The National Institute of Standards and Technology invites reporters to cover the emerging electronic book industry's second conference.
Electronic books are integrated products that combine features found in books and computers.
For example, touch screen technology allows a reader to touch an unfamiliar word to get an immediate dictionary definition. Touching the screen elsewhere can make the print larger or smaller. A number of organizations and people with an interest in the nascent e-book industry will make presentations, including the Association of American Publishers and Harlan Ellison, the Hugo and Nebula award winning author. NIST will unveil a prototype Braille reader that can translate the text of electronic books into Braille. Additionally, NIST will host tours of its Information Technology Laboratory , where the NIST electronic book and Braille reader were developed and where critical research into interoperability, accessibility and other standards issues are researched.