The e-book – for those of us who like to pay full price for all our books.

This weekend, as I was sitting down reading my Popular Science magazine, I read about a fancy new gadget that Sony is introducing called the Sony Reader. It's a really neat device that uses charged particles that they dub "E-ink". This "e-ink" is a great power saver becuase it only requires power to create the words on the page. After the words are electronically "written" on the screen, no power is necessary to maintain them. They will stay there without needing any battery power. It's a very ingeious device and a versitile new technology, but there are some drawbacks and I promised Kristen and Amanda that I would write about them.

The first of which is the cost. One of these babies costs as much as roughly 45 paperback books. But you don't get the books with it. You have to pay approx. $7 for each e-book that you want to read on it. In addition to that, I'm the kind of guy who likes buying used 50 cent books at yard sales. You can't do that with e-books. You have to pay full price for every book you read.

In fact, it seems the e-book and mp3s have many things in common. They are about the only two technologies that have no notion of what "used" means. It's no wonder music and e-book piracy is through the roof, the publishers and music producers are trying to eliminate "used" music and "used" books. They can charge full price for all their products indefinitely. Don't tell me that the music industry is loosing money because of the i-pod. And what about an e-book library? Can you go to the e-library and get e-books?

The technology is great for both e-books and MP3s, but someone needs to give us back our ability to re-sell something that we bought.

If nothing is done about it, here is my tip for you. Invest in music and publishing companies, their income will be through the roof in 20 years or so.