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Abstract This paper argues that the evolution of e-book technology is related to the penetrating impact of networks and information technology on society. It defines the concept of e-book and describes some aspects of e-book technology. By focusing on book production processes, the paper examines what probable consequences the development of e-books and a global network economy will have for publishers and book industries. E-books, along with other electronic formats, will trigger major changes as the digital products and distribution channels will force the logic of the network economy on the book publishing industry.

While current computing practice abounds with innovations like online auctions, blogs, wikis, twitter, social networks and online social games, few if any genuinely new theories have taken root in the corresponding "top" academic journals. Those creating computing progress increasingly see these journals as unreadable, outdated and irrelevant. Yet as technology practice creates, technology theory is if anything becoming even more conforming and less relevant. We attribute this to the erroneous assumption that research rigor is excellence, a myth contradicted by the scientific method itself. Excess rigor supports the demands of appointment, grant and promotion committees, but is drying up the wells of academic inspiration. Part I of this paper chronicles the inevitable limits of what can only be called a feudal academic knowledge exchange system, with trends like exclusivity, slowness, narrowness, conservatism, self-involvement and inaccessibility. We predict an upcoming social upheaval in academic publishing as it shifts from a feudal to democratic form, from knowledge managed by the few to knowledge managed by the many. The technology trigger is socio-technical advances. The drive will be that only democratic knowledge exchange can scale up to support the breadth, speed and flexibility modern cross-disciplinary research needs. Part II suggests the sort of socio-technical design needed to bring this transformation about.

The appeal is much more about the technology and the people than about the catalogue. 7digital is a really fantastic technology platform. We believe that as the government is tackling the issue of

Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.

Sony abandons its propriety technology in response to consumer dissatisfaction.

GOOGLE has acquired reCAPTCHA, a company that produces the squiggly words used by websites to guard against spam and fraud. reCAPTCHA's technology would be used to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products "but also to improve books and newspaper scanning process."

The government's goal of computerizing patient medical records is a daunting challenge for reasons that have more to do with economics than technology.

US government agrees to relinquish some of its control over the internet.

As more companies invest in digital technology, there is growing hype surrounding new ways of doing business on the 'real-time' web.

European viewers with specially equipped televisions may be able to watch public broadcasters' Internet television services, which let users catch up on the shows of the previous week, whenever they choose, via their computers.

Two million out-of-copyright books that have been scanned by Google could come back into limited printed form after the search giant signed a deal with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso…

Emmett Rensin and Alexander Aciman distil more than 60 literary classics into fewer than 20 tweets a book

Dan Brown's latest selling novel "The Lost Symbol' has become available in its entirity online just days after it hits shelves in bookstores globally.

The book review of Willinsky, J. (2006) The Access Principle: the case for open access to research and scholar- ship. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. xv + 287 pp. ISBN 0-262-23242-1.

According to Marcus, digital technology creates two opposing cultures: one is creating works with copyright, another is illegally making use of those works. In the academic world, we are fear of copyright law, but outside the academic world we use the internet to download, mix and create another work. And this is where the Creative Commons arrives.

Devices like iPhones and netbook PCs that can help the speech-impaired are not covered by Medicare or insurers.

Yochai Benkler, a Yale University law professor and author of the new book "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom" (Yale University Press), has gone even farther: his entire book is available - free - as a download from his Web site. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people have accessed the book electronically, with some of them adding comments and links to the online version.

The blows being traded over Google's $125m deal to digitise books are getting fiercer by the day

Collaborative Encyplopedia Wikipedia is test-driving a new editing scheme to enahnce its credibility, making it subject to screeing and altering before it is published online. Doesn't this not defeat the purpose of it in the first place?