Astak Mentor eBook readers with WiFi and Touchscreen (read-only)

[Indigo Ink]

Originally Posted by Robertb

Dear Gaby and all:


Yes, everybody thinks the 9.7 inch is a dream machine. BUT... it is not so simple either. A glass screen can crack if you twist it too much. That is what we found with the first attempt. It works but is not rugged enough. So, now we are looking at a Flexi screen that will alleviate the problem. This is the first time anybody really tried to go this big and we expected some techncial problems at first. The best panel makers in the world are working on this and will find a great solution!!


Robertb

Wow a flexi screen

Thanks robertb - you really seem to be building a dream machine

And then you ask us to be patient

Our best wishes for you project

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by Rosethorn1403

Wow Robertb, the astak has got me completely sold!

I have a few general queries for you,

a) I am Australian, as as of yet we have been ignored by the ereader market, the only one available is the iliad, which is ridiculously expensive.. So, will there be easy shipping/maintenance available to us way down under? In other words, will we have to ship our devices overseas to have them fixed?

b) Am i correct in understanding the difference between the mentor and the litebook is that one uses mobipocket and nothing else, and the other will use other sellers formats etc for example fictionwise. Will there be any significant price difference? And will I be able to hopefully buy one of these wonderful sounding ereaders before christmas?

and lastly

c) Will we be able to buy it eventually with a case or protector etc for travel? most ereaders come with a leather cover or carry case, and will chargers come in multiple regions? eg a european charger is only of use if i lug an adaptor around with me.

Thanks for keeping us all updated!

Dear Aussie (meaning only respect and friendliness by using this title):

One of the strangest things I have noted is that the emails I get from Australia are incredible. As you know, we have partners in Germany and in Taiwan. We have been waiting for an answer to WHO amongst us can take care of Australia. My personal feeling is the market down under is huge and friendly.

I am happy to report that Astak HAS been approved by the partners to work with Australia. That helps a bit as at least we know we have the authority. BUT, I am perplexed as to HOW to go about it.

I WANT to be of service. I am writing often to the local Australia online forum about eBooks and readers and trying to get out info. All I know is that we WILL be able to sell, one Mentor/LiteBook at a time.thru our website: www.astakshop.com WHEN each size releases. At least you CAN buy that way but postage via UPS is another obsticle.

Yes, and I hate it, but at present repairs would have to be sent back to Astak in the USA. I agree this stinks but I need working alternatives. Optimally, I would like an authorized repair facility in Australia. Australia warrants it! But I don't know how to begin and am open to suggestions!! They have to be large names and readily known repair facilities... no "fly-by-night" please!

robertb

What I do NOT have is a legitimate distributor in Australia!! If you or any other Australians know of a few... please have them get in touch pronto with me!

Astak has a huge 54 foot booth at CES (Consumer Electronics Show 2009) in early January at THe Sands Expo Center to court distributors and retail chain buyers. That is great... but it is six months off. I invite ANY Australian distributors NOT to wait and get in touch with me now. Reply via this forum and I will return you my personal email address. HELP!!!

Alright... on to cases. We know the factory will supposedly ship with a rather rudimentary but functional case. I have written ICella (a case manufacturer) but have not heard back. We HOPE to offer some nice leather cases as an upgrade. ANY of you Case Manufacturers out there... please get in touch NOW!!

Yes, I am frankly aware that there is a liklihood that IF we do not act now there will be few choices of cases until the Mentor/Litebook is a huge success. Yes, we will see them too at CES.

There should be no price difference (as we think now) between the LiteBook with MobiPocket and the Mentor with eReader and maybe Adobe Digital Editions (Adobe's choice).The very latest I have is 5 inch in late July, 6 inch in mid-September, and 9.7 inch in late October. We are trying to nail all of this down right now!

[alanastoz]

Dear RobertB,
I just wanted to thank you for taking the time out from your understandibly busy schedule to give us all the information that we are choming a the bit for. A slide in/out light sounds great and could be powered with the unit to keep the weight down? No-one else has allowed us to have the input to develop an ebook reader like Mentor has offered and understand that we are all very grateful to have our hopes/dreams/worries adressed.
BTW are you single? Any man that listens to so many women sounds to good to be true! Want a date?
Cheers, Gaby

[alanastoz]

Sorry about the spelling guys. Overtired!

[Siren]

Dear RobertB,
I have to say that I love the idea of integrating a light that you can turn on and off. When I am outside or in a well lighted room, I never have problems, but when in dim light, at night or even on the road is extremely difficult. Those long clip booklights never work well. Just last week I bought a new booklight that uses a clamp like clip which is not good, but better; problem is though, it does not light well. The Mentor is turning into something I am looking forward to more than any other electronic device I have ever owned.

In all honesty, the Mentor is looks like it is coming along quite well (just hoping to have a 9.7" by December, but I get the feeling i'll have to wait a bit longer. I am plenty willing for that wait though), but what impresses me more than the Mentor itself is the amount of community interaction in the design. I am getting the feeling that Astak may end up giving American Express a run for their money in customer service.

[HPG]

I'm sure that this question will demonstrate how little I know about how DRM works, but it's been nagging away at me, so here goes: How does one unlock a DRM-protected book bought from Fictionwise/ereader on a device such as one of the Mentors without a text entry system such as a keyboard?

[Jen]

Hi RobertB,
I emailed you before I found the forum to ask about the sales to Australia. I think the reason you are getting lots of queries from Aus is that many of the devices are not availble and thos that are are very expensive. The Kindle is not sold by Amazon as the mobile service isn't supported by the phone system, the Illiad is sold by one of the bookstores but it cost a heap ($AU899, about $US950) and Sony hasn't distributed their reader here either.

I don't know anything about distributors but I do hope you find one soon.

As for postage, most of us are willing to pay it as at the moment books and other things are often 125%-->250% of the US Price after shipping when bought in retail stores.

Jen

[alanastoz]

Originally Posted by HPG

I'm sure that this question will demonstrate how little I know about how DRM works, but it's been nagging away at me, so here goes: How does one unlock a DRM-protected book bought from Fictionwise/ereader on a device such as one of the Mentors without a text entry system such as a keyboard?

Hi HPG, When you log into an ebook store and before you download any books for the first time the bookstore asks you for an identification number that is unique to your particular reader. With Mobipocket this is called the PID number and can be accessed quite easily from within the program. This number is then stored in your online bookstore account. This number unlocks the DRM when you open it in Mobipocket on your unit. It recognises that your unit is the same unit number that purchased the book and allows you to open the ebook. The ebook can only be opened by your unit.
Most bookstores allow you to have 4-5 PID's registered at any one time so you can share them with your favorite people.
This of course only applies to those books that are DRM'd. A lot are not and can be opened by any reader with the correct software.
Does this clear things up for you or am i missing anything?
Cheers, Gaby

[HPG]

Originally Posted by alanastoz

Hi HPG, When you log into an ebook store and before you download any books for the first time the bookstore asks you for an identification number that is unique to your particular reader. With Mobipocket this is called the PID number and can be accessed quite easily from within the program. ... Does this clear things up for you or am i missing anything?
Cheers, Gaby

Thanks, Gaby, but -- and, again, please remember that I'm a beginner here -- isn't that the Mobipocket approach? Unless I'm misremembering, doesn't the eReader format require you, when you first open a DRMed book on your device, to enter your credit card number to authenticate it?

Cheers
Hugh

[Jack B Nimble]

Originally Posted by HPG

Thanks, Gaby, but -- and, again, please remember that I'm a beginner here -- isn't that the Mobipocket approach? Unless I'm misremembering, doesn't the eReader format require you, when you first open a DRMed book on your device, to enter your credit card number to authenticate it?

You are correct. One of the reasons some people prefer eReader to some of the others is that there is no limit to the number of devices you can use. The flip side is that you must unlock on each individual device. This can be cumbersome, but it should only be necessary the first time you open your book. As for how, I can see something like the way we used to put our initials in for a high score on the old arcade games when we only had a joystick and one button. Again cumbersome, especially with the slow eInk refresh, but doable.

There may be alternatives. I could see being able to setup a text file (encrypted, maybe?) with the necessary information on your computer, transferring it to the Mentor along with the ebook, and having the Mentor securely delete the file once you finish unlocking your books. I could also see where that might be unsettling to some people.

Jack

[ddimick]

Originally Posted by Robertb

Alright... on to cases. We know the factory will supposedly ship with a rather rudimentary but functional case. I have written ICella (a case manufacturer) but have not heard back. We HOPE to offer some nice leather cases as an upgrade. ANY of you Case Manufacturers out there... please get in touch NOW!!

Yes, I am frankly aware that there is a liklihood that IF we do not act now there will be few choices of cases until the Mentor/Litebook is a huge success. Yes, we will see them too at CES.

Robert, thanks for the updates. I check this thread daily just to see if you've posted the latest!

I'd really love to see Astak collaborate with Vaja (http://www.vajacases.com). Vaja is well known for making premium, high-quality leather cases for all sorts of gadgets. If you shipped a rudimentary case with the product, and Vaja had a premium one available, it would be the best of both worlds. You get to keep the price down, but we're still able to get a really nice case if we want to spend the extra money.

[alanastoz]

Originally Posted by HPG

Thanks, Gaby, but -- and, again, please remember that I'm a beginner here -- isn't that the Mobipocket approach? Unless I'm misremembering, doesn't the eReader format require you, when you first open a DRMed book on your device, to enter your credit card number to authenticate it?

Cheers
Hugh

Hi hugh, Just to confuse things EVEN more i found this on another forum and thank you Bob Russell, i have copied it over

I've got some eReader ebooks, and I think this is the idea...

* When you purchase the ebook, you supply a credit card number.
* That CC# is required to unlock a book file and read it.
* When you enter the CC#, it is converted into a hash value that is stored on the device. Any ebook purchased with that CC# is now available without re-entering. This means, for example, you could "loan" the book to someone by entering the CC# for them on their device. They never know your # and only the hash value is stored, so no one can reverse engineer the CC#.
* Additionally, you can re-download eBooks you have purchased from their online store. (Yes, that depends on them still being in business and supporting that service, so it's probabaly not permanent.)

My main problems with this DRM are:
1) I have to keep track of the CC#s used to buy each book.
In fact, you have to pick the right CC# for the right book, so if you have multiple books and multiple CC#s it can take a lot of number grafitti. But thankfully, once entered, it's good for all applicable books.
2) It's still a DRM, which means that as technology changes (or I change technology), the book is no longer really readable unless eReader decides to support it.

But of all the DRM schemes I've seen so far, I think this is the best compromise. It prevents widespread copying, and it also allows some reasonable flexibility to the user.

I don't think anyone has solved the ""ownership issue" -- your use of the book is dependent on support of a particular technology. Until that gets solved, I don't think eBooks will do well, except maybe novels and things that you read once and throw away. No one in their right mind will spend a lot of money on reference sets unless they are willing to consider them disposable.

[soilwork]

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/06...ossible-in-08/
I just found a relevant article from Teleread. It seems that the price is going to be increased from the estimates after all. Even though I am not really surprised, it is bit disappointing that the price of 9.7 inch reader will be around $588. Even though I am still planning to buy it, higher-than-expected price can reduce the potential market size, I believe.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by soilwork

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/06...ossible-in-08/
I just found a relevant article from Teleread. It seems that the price is going to be increased from the estimates after all. Even though I am not really surprised, it is bit disappointing that the price of 9.7 inch reader will be around $588. Even though I am still planning to buy it, higher-than-expected price can reduce the potential market size, I believe.

And what's your point? The original price was way too aggressive as you already acknowledged and the product design has changed from glass to flex technology. Glass is very fragile on this size device and changing to flex will make it more durable.

Dale

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

And what's your point? The original price was way too aggressive as you already acknowledged and the product design has changed from glass to flex technology. Glass is very fragile on this size device and changing to flex will make it more durable.
Dale

I am simply pointing out the facts for us to adjust the expectation. Don't get me wrong since I will pick one up as soon as it is available at the current price. Even at the revised price, it seems like a better alternative than Iliad for me. However, I think it is not a good idea to promise too attractive price and take it away. Of course, we know that they have a valid reason to increase the price, though.