Both the SoftBook and the Rocket eBook use HTML-format documents. The third electronic book, the EB Dedicated Reader from EveryBook, should hit the market in January, 1999. The Dedicated Reader is the only one of the three that has a full-color screen and two leaves that open like a book. It incorporates an infrared transmitter that can be used to send files to a printer, should you desire a return to ancient technology. On the downside, the EB Dedicated Reader is three times as expensive and somewhat larger than the others.
Electronic books do away with paper entirely.
Hypertouch takes a different approach, one that bridges the two worlds. The purpose in this case is advertising. If you see an interesting ad in the magazine, you simply touch it and then press an icon on the page, which identifies the page number. The binder registers the touches, converts them into an infrared signal and transmits it to a receiver on the PC, which then loads a related web link. Peter Redford, Hypertouch's CEO and an electrical engineer, hopes the system will make online commerce much more effective.