Some random facts about how ebooks might be relevant for the Nintendo DS: According to this press release:
"Darren Reid, author of the best selling Fantasy/Science Fictionfusion novel The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One, today announces the release of a free ebooklibrary for Nintendo Wii, DS and Sony PS3. The free ebook librarycontains a collection of short stories, novels and novellas whichhave been optimized for use with the browsers in the Nintendo Wii and DS. "
An homebrew comic reader on the Nintendo DS by Francis Bonnin. It also seems that a french company is heading into that direction.
Notes from the person who described it:
"Actually reading the comic on my DS was a pleasent experience. With all of the display options, I had little-to-no trouble finding one that suited me. Everything worked as advertised, and I was enjoying an issue of The Books of Magic on my DS in no time. As expected, there’s a loss in “the experience,” due to the 256×192 resolution. Using anything that wasn’t the Dual Screen mode did not show enough of the page for me. Despite the limited screen space, text was legible, and the images appeared just as nicely as on the original pages."
Further away, Toshiba released an interesting DS-like e-book, using the same affordance:
Why do I blog this? gathering some thoughts about the topic for a client project (not really a research project). As shown in this blogpost, some projects about using the DS as a way to convey textual content are starting off.
Some limits to have ebooks on the Nintendo DS: - how to get the content: since Nintendo is less an less happy with homebrew developments/flash cards, what should be the best medium to convey texts? cartridges? download through the Internets/wifi? - screen size and resolution are peculiar, what sort of content would be appropriate? - the DS has incredible wifi capabilities (mostly in terms of practices and how people gather to play together), what would that mean for ebook applications? There might be great opportunities to design innovative applications based on ebook reading/educational applications. - Same with annotation capabilities with the pen - ...