ICUE: A better eBook reader?
December 2, 2006 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Apps, Cell phone, Editorial
After listening to the latest podcast of The Cranky Geeks, I decided to Google over a Java app that they’ve been talking about that lets you read eBooks on your mobile phone.
Well what’s so new about this? Nothing – except for the peculiar technology that flashes one word at a time on screen. Yup you heard me right. It sort of follows a rhythm method of flashing words so that your eyes can catch up with your brain comprehension. Still weird though.
I honestly feel that this can turn into a comprehension nightmare because the human mind doesn’t get the gist of a sentence by reading one word at a time. Rather, the brain looks at the sentence’s entire context. Now I have to issue a disclaimer that I haven’t actually tried the technology but doesn’t it seem odd to read a few chapters of say, The Unbearable Likeness of Being on a per-word basis?
What are your thoughts?
I’ve got an ebook reader Java midlet on my Nokia 6133 and it’s great. It’s called Libris. It shows alot more than a single word on the screen – there’s about 12 lines with 3 to 5 words per line. The text is clear and easy to read. I got it from a site called http://www.hillbillyinteractive.com. I love it – I’m doing alot more reading since I have my phone with me all the time and I can pull it out and continue reading whenever I have a few spare minutes – also in bed thanks to the backlight.
ICUE offers 4 reading styles, one word at a time, ticker tape style, blocks of texts and my favouite scrolling blocks, it’s bloody brilliant and I use it all the time – love being able to read books on the move!
Try ReadManiac. It’s the same as Libris, but it’s free. It displays different size fonts of your liking in about 9-12 lines. Supports indents and is very faithful to the format of the text file or ebook.