Reading with just a tap on the phone

Demi HEWAMANNA

In the era and century of technology making lives easier for people to live in this world...more and more ideas are been made and introduced to the market.

One of the latest such tech related project that has surfaced recently is the introduction of the the first ebook store - Book HUB by Etisalat together with Microimage and M D Gunasena.

"We find that we don't have the time to sit down and catch up with a good book or sometimes even locate a particular book we need.

This is where we step in and make reading and buying books very simple and easy," Etisalat CEO Dumindra Ratnayaka said at the launch. We are here to witness a historic event and change the way Sri Lanka reads and publishes books.

This new innovations supports books in all three languages - Sinhala, Tamil and English.

One can download from 25 to 200 books and store them in the phone.

"The BookHUB is a powerful method of having books on the internet and phone.

Books can be preserved, accessible and never lost. There are so many facilities that are available such as highlighting, analogizing and much more.

The innovation will not only see Sri Lankan literature become easier to preserve, distribute and read but also help to take it to a global audience benefiting local authors, reading enthusiast of today and generations to come. People can't pirate these books. They will be conducting workshops for all publishers on how to maintain and upload and keep updated.

Books can be purchased through either credit cards or to the ones who don't carry cards with can buy the books on reload cards.

For one week they will give 15 books free for a free trial to get the total experience of it. All one has to do it is log on to the website www.thebookhub.lk and register to have access to a library of your own.

Out of the 9000 schools that are located in the country only over 3000 schools are equipped with a computer laboratory.

Over the last years over 500 schools closed down because people went on the mentality that their children should be sent to only well known schools. This attitude should be changed.

"BookHUB platforms and BookHUB eReader apps provide complete inclusive ecosystems for Sri Lankan book lovers. We also intend to release the bookHUB eBook reader for IOS platform covering iPhone and iPad in the near future," Microimage CEO Harsha Purasinghe said.