Franklin eBookMan
Encyclopedia
Franklin Electronic Publishers
Franklin Electronic Publishers, Incorporated is an American consumer electronics manufacturer based in Burlington, New Jersey, founded in 1981. Since the mid-1980s it has primarily created and sold hand-held electronic references, such as spelling correctors, dictionaries, translation devices,...
eBookMan is a discontinued handheld device made to read ebooks. This gadget, made from 1999 until 2002, has standard PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
functions and can play and record sounds. It has a black on green touchscreen, contains 8 or 16 MB of RAM, and uses its own proprietary operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. Its handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
system accepts nearly natural handwriting.
Three models of eBookman were produced: the 900 (8 Mb memory - no backlight), the 901 (8 Mb memory - backlight) and the 911 (16 Mb memory - backlight). All come with an MMC
MultiMediaCard
The MultiMediaCard is a flash memory memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens AG and SanDisk, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as CompactFlash. MMC is about the size of a postage...
] (not SD
Secure Digital
Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...
-compatible) slot which allows for memory expansion. The eBookMan can read contacts and appointments from Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
; synchronization with a Windows PC is done through a USB cable.
Early eBookMan units lost all information stored on them when the batteries were changed. Franklin acknowledged the problem, and replaced all defective units at no charge. Its DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
system is tied directly to the hardware, which resulted in an immediate problem for marketing: it was not possible to try the device in-store since it wouldn't work until the user connected it to an Internet-linked PC and downloaded their own registered version of the OS. Support was provided via a home page at Franklin - now removed - which when development ceased in 2002 was still describing the device as 'new'.
Although research and development
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
on the eBookMan ceased in 2002, new eBookMans continued to be available from Ectaco
Ectaco
ECTACO Inc. is a US-based developer and manufacturer of hardware and software products for speech recognition and electronic translation. They also make JetBook eBook readers....
. As of April 30, 2011, all support and downloads for eBookMan were discontinued.
There is an active user base. Some users have written programs for the eBookMan. Many games were developed and a free version of the Mobipocket
Mobipocket
Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....
reader was developed for the eBookMan to take the place of the underpowered Franklin reader which came with the device.
One reason for the device's failure was an almost complete absence of marketing and a failure to supply reviewers and other opinion leaders with the device. Another was its poor battery life, requiring a battery change every few hours with normal usage.