Asus to launch cheap liseuse this year

[dpierron]

So much ado about nothing... - thanks Billy S.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is a news post. It should be using proper words for the topic. Asus does not call it a liseuse. So please don't call it such when reporting it. It should be called what Asus calls it.

This WAS a news post. On the second post it got hijacked and turned into a ***** session. Now it rightfully deserves to be moved to the lounge with a silly tag on it; or better yet, closed.

Way to go astra!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wodin

This WAS a news post. On the second post it got hijacked and turned into a ***** session. Now it rightfully deserves to be moved to the lounge with a silly tag on it; or better yet, closed.

Way to go astra!

If you are going to report on a product, give it the name of the product. If a moderator was to delete these off-topic posts and fix the first post so it's correct, then the thread can move on as it's supposed to. As it is, it's incorrect as that's not the name of the product.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I know quite a lot of people who come to Taiwan and try to make locals feel inferior because they don't speak English. In fact, I had some Canadian acquaintances that had lived here for years and still yelled at Taiwanese whenever the Taiwanese couldn't speak English.

Well, that's horrifically rude. I guess it is just me, but, when I've had international dealings, I've always tried to go with the language of the majority for that region.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by grimo1re

Asus plans to join the ebook reader fray with a smarter and cheaper device called the Eee Reader. Asus will launch the device before the end of this year, The Sunday Times writes citing a spokesperson for Asus in the UK. The company may even launch multiple devices. The Asus liseuse will open like a book and feature a touchscreen. Pages could be flipped from one screen to the next, or one screen could be used as an on-screen keypad. The ebook reader would have full colour screens, may also feature speakers, a webcam and and a microphone for services such as Skype. Asus is reportedly aiming for a price of GBP 100.

OK - in an attempt to pull this thread back to it's real purpose.

In my view, if this could be marketed at sub-£100 I would be very interested in seeing it. Particularly if it had all the functionality suggested. Having said that, I doubt that a dual-screen, full colour e-reader with a webcam, microphone and, presumably, wi-fi could be that price (at least now).

I'm also a bit dubious about the dual screen - if it works like a book, then you can only read one screen at a time and so one of the screens is effectively redundant at any given time - seems odd?

[frozennorth]

I think it would be great if you could use it with 2 files (1 on each side) at the same time.

[EricGagne]

First let me apologize to everyone for taking the topic on a side track but being a french speaking person from Canada I feel these reactions shouldn't be left ignored. Everybody should feel free to post in any language as long as they speak it well enough to be understood. I felt concerned by this because it would mean that I can only post in French unless my english is perfect which is asking me more than what's asked from many english people whose english is worst than mine.

But still, I offer an apology for hijacking the thread. Now back to topic.

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I'm also a bit dubious about the dual screen - if it works like a book, then you can only read one screen at a time and so one of the screens is effectively redundant at any given time - seems odd?

It's a strange coincidence but as I'm waiting for my first ebook reader (used my PDA so far) I was thinking last night how cool it would be if there was one with two screens that would allow me to hold it like a real book and read pages alternating from left to right like a real book. If the pages are slow to load, my understanding is that with Vizplex we're still talking between 740ms and 1s, having a dual screen would non-stop reading.

For some it could be useful to have the library on one screen and the texts on the other one, that wouldd also be nice when reading downloaded rss feeds. You could have the feeds index on a screen and the news on the other one which would make navigating the news a lot easier.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by EricGagne

First let me apologize to everyone for taking the topic on a side track but being a french speaking person from Canada I feel these reactions shouldn't be left ignored. Everybody should feel free to post in any language as long as they speak it well enough to be understood. I felt concerned by this because it would mean that I can only post in French unless my english is perfect which is asking me more than what's asked from many english people whose english is worst than mine.

But still, I offer an apology for hijacking the thread. Now back to topic.

please don't worry about it, Eric. liseuse is more and more commonly used on this forum, and generally we are very glad to have such a diverse membership, even though not everyone speaks perfect english.

It's a strange coincidence but as I'm waiting for my first ebook reader (used my PDA so far) I was thinking last night how cool it would be if there was one with two screens that would allow me to hold it like a real book and read pages alternating from left to right like a real book. If the pages are slow to load, my understanding is that with Vizplex we're still talking between 740ms and 1s, having a dual screen would non-stop reading.

For some it could be useful to have the library on one screen and the texts on the other one, that wouldd also be nice when reading downloaded rss feeds. You could have the feeds index on a screen and the news on the other one which would make navigating the news a lot easier.

interestingly, i recently saw this video which speculates about "possible" and "probable" ways technology for digital books could evolve in the very near future, and show some very interesting dual-screen uses. warning to astra, the dialogue of the video is all in french.



thanks to moejoe and previously grimo1re for posting it here !

[Hellmark]

Some said this was shown off at CES. Anyone here get to see it then?

Originally Posted by EricGagne

First let me apologize to everyone for taking the topic on a side track but being a french speaking person from Canada I feel these reactions shouldn't be left ignored. Everybody should feel free to post in any language as long as they speak it well enough to be understood. I felt concerned by this because it would mean that I can only post in French unless my english is perfect which is asking me more than what's asked from many english people whose english is worst than mine.

But still, I offer an apology for hijacking the thread. Now back to topic.

Dude, you're fine. You can easily be understood by anyone who speaks English, and you're making the attempt to speak so the highest number of people can understand you. You seem to speak it better than some people I know where English is their native, and only, language. No one is asking you to speak perfect english.

[EricGagne]

The clip is very cool, I love the "iPhone" way of moving things around or zooming. The part where they take the printed copy and transfer it to their ebook reader to purchase them is not so cool however. I hope that by the time ebook readers get that advanced it's gonna be a long time since we last cut trees to print books.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by EricGagne

The clip is very cool, I love the "iPhone" way of moving things around or zooming. The part where they take the printed copy and transfer it to their ebook reader to purchase them is not so cool however. I hope that by the time ebook readers get that advanced it's gonna be a long time since we last cut trees to print books.

i agree, there are a lot of really interesting functions demonstrated in this video.

as for the paper books... i think ebooks and paper books will continue to be complementary, and i don't expect (nor wish) for paper books to disappear completely ; some books, like the oversized, full-colour beautiful book of art reproductions in the video, are just better suited for viewing on paper rather than a screen, especially as for now at least screens are mostly small and not very high definition. however, i wouldn't mind seeing cheap pocket paperbacks become much less common, being mostly if not completely replaced by ebooks. some forms of paper books i do think will become obsolete. i don't expect good quality art books to disappear though, at least not before we have devices which can project fully-convincing 3d hologramme reproductions, possibly via a pair of glasses.

[evenstr]

I thought the idea of the "scanning" for new books to be very interesting. It would still preserve that whole idea of "discovering" something among shelves of books that people (myself included) fear from going completely to ebooks. It could also potentially solve the problem of running out of books. If the store kept a display copy, then anyone with a device could just scan for it. I would be very, very intrigued by the idea of technology developing to the point shown in this video.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by evenstr

I thought the idea of the "scanning" for new books to be very interesting. It would still preserve that whole idea of "discovering" something among shelves of books that people (myself included) fear from going completely to ebooks. It could also potentially solve the problem of running out of books. If the store kept a display copy, then anyone with a device could just scan for it. I would be very, very intrigued by the idea of technology developing to the point shown in this video.

i'd love to be able to do that too ; go to a bookstore, browse through the shelves, talk to the bookstore owner, and download whatever titles i'm interested in directly there. they could even set up accounts so that if there's a line, you don't have to wait to pay, you can just authorise the transaction online. and, if most of the paper books are display copies, they could have a lot more unique titles to discover, and if they don't have a paper copy of the one you want... it's not really a problem (no more waiting 3 weeks for the order). i think the technology is ready or almost ready for us to almost everything in the video ; we *could* (if all goes well) see it begin to happen really soon.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i'd love to be able to do that too ; go to a bookstore, browse through the shelves, talk to the bookstore owner, and download whatever titles i'm interested in directly there. they could even set up accounts so that if there's a line, you don't have to wait to pay, you can just authorise the transaction online. and, if most of the paper books are display copies, they could have a lot more unique titles to discover, and if they don't have a paper copy of the one you want... it's not really a problem (no more waiting 3 weeks for the order). i think the technology is ready or almost ready for us to almost everything in the video ; we *could* (if all goes well) see it begin to happen really soon.

But surely if you had bookstores to go into to buy e-books, then e-books wouldn't be much cheaper because of the lower vendor costs .....errrrm, oh yeah, sorry!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

But surely if you had bookstores to go into to buy e-books, then e-books wouldn't be much cheaper because of the lower vendor costs .....errrrm, oh yeah, sorry!

i don't see it as obligatory, just an alternate possibility. and since the bookstores wouldn't exist *solely* to sell ebooks (what would be the point of that ?) they wouldn't need to inflate their cut artificially (all ebook sellers do get a cut of the price you pay, that wouldn't change). and if they're competing with online shops it wouldn't be in their interest to, either. of course, i might not mind paying a slightly higher price for a good book shopping experience, if there were value added. it's why i when i buy paperbooks i prefer to shop in my small neighborhood bookshops rather than huge discount chains or online (unless i can't find the book i want in the local shop...).