Monocle is a JavaScript e-book reader

So e-books are all the rage these days. It's the wave of the future! Apart from dedicated devices such as the Nook or Kindle, there are various cross-platform software implementations, such as the Kindle App for Windows and iPhone, etc.

One of the most interesting attempts is the Ibis reader, which is actually an HTML5-driven website, which is almost as cross-platform as you can get.

I say almost as cross-platform as you can get because it does have a couple of drawbacks: HTML5 is not widespread yet, and Ibis itself is not open-source. It's more of a platform than a tool -- you read Ibis books on the Ibis site itself.

This is why I find Monocle interesting. It is far less visually impressive than Ibis, but it's based on Javascript -- a well-established technology, already available just about anywhere. It's also open-source, and you can use it to embed an e-book on any webpage. It's designed to work with the ePub book format (same as everyone else), but it claims to be able to process other formats as well.

I think the major issue with providing e-books is the content rather than the medium, so it remains to be seen who will be using Monocle. Still, choice is a good thing!

Tags: amazon, ebooks, epub, ibis, javascript