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Originally Posted by boswd
i would say at the snails pace that the eink techonlogy is moving, I think it came down to a "we have to do something now".
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Considering that the Kindle 3 is allegedly flying off the shelves, I don't think that's B&N's motivation here.
The more likely scenario is that they believe they're getting slaughtered by the iPad and the Kindle, and are attempting to combine some of the advantages of the two products. They also know their physical stores will be a source of losses rather than profits some time in the next few years. On some counts it's positive (color, animations small, light-weight, focused) on others, negative (more expensive and consumes far more power than eInk).
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Originally Posted by boswd
the masses, and trust me we on this forum are not it, want color, want touchscreen, what fun interactive technology.
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That's nice, but it's not really relevant here, because the "masses" simply don't buy a lot of books.
If you purchase 2 books a year, there is almost no way you're going to drop $250 on an ebook reader; the very concept won't make sense to you.
The people who will want, and will benefit from, a dedicated device are the more frequent book buyers/readers. And for them, spending an extra $100 on a device does mean $100 less spent on ebooks.
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Originally Posted by boswd
e-ink is moving like a glacier. Think about it.
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I hate to break it to you, but LCD's aren't exactly moving forward by leaps and bounds either.
LCD is a mature technology, and we aren't likely to see any significant improvements any time soon. The allegedly super-fantastic alternatives like Mirasol and Pixel Qi are stuck issuing press releases rather than shipping real product.
Plus, you're selling eInk a bit short. In the past few years, eInk devices dramatically improved contrast, got tremendous extensions in battery life, faster page refreshes and price drops. It may not be color, but the devices have improved quite a bit in the last few years.