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So many questions to ask! It's so exciting to think about this coming on the market soon!
> What is the target market for the Sony Reader, and why is this device going to be desired by consumers?
> Will the platform and api be open for other developers to write different reader software?
> What led to the decision to support SD cards rather than creating a "memory stick only" device? In the past, Sony has been pretty dogmatic about forcing use of their proprietary media.
> Background activity and power consumption on devices can be significant so page turns doesn't seem to be the best real life estimate of battery life. Approximately, what sort of real-life battery life should be expected in terms of hours spent reading?
> How long does it take to recharge the battery?
> What will come "in the box" with it?
> What formats will be supported natively and what formats will require conversion? What would be the natural steps to take a text or html or pdf document and make it "pleasant" on the reader? (Not perfect layout, but at least reasonable text flow and good margins and nice reading font.)
> What sorts of purchase points will there be? Borders has been publicized as one major reseller. Will they be part of the rollout?
> When can we buy on in the US?!!! Elsewhere?
> There had been previous estimates of an earlier release date... what are the remaining hurdles to make it available? What's the hold up?
> What kind of DRM will the Sony store use, and can we change devices in the future and still read the purchased material? It doesn't seem that very many ebook sellers are here very long despite high hopes. Are there any guarantees to consumers about the books being some way accessible or convertible if the format becomes unsupported? (Sony has pretty much abandoned previous customers in the case of Clie, for example. Seems like the company just turned and ran and never looked back. It's a little frightening to think the same thing might happen for the Sony Reader after buying a boatload of books.)
> What are some of the challenges in adding content to the Connect store? Is it mostly a matter of contract negotiations, or is it an expensive and difficult technical proposition to prepare a book for the Sony Reader?
> The page turn buttons seem backwards.. at least in comparison to what we are used to with a pda. Is it possible to change the settings and reverse the direction, so that the lower button moves to the next page and the upper button moves back a page?
> Is the battery user-replaceable?
> How do bookmarks work? For text documents are there any thoughts of making synchronization available with any Windows ebook readers or Palm/PocketPC readers so the book can be read on multiple platforms at the same time without having to search for you place over and over?
> Does the device work as a USB host so USB storage devices can be attached?
> How long does it take to boot up when turned on, or turn a page or find text or load a book?
> Can it be reset if the device hangs? How?
> Can pages be turned remotely, say with a standard foot pedal switch? (That would allow it to be a sheet music reader for musicians!)
> Can any public RSS feed be read, or just certain formats? How about Atom feeds, RSS2, etc? Or is it only feeds from a Sony provided list of prepared feeds?
> What sort of tradeoffs were made in the design of this product? These things are always hard to resolve because you want to include everything nice, but it's just not practical. Can you give us an idea of some of the thinking that went into making it turn out the way it did?
> Any stories you can share about decisions that were made, or human interest stories about the team members while the development work was being done?
> Where does the team exist? One building? Distributed? How many people work on it? Any team members already at work on designing a new and improved model that we can upgrade to in the future!?
Thanks so much for considering our questions. We are very hungry for more info about it!
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