風沙星辰

我是一個對於新科技非常關心但是不輕易嘗試的人。對於科技產品，除非我認定它已經有一定的成熟度而且可以符合我的需要，否則我是不隨便購買的。而我一旦決定了要買某一種科技產品，我也會花非常多的時間研究各種品牌的功能和評價。最後，我會在網路上花好幾個禮拜到幾個月的時間觀察我所看中的產品的價格趨勢。只有當我看到真正好價格的時候我才會出手把它買下來。

電子書其實不能算是一種很新的科技產品。自從電腦開始普及就有人把電腦螢幕當成閱讀的工具。但是儘管電腦螢幕的發展不斷的進步，從單色到彩色，從笨重的CRT到輕薄的LCD，在電腦螢幕上長時間閱讀對很多人來說並不是一件舒服的事情。我個人對於在電腦螢幕上閱讀冗長的文件也是非常的不習慣，因此很多時候我寧可把圖書館下載來的專業期刊PDF檔印出來看。

為了解決LCD螢幕不適合長時間閱讀的問題，Joseph Jacobson在1997年創立了E-Ink公司來專門研發電子紙的技術。E-Ink的目標是希望能夠發展出一種價格便宜，耗電量低，同時閱讀起來就像紙張一樣的顯示技術。經過多年的研發，終於在2004年Sony在日本推出了第一台以E-Ink為顯示技術的電子書閱讀器LIBRIé。我個人認為這是一個劃時代的產品，但也是一個我不會購買的產品。為什麼呢？因為電子書閱讀器要能夠成功必須要有好的電子書通路。沒有標準化的電子書格式和良好的電子書通路，電子書閱讀器就像是一台沒有電視節目可以播放的電視機–只是一個占位子的廢物。

Sony後來又繼續推出了幾台電子書閱讀器，但是銷售量一直有限，我想原因就是我上面說的。這樣的情況一直到了2007年底才有了改變。Amazon.com在2007年11月19日推出了旗下的第一台以E-Ink顯示的電子書閱讀器Kindle，售價美金$399。同一時間Amazon.com開始在他們的網站上販售電子書。由於Amazon.com是世界上最大的網路書店，因此Kindle不需要擔心通路的問題。據說第一代的Kindle在推出後五個半小時就賣到缺貨。但是從我的角度看來，一台僅僅能夠用來看書的電子產品要價美金$399實在是貴的太離譜了。

之後Amazon陸續推出了Kindle 2，Kindle DX和Kindle 3，而每一代的價錢也一路下滑。但是就在Kindle 3推出前半年，Apple推出了劃時代的產品iPad。iPad並不是電子書閱讀器而是以傳統的LCD螢幕顯示的平板型電腦。由於iPad上可以執行各樣的程式，不像電子書閱讀器只能用來讀書，因此很多人都認為以E-Ink技術為主的電子書是死定了。我曾經也這麼認為，但是當我親身比較過iPad和Kindle之後，我覺得長時間閱讀的話電子書閱讀器還是看起來比較舒服。只是我不得不承認iPad的功能比起電子書閱讀器實在是強太多了。除非電子書閱讀器比iPad或是類似的平板電腦價錢便宜很多，否則要我下手買一台電子書閱讀器實在是有些困難。

我的第一台電子書閱讀器（下）

Dear Friends,

It is our great pleasure in this holiday season to share God’s blessings in our family with you. We used to write letters like this a few years ago, but we haven’t done that for a couple of years. This year we decided to resume this tradition.

Our youngest daughter, Ellie, was born in January 27, 2011. Like her older siblings, Ellie was relatively small in size (18 in.) and weight (6 lb. 2 oz.) comparing to other newborns. However, Ellie grew fast after going home from the hospital, and by her 6-month checkup she was weighted at 75th percentile. Unlike her brother and sister, Ellie was very active and her physical development was more on schedule than her siblings. Neither Samuel nor Emma was able to roll over until about 8-month old, and none of them could crawl before 10-month old. In contrast, Ellie started to roll over at the age of 4 month and she could crawl at 7 month. Ellie is now able to walk by holding onto the side of chairs or end tables. We expect her to be the most athletic person of our house.

Samuel turned four in August this year. He is now in charge of not only his sisters but also his dad and mom. Samuel has always been a very curious and cautious child. He not only asks why all the time, he also wants us to explain the reasons behind every decision we have ever made. Sometimes we feel so tired of answering his questions, but we recognize his intelligence and eagerness to learn new knowledge. Samuel has very good memory and he likes to read and count numbers. He will start kindergarten next year.

Emma is now 2 years old and she is the happiest child of our house. She laughs a lot and she is the joy of our house. Emma also likes to talk and we are very impressed by her language ability. Since this August, Emma has been attending a half-day mother’s-day-out program with her bother three days a week. She is the only girl in her class of 10 students. Emma is very creative and she likes to paint, draw, play music, and do all kinds of artistic activities. She also likes everything that has the picture of princesses or Hello Kitty on it.

Raising children, serving in the church, and working fill the time of our life. Since Daniel must teach evening classes each semester, Yang-Ching has to take care three children from morning to bed time all by herself a few days a week while also doing cooking, cleaning up, and grocery shopping. This is a really challenging task, but we thank God for His providence that we have survived relatively well so far. We trust in God’s grace and we believe He will provide what we need to raise our family.

Daniel is in his 4th year working for the university. His tenure clock is ticking and he is one and a half year away from his tenure review. Daniel spends more and more hours working on his research and also with doctoral students on their dissertation research. Daniel puts a lot of pressure on himself and he hopes to generate enough publications to earn tenure and stay at UNT.

Both Yang-Ching and Daniel have blogs (in Chinese) and we share our thoughts, feelings, and life trivia on them. You can follow our blogs at http://ypchen.com and http://pushih.com. We wish you will also share what happens in your life with us. You can make us your Facebook friends or email us.

Last but not least, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.