Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun / BOOK 'EM: Frank Ogden (left) and Colin Smith of Adobe Systems display Everybook prototype.

Renowned Vancouver futurist Frank Ogden was just a little ahead of his time in 1993 when he wrote The Last Book You'll Ever Read.

Today he holds the virtual book he envisioned then and it's slated to reach store shelves in time for Christmas.

"The old concept was to stuff a book into a computer," said Ogden, who was commissioned to evaluate a prototype of the Everybook, an electronic book reader developed by the Pennsylvania-based Everybook Inc.

"Now we're putting a computer into the old paradigm of a book," said Ogden, known widely as Dr. Tomorrow.

The latest in a roster of electronic book readers, the Everybook demonstrates a partnership with Adobe Systems Inc. that enables the conversion -- using Adobe Portable Document Format -- of books and other text to a digital format.

The Everybook will carry a hefty $2,000 US price tag, but it will be able to carry the equivalent of several 500-page novels. A wireless connection will let readers download new information, whether it's the daily newspaper, updated textbooks or the engineering plans for a building. Material can also be transferred from a PC to Everybook.

Unlike other electronic book readers that have a single-page tablet format, Everybook opens to two pages, much like a regular book. The touch screen is colour.

Also unlike the proprietary technology of other electronic book readers, such as RocketBooks and Softbooks, Adobe's PDF translates text to a format that can be read by any system -- from Mac to Windows to Linux -- and preserves the look of the original material.

"The publisher is happy, the author is happy. Using PDF we create a product that looks just like the real book," said Colin Smith, application specialist with Adobe who was in Vancouver Friday for a demonstration of the Everybook.

Earlier this year Adobe introduced its PDF Merchant, a server technology that configures with e-commerce systems to deliver encrypted PDF files, a security measure that's necessary if publishers and authors don't want to see their works freely downloaded.

Smith said Adobe specialists were called in when Stephen King's online story was released, and within days, hackers were able to bypass the nominal charge that was supposed to accompany it.

"The technology that was used for Stephen King's novel was cracked in a couple of days,'' he said. "They called in the PDF big guns and they've been working on it ever since," Smith said.

Smith said the advent of electronic books has brought plenty of confusion, with the term e-book often applied to the reading device used to read books that have been put in a digital form.

The term e-book actually refers to the digital copy of work itself and the device, whether it's the Everybook or one of a growing number of others in the market, is the electronic book reader.

Adobe is also talking to RocketBooks and other manufacturers about using its PDF technology in its electronic readers and has formed partnerships with such retailers as Barnes & Noble, Chapters Online and others.

While Smith said in early applications, the electronic book readers will appeal to the business and education market in which users need timely information that can be updated, the future will have consumers coming to expect tailored delivery of news and information to a device not much bigger than a regular novel.

"People are really excited about this because it is marrying the old and the new," he said.

"The thing that is unfortunate is that there is an apprehension with technology.

"People hear thing like viruses -- and they worry. They need to be afraid not to push buttons.

"People need to get over that fear and feel comfortable with technology."

In his evaluation of the Everybook Reader, Odgen said it was too heavy and bulky to be easily carried about, both concerns that are being answered in the final product release.

"When it comes out at Christmas, it will be half the size of the prototype and it will be under five pounds. It will be able to carry the contents of a small library. It's the future that I wrote about and it's here now."