Its actually a lot like the music industry... their wet dream is to sell CDs, vs textbooks. Neither wants to offer digital downloads because it would cut into their margin and they would be giving it to the demographic most likely to pirate it, copy, and give it to others for free.

With Music, it took CD burners to bridge the gap between CDs and MP3's. Maybe we'll have something like that for text books one day so we can start chipping away at the man.

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First, for my college education in economics and legal studies, I received the majority of my textbooks digitally. I used various reading devices to read them in much the same way.

Second, with appropriate DRM (yuck, I know) on a proprietary reader, some textbook companies might jump at this sort of distribution model because (1) it decreases rates of cannibalization of new edition sales by older editions, (2) it decreases rates of cannibalization of current edition sales by used current editions, and (3) it decreases the cost of goods, thus increasing profits.

Third, whether we like it or not, this is where the industry is ultimately going. Amazon represents an opportunity for publishers to test the waters in a controlled environment. Of course, there will always be holdouts (not ALL of my books were digitally distributed), but eventually they will have no choice but to come along for the ride. For now, the risk/reward ratio is not to their benefit -- not even close, as zero of these devices are in the consumers' hands at this point. Nevertheless, eventually it will happen.

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I don't know that dual-mode screens (like the XO) can achieve the same paper look as e-ink as they work completely differently.

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You don't need to listen to Gizmodo, just read what Steve said...

"As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority."

Combine that with...

"Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause - a hormone imbalance that has been "robbing" me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy."

...and you should be getting that he was in bad shape. Dramatic weight loss has deadly consequences.

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Cancer survivors tend to, IMO, over-react and drastically change their eating habits after/during treatment. For his case, combine that with problems with the pancreas, and your system basically gets de-stabilized. His initial weight loss might have been accompanied by a "Oh that's good, I'm losing weight on this new diet because I'm 'eating right'!". It eventually would have gotten to a point where he would have gone "I need to stop losing weight now", and then realized there was a problem.

(Note, I'm not a doctor, just a cancer survivor. My observations are related to my recovery only)

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