The first pages of the encyclopedia were designed in 2007, and available in mid-2008. The encyclopedia should be fully "operational" in 2012 and completed with all known species in 2017. People will be able to use the encyclopedia as a "macroscope" to identify major trends from a considerable stock of information -- in the same way they use a microscope for the study of detail. The English version will be translated in several languages by partner organizations. 2007 > THE FUTURE OF EBOOKS SEEN FROM FRANCE [Summary] Marc Autret, a journalist and graphic designer, wrote in December 2006: "I am convinced that the ebook has a great future in all non-fiction sectors. I refer to the ebook as a software and not as a dedicated physical medium (the conjecture is more uncertain on this point). (…) Non-commercial ebooks are already emerging everywhere while opening the way to new developments. To my eyes, there are at least two emerging trends: (a) an increasingly attractive and functional interface for reading/consultation (navigation, research, restructuring on the fly, user annotations, interactive quiz); (b) a multimedia integration (video, sound, animated graphics, database) now strongly coupled to the web. No physical book offers such features. So I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and packaged in a given format. How valuable will it be? Its value will be the one of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!" *** In late 2006, I launched an inquiry about how people were seeing the future of ebooks. Here are the answers from Pierre Schweitzer, Denis Zwirn and Marc Autret, three French “pioneers” in their own fields. Pierre Schweitzer is the inventor of the @folio project, a mobile device for texts. He wrote in December 2006: "The luck we all have is to live this fantastic change here and now. When I was born in 1963, a computer memory could only hold a few pages of characters. Today, my music player could hold billions of pages, a true local library. Tomorrow, by the combined effect of the Moore Law and the ubiquity of networks, we will have instant access to works and knowledge. We won't be much interested any more on which device to store information. We will be interested in handy functions and beautiful objects."