paper substrates. Such pages may be typeset in situ, this giving such a book the capability to be any book.�

Regarding the one-volume library, royalty, and copyright considerations, Jacobson sugggests: �A simple system of royalties may be set up in which texts are encoded in encrypted form, allowing the reader to purchase the proper access code by Internet access, phone, or wireless transaction.�

Image: from MIT Research Digest Feb. 1996 Book of the Future newsblurb, obtained from http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www/Feb96RD#book on June 3, 1998.