On the other hand, whenever you consider books used for any other purpose - such as education, reference, language learning, community building - the physical book format is really inadequate and can be significantly improved upon with e-book format.

As an example, doctors already swear by ebooks on handhelds because they can carry what used to be a 10Kg/20Pounds of reference materials in one light device with fast searching capabilities.

For language learning, the book format is quite inadequate. If you ever try to study a foreign language, you will notice that there is a lot of different formats, layouts and structures available (grammar-first, reading-first, communicative, parallel-text, etc). This multitude of standards is not so much because people like different things (though it is true), but because none of the formats really work well and people have to buy the same learning material in different form just to get somewhere.

I have written a more detailed article on - significant - advantages the e-book format can bring to language learning process. It already has some interesting comments of its own. Of course any real advantages will need help from manufacturers, but hopefully that is precisely why Philips has established this forum.

Paper: old books, deep, tomey fantasies, etc.

e-book: shorter books, manuals, stuff generally UNDER 100 pages.

New publishing could benefit from e-booking. I haven't seen too many modern books worth the paper they're on...

Imagine having magazines, newspapers, books(or items that look and feel like books) with videos, audio or animation. Like they say my friends, the possibilities are endless.

We do need to top up all aspects of information to provide a considered opinion, maybe we would be better at negotions if we read/listened to cultural and religious backgrounds?