You may recall those bulky tablet computers designed to download print books, one of many concepts that quickly died during the previous Internet-boom-gone-bust era. But a print-to-digital concept based on Apple's iTunes business model could conceivably do quite a bit better.

Personally, I abhor the digital rights management system that Apple uses in iTunes and would never again purchase any iPod. This is because I rarely listen to music. More than 95 percent of the audios I listen to are content-rich programs where I am learning something.

Apple's system is so reprehensible that if I put my own TeleClinic on my own iPod I could not transfer it to another iPod that I owned because it would be "locked" into the original iPod.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is bad for you. DRM stops you from enjoying your content and frustrates you while doing nothing to stop pirates from stealing and selling their digital wares. DRM is the industries' way of saying you no longer own your content when you buy it, but are merely borrowing it.

I created the content and am sole owner, yet their system in no way acknowledges that and prevents me, the creator of the content, from using it the way I want to. I am sorry, but that simply does not work for me. I also hate their directory structure and find that file folder and subfolder format of Windows Explorer far better to organize content.

I understand this is to prevent music piracy and is the only way that Apple was able to get this to run past the music industry, but I don't like it and will never purchase an Apple MP3 player with this protection.

Nevertheless, I can appreciate the beauty and simplicity of iTunes in providing you with the freedom to purchase and download individual songs without buying the whole album. Both Google and Amazon are hoping to accomplish the same goal by offering you the ability to download a page or chapter from a book.

Obviously, there are plenty of details to be worked out to make this a truly worthwhile venture for consumers and the print world. There is a danger they will go down the same flawed path Apple chose. For example, under the Random House model mentioned above, you'd be unable to print or copy digital pages you purchased, a huge roadblock indeed.

I have enormous respect for Google, though, and they employ some of the brightest tech people and engineers in the world. I am confident that they will come up with a solution that will please most of us.