11:15 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I posted the photos of the prototype PB901 over here. I decided to post the rest and give a brief update on the status of the Pocketbook 302. The projected release date is March with a retail of $340.

PB302

• 6" E-ink screen
• 16 level gray scale
• touchscreen
• accelerometer
• USB Host (no, that is not a typo)
• Wifi
• Bluetooth
• SDHC card slot
• FBReader
• Additional software: RSS feed reader, Calendar, Notes, Sudoku

If the 302 follows the design philosophy of the 360, then installing new apps shouldn't be that hard. The 360 already has a new version of FBReader that makes use of the 360's accelerometer.

09:59 PM by LDBoblo in E-Book General | News

I was asked to post a quick summary for laypeople, but please feel free to ask about other related technologies or companies, since there's more out there than just these three, and EPDs are a big market being approached from a few angles.

The term E-Ink has become very much genericised for use in describing virtually all e-paper display technologies. This is somewhat erroneous, as there are numerous e-paper technologies that are being developed, and will, with little doubt, become serious competitors with the E-Ink name as a dominant basis for future e-paper devices. Without getting into technical discussion, here's a beginner's guide to some of the big technologies around.

EPD
First, let's properly name E-Ink's product. It is commonly referred to as an EPD, or electrophoretic display. It is what is used in the Sony Readers, the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes and Noble Nook, and most other ebook reading devices. Currently, it's by far the most popular e-paper technology being used. In addition to E-Ink (which was acquired by PVI, a large display manufacturer), many other companies have been developing EPDs. Key innovations being sought after now are color (which at first was visually mediocre and very slow with EPDs) and flexible backplanes to replace the much more fragile traditional glass ones.

EWD
An up-and-coming e-paper technology is called EWD, or electrowetting display. It is being developed by a few companies, the most public of them being Liquavista. Their technology is also low-power, while also being able to produce video-rate speeds and higher white reflectance and contrast than EPDs are currently capable of. Their first product, LiquavistaBright, has been around a while but has not entered the ebook reader market (2010 may well change that). A successor to it is already being developed and is demonstrated at CES in January 2010, called LiquavistaColor.

IMOD
Qualcomm's Mirasol displays use a technology called IMOD (interferometric modulation) that, according to their marketing, is a form of biomimicry inspired by butterflies. They too are an actively-marketed e-paper developer, and expect to see usage in devices like ebook readers before the end of 2010. Their product, while being fundamentally different from both EWD and EPD, is capable of producing color video with relatively minimal power consumption.

When any apparent "ebook reader" display is announced, demonstrated, or promoted, many people ask if it's "e-ink". To address this without favouring E-Ink as a company:

• They all have excellent power consumption with fixed images (the exception being Liquavista, which is not a true bistable solution but what they call a quasi-stable one)
• They are all reflective displays ("less straining" for the people who find that backlighting hurts their eyes)

So in those senses, they are all e-paper. Those consumers who enjoy the EPD screens on their current ebook readers have nothing to fear from these emerging e-paper products, and in fact should be enthusiastic that these new technologies will allow greater functionality and performance, as well as offering competition that improves not only innovation, but also market pricing.

Hope that is helpful!

02:28 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Not all the ereader action was at CES. Asus, the Taiwanese manufacturer that pioneered the netbook concept, has given InGear exclusive details of its DR-570 reader, to be released by the end of the year. Asus says it has developed a 6in, high-brightness, OLED colour screen that should run for a whopping 122 hours on one battery charge — and that’s not just when displaying text but under real-world conditions, such as running Flash video over its built-in wi-fi or 3G. If that claim stands up, it would make this game-changing device nearly as energy-efficient as today’s monochrome readers.

from:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle6989540.ece

09:55 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

As you probably know, Samsung announced a line of ebook readers at CES last week. I already reported on the press conference, and I was planning to write about my impressions of the liseuses themselves. But the Samsung booth was both crowded and noisy (good for them!). I only feel comfortable giving an opinion for the E100 (the 9.7" e-reader).

I was not impressed with the build quality of the E100; it felt like it would be easy to warp it and break the screen. I'm also not impressed with its abilities (the same as the other Samsung models) or its price ($699). The market for large screen readers is crowded, and an ebook reader needs to do something to set itself apart. The E100 looks pretty, and that's about it.

I've attached all the good photos I took (the lighting conditions were not good). The e-reader with a joystick under the screen is the 5" non-slider model with Wacom touch screen but no Wifi. The liseuse with only 2 buttons under the screen is the slider model with Wifi and Wacom. The keyboard model also has a 6" screen with Wacom, Wifi, and (according to the label on the back) 3G.

I would like to spend some more time with the smaller models. They were nice to hold and looked very pretty. If only they were available in some color other than white.

P.S. There is one interesting footnote that I can add. The 3 smaller models all apear to be using the same firmware, and all think they are the SNE-60k. The SNE models are a line of ebook readers Samsung released on the Korean market. It looks to me like these 4 models were developed by the same team that worked on the SNE e-readers. This is good news for the user because it might mean that the new ereaders will have fewer bugs (I hope).

12:13 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Gajah International is a tech startup out of Singapore.They currently have 4 distributors in: USA, Holland, Russia, and Spain. As you can see from the photos, they have a number of models planned with several different screen technologies: E-ink, LCD, and Sipix (when it is available).

Unfortunately, not all of my photos came out well, so I can't show you all the models. My notes aren't good for much either. I visited the booth on Saturday, so my higher brain functions were shot after 3 days at CES. But I can tell you that Gajah is developing some e-readers with Adobe DE support, and some with Wifi. There are models both with and without touchscreens.

Oh, and the most important detail: they're shipping ereaders right now. I described the ones they have under development, and I have a good feeling that the new models will be released.

10:37 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I missed this announcement in the mad rush that is CES. Better late than never.

from the press release:

Debuting today, Hanvon’s WISEreader eBook readers will be available in five, six, eight and 9.7 inch displays, and come in a wide range of categories. Hanvon’s own electromagnetic touch tablet technology allows users to make annotations directly on the eBook page and save them on the device in clear handwriting and detailed annotations. The WISEreader also includes integrated wireless technology (Wi-Fi and EDGE/GSM) allowing users to download eBooks without having to connect to a PC.

Other details mentioned in the press release include a 95% market share in China, unique touchscreen technology, and a claim to being the second largest ebook reader maker in the world. For more detail you can visit their site at www.hanvon.com.

Hanvon had 4 models on display at CES, and they are planning to bring out 5 more models some time in 2010. All 4 current models have support for Adobe DRM. Two of the 4 can be bought in the USA through Amazon and Fry's, and at least 3 different models are available in Europe (N516, N518, N520, N520).

Hanvon N500

• Display: 5” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Gray levels: 8
• Full keypad QWERTY Key
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 275g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 176.4mm × 124.4mm × 10.2mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: MicroSD card up to 32GB
• Wireless: TD/ GPRS
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 1500mAh

Hanvon N618

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 16
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 260g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 176.6mm × 124.8mm × 10.5mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, HTXT, PDF, HTML, XLS, DOC, JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV,
• WMA
• Power: Li-ion 2350mAh

Hanvon N628

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 8
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 308.3g (without cover)
• Dimensions: 181mm × 137.5 mm × 11.4mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 16GB
• Wireless: TD/EDGE/GPS
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, DOC, MEB, XLS, HTXT, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIF,
• MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 1500mAh

Hanvon N638

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex
• Grey levels: 16
• Full keypad QWERTY Key
• Weight: 266.4g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 203mm × 134 mm × 10.35mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: MicroSD card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 2500mAh

Hanvon N800

• Display: 8” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 16
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 480g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 226.3mm × 163.5 mm × 10.2mm(without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, HTXT, MTXT, HTML, PDF, DOC, CEI, HCEI, PPT, XSL, EPUB, CHM, JPG,
• BMP, PNG, TIF, PPM, JIF, PCX, MP3, WAV, WMA, LRC, AMR
• Power: Li-ion 2200mAh

08:45 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

This is from a week old announcement, but I thought it worth posting:

Local Books resembles popular dining apps like LocalEats or UrbanSpoon—but for book lovers. It shows you local bookstores, libraries and bookish events wherever you are or plan to be.

I've been using beta versions on my trips for months already; it's the ideal travel companion. Even if you know your area well, you're almost certain to find new places. We hope it will be a shot in the arm for physical bookstores and libraries—a new way to see how much bookishness there is around you.

At present Local Books does not show inventory from local bookstores and libraries. But, well, isn't that a good idea?

from:
http://www.librarything.com/blog/201...pplication.php

Get it on iTunes:
http://bit.ly/5Mb4mM

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Gosh we've talked a lot this week. Here's your weekly round up of MobileRead's events.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Notes on a brief conversation with Spring Design
• A visit to the Freescale booth at CES
• RCA Lexi
• On the Liquvista "demos" at CES
• New mainstream device available in Greece!
• Europe's dysfunctional private copying levy to remain (Ars Technica)
• Updated and Corrected: E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy (EFF)
• Tess Gerritsen on ebook readers (mediabistro)
• About the glut of devices on the ebook reader market
• Delyca S600K
• Liquavista: Threat to E-Ink?
• Wattpad closes first round of funding
• Digilife 6" E-Book
• Daza ebook readers
• Sharp PC-Z1 Netwalker Review (from L'Ombre de l'Olivier)
• How Not To Negotiate for Digital Rights (Scholarly Kitchen)
• iRex DR800 to be introduced in Europe soon
• Update released for Adobe Acrobat & Reader
• Mark your calendar: O'Reilly TOC Conference 22-24 February
• Walt Mossberg reviews the Sony Daily Edition
• JISC digitised 100k pages from 19th century newspapers
• Kindle-ADA lawsuits settled
• The neatest thing I saw at CES: PVI's flexible E-ink screen
• Quirk Books to release Tolstoy's "Android Karenina"
• South Korea plans to adopt digital textbooks next year
• Interview: Matt Mason on piracy as a business model (Spark)
• Sony adds 46 comics to the Digital Comic Store
• World largest 19" flexible ePaper from LG Display
• NetLibrary adds support for Sony Readers, Nook, Cool-ER
• Video: Pocketbook 901 at CES 2010
• Amazon expands language support in Kindle Store
• Public Service Announcement: Cherrypal is a SCAM
• Mark your calendar: Book Blogger Convention on 28 May
• Indianapolis Public Schools Replace Textbooks with Digital Content (THE Journal)
• Digitization projects - updates

E-Book Devices - iRex Digital Reader

• DR1000 firmware update with ADE rescheduled to end of Q1/2010

E-Book Devices - HanLin eBook

• Leo's Hanlin V3 eBook SDK

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• Reading capable umpcs/tablets/slates coming out this year