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Old 10-31-2009, 02:39 AM   #1
chinesealbumart
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Singapore
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Creative Technology joins the Ebook Market

Creative joins the rank ? An article from Singapore's newspaper.

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Creative's next chapter: e-book reader market

Singapore's audio devices maker Creative Technology is also moving into the red-hot electronic book reader market.

A working prototype - for now, named as MediaBook - is ready and will go on trial soon.

The final version will likely have a touchscreen, a text-to-speech function and an SD memory card slot. The e-book reader will also probably be Internet-enabled for a multimedia experience. It will run on Creative's 'Zii Technology' platform, chip and operating system.

As compared to the Kindle or Sony ebook reader, Creative plans to draw on the resources of at least 10 international and local publishers it is now holding talks with. They hoped to provide fiction, newspapers, magazines and educational materials such as textbooks.

It is expected that half the content will be international and the other half, local Singapore contents. They could tie up with publishers to offer subscription-based content.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which publishes 17 newspapers and more than 100 magazines in the island, could be among the local content providers.

Creative is planning a few models of its e-book reader, from a base, text-only model for children to a higher-end one with capabilities to display text and pictures.

It hopes to hawk the e-book reader in Singapore first, and then offer it in China and elsewhere in the region, as well as in the United States, where it has a foothold through its SoundBlaster audio cards.

Creative's project got a leg-up when Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) named it as a partner of its 'FutureBooks' initiative, which aims to grow technology for next-generation books. This means Creative will get MDA's support in funding and introductions to potential content producers.

Whether Creative succeeds hinges on its ties with big publishers, its pricing structure and its range of content. It also depends on what other services its e-book reader can offer. Creative is not new to entering a market dominated by big players.

Last edited by chinesealbumart; 11-01-2009 at 03:03 AM.
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