09:32 PM by jgray in E-Book General | News

In some recent emails to Ectaco, I make some suggestions about improving their firmware. I also mentioned these forums and the growing number of users here.

In the latest email from Ectaco, I learned some very good news. With permission, I am posting that news here. The next Jetbook firmware will include FBReader version 0.10.7 (the current version). Ectaco will be doing some "internal Q&A on June 16" and the release of the new firmware is "expected in 1-2 weeks after that".

I don't know whether my suggestions had anything to do with this, or perhaps Ectaco was already working on incorporating the latest FBReader into its firmware. In any case, this is good news for Jetbook owners.

Assuming that Ectaco incorporates the full functionality of FBReader and doesn't strip anything out, we should see support for additional ebook formats (notably HTML). We should also see some CSS support, which will be a major improvement in the display of epub and mobi.

I am looking forward to the new firmware and am happy to see that Ectaco is actively improving the product. If I learn anything further, I will post.

09:19 PM by Charbax in E-Book General | News

Mary Lou Jepsen, the inventor and CTO of the Pixel Qi 3Qi screen (and
OLPC) is back in Taipei from the SID conference. She answers some
of the user questions posted on some of the blog threads in this new video http://techvideoblog.com/computex/ma...user-comments/

There is also a second cool new HD quality video comparing Pixel Qi
3Qi screen to the Kindle, to the Toshiba R600 Protégé transflective
screen and to a regular resistive tablet laptop at
http://techvideoblog.com/computex/pi...ar-lcd-tablet/

The third video is also awesome, but it is still uploading and
processing on Youtube and should be available in a couple of hours (or
a bit later) at http://techvideoblog.com/computex/ma...sens-home-lab/ also in HD quality filming
right from Mary Lou Jepsen's screen lab putting and testing a 3Qi screen in OLPC XO 1.5 among other things.

03:15 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

We brought you the first leaked picture of the JE100 back in October.
Jointech wasn't ready to announce the device, but now they are.

According to the product page, the JE100 has a 7" LCD touch screen. Here are the specs:

OS:MS Windows CE 5.0(English)

CPU: 400 MHz

Storage: Nand Flash 128 MB

RAM: 64 MB

External Memory: TF card up to 4 GB.

USB Ports: 1 host, 1 slave

Multimedia:
Images viewer
Audio and video Player
MS Office, MS Excel, MS Power Point, PDF etc.

Audio: Built in Speaker/ Audio Out

Battery: Li-ion 3.7V (1500mA)
Battery Life: 3 to 6 hours.

Dimension: 18.2cmx11.7cmx1.45cm

Weight: (with Battery) 250 grams

This is the device I was hoping for (aside from the battery life). Since it runs WinCE there is a good chance that it will also run Mobipocket Reader, MSReader, eReader, as well as be relatively easy to use by the average Windows user.

There is also a gallery of images here. They're all photoshopped, sadly.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Another week, another steady stream of e-book goodness here on MobileRead. Our authentic roundup of what's been going on:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• PVI to buy E Ink for $215 million
• Google throws down the gauntlet, announces plans to sell e-Books (NYT)
• Kindle DX: Ships on June 10th!
• Author Sherman Alexie Wants to Punch You in the Face
• Hanlin V5 will be distributed by Astak
• Aldiko: new EPUB reading system for Android, with Feedbooks integration
• Pixel Qi screen demonstrated in HD quality video from Taipei
• Company reduces e-book prices, cites lower costs
• iRex announces development of colour device for 2011 delivery
• AvantGo being retired

E-Book Formats - Workshop

• GuteBook - the Project Gutenberg eBook Maker/Front-end

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• MobileRead Meetup in Melbourne, Australia Sat. 13 June!

09:21 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Pocket PC Thoughts is reporting that AvantGo is being retired. I'd say this is just a sign of the progress made with availability of mobile content on the web. For some strange reason, even though I haven't used it in years, I'm still sad to see it go. I used it heavily when I first started syncing content from the web to my PDA many years ago. I remember it fondly for the service provided in those early days of mobile web content.

Avantgo is a service that scraped websites and sync'd the content to your mobile device allowing you to read articles on the go. Effective June 30, 2009, they are dropping the service. I am actually surprised it is still around. It was neat to use when few mobile devices had online access or even lacked a real browser, but for several years not, just about everyone has full time all-you-can-eat data plans. The exact wording on their page is a bit strange:

"AvantGo is changing! From June 30, 2009, AvantGo will no longer be providing mobile content."

09:51 AM by zelda_pinwheel in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Almost exactly a year after the very first MobileRead Meetup in Paris, France we are very excited to announce that the phenomenon has spread all the way to the antipodes, with the very first Australian Meetup!

Now, we know Australia is a huge country / island / continent, but if you're anywhere within its borders, we think you owe it to yourself to get yourself to Melbourne on Saturday June 13th for this unprecedented event of down-under litterary geekitude! We only wish it weren't so far away, because we wish we could be there too.

Here are all the details :
When : on Sat June 13th, 11am
Where : Koko Black at 52 Collins St in the CBD.
More info : in this thread and this one.

Special thanks to cbell, epiphany and nigeldb for organising it. Good on ya!

04:08 PM by Charbax in E-Book General | News

You can see the video here in HD quality: http://techvideoblog.com/computex/pi...e-from-taipei/

This is the new kind of LCD screen technology that turns all netbooks into Kindles. And all Kindles into netbooks.

As you can see in the video, the screen is beautiful and very readable when used outdoors with ambient or direct sunlight. And it also can turn on the back light when indoors to provide a very bright full color mode as well.

If you find any other E-Reader devices that you hear are being shown at Computex, please write a comment and I will make sure to try to film them as well. But this Pixel Qi product is certainly the most impressive I have seen in a long time due to its potential to make E-reading really happen for the mass market.

05:28 AM by HarryT in E-Book General | News

iRex Technologies, the producer of the popular iLiad and DR1000 range of large-screen eInk devices, yesterday announced that they are working on a new range of colour devices, with an anticipated release date of mid 2011. The announcement was made at the Society for Information Display (SID) conference in San Antonio by iRex's leading display expert, Alex Henzen, who said:

The current colour solutions for electrophoretic [eInk] displays ... employ additive colour mixing techniques and filters that compromise the reading quality of the display. The new iRex solution will be based on subtractive colour mixing similar to physical printing which will offer three times the brightness of current colour prototypes.

For more information, see the iRex press release at:

http://www.irextechnologies.com/file...0PR%20iRex.pdf