Almost 65 percent of new book titles are available in electronic form. Still, sales from e-books represent a miniscule fraction of total sales, which was $24.2 billion last year, according to the Association of American Publishers. In part, low digital-book consumption results from poorly designed dedicated e-book readers and difficult-to-use software for laptops and PDAs. Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), combined In part, low digital-book consumption results from poorly designed dedicated e-book readers and difficult-to-use software for laptops and PDAs. Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), combined with the latest thin laptops and promising ultra mobile hardware platforms, should tip things in digital’s favor.Adobe Digital Editions is a lightweight (about a 3MB download on Windows) rich Internet application for easily downloading, organizing, and reading e-books and other digital publications. Beneath the hood is Flash Player 9 and Flex 2, which makes for an especially consumer-friendly experience. This starts with a bookshelf metaphor for organizing publications that you’ve borrowed, purchased, or read. Other tools let you sort your library by author, title, or other criteria.I downloaded and viewed a variety of Adobe PDF, flowable XHTML-based publications, and Flash SWF files without problem. In each case, the advantages of Adobe Digital Editions were very apparent. For instance, compared to using Adobe Acrobat, ADE didn’t have any performance lags, while offering essential reading features, including bookmarks, full text searching, highlighting, and font-size changes – all surrounded with Flash-style interactivity. Interestingly, notes are stored in open XML format, which has future social-networking possibilities. The only small disadvantage I could find is that Adobe Digital Editions can’t be run from within a browser, a feature Acrobat offers. Documents with embedded Flash played without problem in my tests; it illustrates how academic material can be made more memorable with rich media. The same approach could be used, say, with how-to magazines or books to improve subscription rates. Interestingly, notes are stored in open XML format, which has future social-networking possibilities. The only small disadvantage I could find is that Adobe Digital Editions can’t be run from within a browser, a feature Acrobat offers. Documents with embedded Flash played without problem in my tests; it illustrates how academic material can be made more memorable with rich media. The same approach could be used, say, with how-to magazines or books to improve subscription rates.Another underlying technology that Adobe smartly supports is IDPF OPS (Open Publication Structure) – a standard many e-publishers are starting to adopt. This XHTML format allows content to be reflowed, so it can be used on many devices, especially small-screen mobile units. [AdobeDigitalEditions_EPUB.jpg] One way to author for ADE is, unsurprisingly, Adobe InDesign CS3. After composing a document for a traditional print layout, I merely used InDesign’s built-in export option to save it as an e-publication. Without any additional work, pages were automatically reformatted depending on the screen size of the device I used to run Adobe Digital Editions.While DRM (digital rights management) in this product isn’t perfect, I found that it generally balances the needs of publishers to protect content without inconveniencing users too much. ADEPT (Adobe Digital Editions Protection Technology), a turnkey hosted services based on Adobe LiveCycle Content Server, is used here. Publishers can take advantage of ADEPT’s various business models, including subscriptions and ad-supported. However, one complaint I’ve seen on discussion forums is that there are PDF books wrapped with older Adobe DRM technology. Some of those publishers are either out of business or won’t republish content using ADEPT, which puts users who purchased this content out of luck if they want to use digital editions. Overall though, Adobe should be credited with providing solutions that should help ensure a central spot for books in the digital world. Adobe Digital Editions goes a long way in reducing format confusion, client software issues, and costs to publishers. Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 Availability: Now for Windows and Mac OS X; future Linux release. Pricing: Adobe Digital Editions is free; InDesign CS3, $699 ($199 upgrade). Verdict: Adobe Digital Editions make it easy for consumers to acquire and read e-books and other digital publications, while InDesign CS3 lowers the cost of digital publication creation. DRM is generally transparent to end-users, and offers publishers various business models. Technology Industry