Members of the Society for Information Display (SID) 2005 awarded (http://www.sid.org/pressroom/050524.html) the Sony Librie (http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/LIBRIE/) e-book reader Gold in the category Display Product of the Year -- disregarding the fact that the device is crippled with ridiculous DRM. Dear Sony, a nice display is simply not enough to win our hearts. From the official announcement:

Sony has reinvigorated the eBook category by integrating a bi-stable, electrophoretic, "electronic paper" display from the team of E Ink and Philips into its LIBRIé eBook. The DYAC bestowed Sony Corp. with the 2004 Display Product of the Year Gold Award for incorporating novel display technology in the design of an eBook that is more appealing to consumers, and which brings the eBook closer to fulfilling its potential.

Do we have a discussion on DRM? What DRM rubbish did they install on the Librie device?

Their business model: Any e-book your purchase will be inaccessible due to DRM a couple of months (I think it was 60 days) after you purchased and downloaded it.

"reinvigorated" might apply if they were actually selling. So far I haven't seen any evidence, empirical or anecdotal, that they were selling well.

I think it makes a nice proof of concept, but hardly a successful consumer product.

I read up a little and it seems up to 400 ebooks will get wiped out from the device after 60 days. Whatever the heck that means, it still sucks.

Is there even a workable implementation of DRM that we, the consumers, are really happy with?

I think rmeister0 is right by saying this was more a proof of concept than a final consumer product. Let's hope that the proof did not fail by Sony's ignorance of consumer demands.