MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Sony Reader -- Ask your questions to the Sony team

scotty1024 · 07-31-2006, 02:47 PM

The existing BBeBook format does not support the font magnifier feature very well. The pages in a BBeBook need to be paginated in the file but when the font magnifier is used the pagination is not corrected by the book reader, magnified pages break in unexpected places.

Also, the existing format causes a constant struggle between compression efficiency and battery life on the Librie. The file format only allows compression at the text string level, which often means paragraph by paragraph level compression. This results in low compression efficiency for the eBook. But if one sacrifices page layout and uses large runs of text (and depends upon the Librie to paginate the text onto the display) to gain compression efficiency the battery life is negatively impacted to a serious extent.

Will the new Sony Reader and BBeB format support extensions to address these two issues?

Will the new Sony Reader have a more durable case? My existing Librie has ceased to function at 15 months as the pearlescent plastic has chipped out to the point that the main circuit board has failed (case became too flexible.)

Will the new Sony Reader support the enhanced charger specification supported by Motorola and Blackberry that allows supplying up to 1.5A of power through the USB cable? Since the battery is not swappable, the ability to rapidly recharge it would be a key feature.

Will the Sony Reader be more supportive of the monochromatic fast redraw mode? I've tried many times to use this feature on the Librie but found it nearly impossible to stay in this mode since so many areas in the Librie forced me back into 4 level mode in order to display content.

Will the Sony Reader have an accelerometer to allow flipping the device to turn pages? This would be a huge improvement in the ergonomics of page turning since there would no longer be any requirement to hold the unit in any particular way to allow users to press buttons.

So far Sony has only announced an economic incentive of 20% discount off list for content. What further incentives is Sony planning on introducing to offset the expense of the Reader device? A user would need to purchase roughly 130 titles with a list price of $15 in order to "break even" on the Reader expense at the 20% discount. Doesn't Sony Marketing see this as an issue for uptake of this product into the market?

Will the Sony Reader come with some form of strategy games or will these be offered via the Connect store at a later date? The eInk panel won't support action games but solitare/Go/Backgammon/Checkers/Chess/Risk et al would work quite well.

Will the Sony Reader continue to use the reset button of the Librie or will it employ the slide-and-hoid-the-power-switch-for-five-seconds most Notebooks utilize? I can't recount the number of times my Librie was useless because it froze and no piece of steel small enough to fit in the reset hole left me with out its services. Whereas in all cases (until it finally died) it would have responded to holding the power switch and been back up and running.

Will the Sony Reader support a PIN or some other means of securing confidential content on a per-title basis? I've used my Librie to carry around sensitive material but I've always needed to carefully monitor the location of the Librie during periods where it held such content. It would be very useful if the device could treat sensitive material with a PIN and auto-time out visibility of said content e.g. if forgotten screen would blank.

Will the Sony Reader BBeB format support a true italic font (rather than simply a slanted version of the existing font) in response to the embedded italic command?

Will the Sony Reader have support for GIS data? It would be very nice if the Sony Reader had a GIS viewer so maps could be loaded into it. Extra credit if the GIS viewer allowed Map data to be overlaid with GIS sets via standard XML files.

Will the Sony Reader have support for tabular data? It would be very nice if the Sony Reader had a tabular data viewer so XLS/CSV/TSV data could be loaded and viewed. In a meeting not everyone can hand you an SD card with a PDF of the data...

07-31-2006, 02:47 PM	#21
scotty1024 Banned Posts: 1,300 Karma: 1479 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Peoples Republic of Washington Device: Reader / iPhone / Librie / Kindle	The existing BBeBook format does not support the font magnifier feature very well. The pages in a BBeBook need to be paginated in the file but when the font magnifier is used the pagination is not corrected by the book reader, magnified pages break in unexpected places. Also, the existing format causes a constant struggle between compression efficiency and battery life on the Librie. The file format only allows compression at the text string level, which often means paragraph by paragraph level compression. This results in low compression efficiency for the eBook. But if one sacrifices page layout and uses large runs of text (and depends upon the Librie to paginate the text onto the display) to gain compression efficiency the battery life is negatively impacted to a serious extent. Will the new Sony Reader and BBeB format support extensions to address these two issues? Will the new Sony Reader have a more durable case? My existing Librie has ceased to function at 15 months as the pearlescent plastic has chipped out to the point that the main circuit board has failed (case became too flexible.) Will the new Sony Reader support the enhanced charger specification supported by Motorola and Blackberry that allows supplying up to 1.5A of power through the USB cable? Since the battery is not swappable, the ability to rapidly recharge it would be a key feature. Will the Sony Reader be more supportive of the monochromatic fast redraw mode? I've tried many times to use this feature on the Librie but found it nearly impossible to stay in this mode since so many areas in the Librie forced me back into 4 level mode in order to display content. Will the Sony Reader have an accelerometer to allow flipping the device to turn pages? This would be a huge improvement in the ergonomics of page turning since there would no longer be any requirement to hold the unit in any particular way to allow users to press buttons. So far Sony has only announced an economic incentive of 20% discount off list for content. What further incentives is Sony planning on introducing to offset the expense of the Reader device? A user would need to purchase roughly 130 titles with a list price of $15 in order to "break even" on the Reader expense at the 20% discount. Doesn't Sony Marketing see this as an issue for uptake of this product into the market? Will the Sony Reader come with some form of strategy games or will these be offered via the Connect store at a later date? The eInk panel won't support action games but solitare/Go/Backgammon/Checkers/Chess/Risk et al would work quite well. Will the Sony Reader continue to use the reset button of the Librie or will it employ the slide-and-hoid-the-power-switch-for-five-seconds most Notebooks utilize? I can't recount the number of times my Librie was useless because it froze and no piece of steel small enough to fit in the reset hole left me with out its services. Whereas in all cases (until it finally died) it would have responded to holding the power switch and been back up and running. Will the Sony Reader support a PIN or some other means of securing confidential content on a per-title basis? I've used my Librie to carry around sensitive material but I've always needed to carefully monitor the location of the Librie during periods where it held such content. It would be very useful if the device could treat sensitive material with a PIN and auto-time out visibility of said content e.g. if forgotten screen would blank. Will the Sony Reader BBeB format support a true italic font (rather than simply a slanted version of the existing font) in response to the embedded italic command? Will the Sony Reader have support for GIS data? It would be very nice if the Sony Reader had a GIS viewer so maps could be loaded into it. Extra credit if the GIS viewer allowed Map data to be overlaid with GIS sets via standard XML files. Will the Sony Reader have support for tabular data? It would be very nice if the Sony Reader had a tabular data viewer so XLS/CSV/TSV data could be loaded and viewed. In a meeting not everyone can hand you an SD card with a PDF of the data...