ebook WARS!!!!

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I've often asked myself as a student currently studying in a tertiary institution and commonly exposed to different kinds of technological platfroms everyday...how much do I actually know about ebooks? Wikipedia states that "an electronic book (variously, e-book, ebook, digital book) is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices.^[1] Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book,"^[2] but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent. E-books are usually read on dedicated e-book readers. Personal computers and some mobile phones can also be used to read e-books." 

So basically it's taking a physical book you would read and placing it in the platform of a tablet, e-book readers, personal computers or a mobile phone. Now I'm sure your question is how exactly does this appeal to me as a tertiary student? Well the answer is quite simple, the usage of tablets will be the saving grace for applications like the e-book reader. Shipments in terms of enterprises for pads has grown from 20,410 units in 2010 to 1,121,990 units in 2011 making the year on year growth 5397.3%. Where as shipments in terms of consumers has grown from 16,861,160 units in 2010 to 50,589,290 units in 2011 making the year on year growth 200%. The following figures show the current and future growth for tablets:

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 The huge debacle around e-books right now exists between Apple and Amazon with Apple being accused of fixing e-book prices while the team at Apple says that it was simply trying to break the monopolistic grip Amazon has on the market. Telegraph states that "the US Department of Justice this week accused Apple of conspiring with five major book publishers to fix the price of ebooks, in an effort to loosen the stranglehold Amazon had established via its Kindle device. However, Apple said that the charges are "simply not true" and that it had instead promoted competition. "The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry," it said in a statement. Whoever leaves this scuffle as victor could glaim quite a huge foothold in the e-book reader market and inevitably the tablet community. Whether on a tablet or a physical book, as long as people have eyes and are able to read this will be the more prefered way for many to gather and process information, from a student doing an assignment to a PRP preparing an article for an organisation.