Bill Hill: The Future of Reading on the Web, Part 1 | Dan

Cavan

I'd just like to thank Bill and the typography team. I've been using Reader first on an Axiom (similar to one he briefly showed off back in the walk around the campus video) and then later I upgraded to the same HTC phone / PDA that he briefly showed off in the video here.

The ability to have MS Reader and all the associated readability elements is probably the only thing that has allowed me to actually keep reading anything other than, well TechNet basically.

I never knew how, but something about reading books on Reader has always just been as natural as reading an actual book. It’s absolutely fascinating to hear about all the research that went in to achieving that experience.

Thank you. Your work is very much appreciated.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to Cavan

#Oct 10th, 2008 @ 12:58 AM

The problem with MS Reader is, it allows six activations, and unfortunately it counts re-activations of the same device, and there's no way to "de-activate" a device or something. Furthermore, you cannot buy a book on a device that is not activated.

The only device I actually read on is my Axim. But I can't buy books with that, you need desktop Windows for that. So I must have either my desktop or my laptop activated as well. Over the years, by re-installing Windows and upgrading my Axim's ROM I have accumulated 6 activations. So when I tried to re-activate my desktop a few months ago to buy a new book, it told me I'd run out. You can apply for one additional activation per 180 days, which I did; I never got a response. No activated reader means I can't buy new books.

Of course I could use a different Live ID and activate with that. But then, in order to read the new book, I would have to change the activation of my Axim as well, which means I can no longer read any of the books I already own (if I ever get a new PDA or need to hard reset this one, this will happen anyway). And of course, in a few years I'd end up in the same situation with those new books as well.

So, MS Reader DRM has successfully driven me away. I will not buy another book in MS Reader format until this DRM scheme is changed. Fortunately, eReader works just as well and doesn't have this stupid activation system, and doesn't require any software on the PC when buying books.

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

I haven't watch the video yet, so apologies if this was covered, but re: fonts...can't Silverlight package up fonts? Kind of lame (and would be way nicer to have in the browser), but if you wanted to, couldn't you render text in Silverlight and use whatever font you wanted? I'm not super familiar with how it works and what the restrictions are, but I thought I remembered reading that a while back.

figuerres
???

More Good stuff from Bill !

Often I have seen logos done as a bitmap when if they could have embeded a few letters they could have had a better result.
another one of the places where the web tends to lock into pixels and will break with hi-res displays.

if the body is at say 10pt and the logo is a fixed bitmap for 96ppi then what happens when you have a 300ppi display?
it bet the logo becomes tiny and the text is larger than the logo! won't that look grand!

love to see an open standard for web type embeding!

most folks , including folks who build web sites just render stuff to bitmaps cause that's the only way they are sure it will look right on all clients ... that's a place that will need a *lot* of work in the next few years.

figuerres
???

In reply to HumanCompiler

#Oct 10th, 2008 @ 3:18 AM

HC, I think I did read that SL can embed fonts.... I'd love to see a bit on how that works etc.... I have not seen one on silverlight.net that I recall.

perhaps bill can look into that and tell us / intro the sl folks who cover it or some such ??

nagnatron

A really cool interview.

jason818_253.33
Yippi skippy

In reply to nagnatron

#Oct 10th, 2008 @ 3:04 PM

Bill suggested an interview with Greg Hitchcock. Is any one at Channel 9 heading over to him to hear about hinting fonts?

Cavan

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 10th, 2008 @ 1:33 AM

Sven I understand the issues you've had. The only thing I'll say is that I feel your pain and to me DRM is problematic at best.

It's just not an issue that I usually worry about to be honest. Between the amount of DRM free classical literature and the ability to freely convert Word documents to .lit format (http://www.overdrive.com/readerworks/downloads/default.asp?Download=RWSTAN), it's just not an issue I've run into.

If I were reading the latest book, or had to purchase them and deal with activation the way you have, I'm sure I'd feel the same. My point is more about the "visual" and "readability" aspects. Those thing that Bill was talking. The only real refrence he made to IP issues I totally agree with, no one originator of content should be paid only once. To which the larger question of course is how?

I have no idea. What I do know is that whatever content I get in the MS Reader format is easy on my increasingly antiquated eye-balls.

manotype

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 9th, 2008 @ 9:35 AM

Hi. Bill Hill here.

"Manotype" is my new C9 username. For some reason I couldn't sign on to my previous account so I created a new one.

I'll make sure the issues you point out with Japanese Windows UI conflicts with some parts of the UI being in Meiryo, while others are not, are passed on to the relevant folks in Windows.

Glad you like Meiryo. It was built by the usual suspects -us.

I managed the group that did it and personally argued (in a very civilized way) with Bill Gates to get it funded, arguing that although it was a lot of money for a single font project, we (the ClearType and Readablity Research team) would use it as a testbed to develop new technology which could be used to improve Simplified and Traditional Chinese and Korean as well.

Typographers Geraldine Wade and Mike Duggan in the ClearType team did a lot of work. Geraldine managed the project and did a fantastic job. Greg Hitchock was another big contributor.

We worked with a Japanese font company, (C&G, if my memory serves me right - which it often doesn't these days!), a tremendous Japanese type consultant called Eichii Kono - and Matthew Carter again.

One of the big issues with previous Japanese fonts was that they required hundreds of thousands of hand-tuned bitmaps. making one used to be a 50 man-year job. We developed new technology to use TrueType hinting, so the bitmaps are created on the fly and are truly scalable.

Matthew and Eichii worked together to solve another problem with East Asian fonts, which is that mixed Kanji and Latin characters looked terrible. In the first lace, the Latin characters themselves were always awful. Matthew, using the Verdana work, and Eichii, worked to integrate the Verdana glyphs with the Kanji and harmonize the way they worked together.

The project was a huge success. We completed it under budget and on time, in under 18 months (thanks to Geraldine!), and the new Chinese and Korean fonts in Vista used the same hinting technology.