06:00 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

What a difference a generation makes. The second generation PRS-505 (actually, if you include the Librie, it's a third generation e-ink device) is apparently enough to really impress the folks at Engadget. They even go so far as to make the comparison with early mp3 players from the 90's.

Some of the improvements mentioned are:
* Numerous display improvements, with no more ghosting and better contrast
* USB mass-storage mode
* Internal memory has increased from 64MB to 192MB
* Far thinner and flatter
* Better button locations
* New leather case (actually it's faux leather, but it's nice)

So why isn't it for everyone already? It's still a bit expensive at $300.

04:06 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

The friendly folks over at the iRex booth had their iLiad 2nd edition on display. I admit I am a devoted Sony Reader user; but, this is the first time I've seen the iLiad at first hand, and what I've seen knocked me dead. The screen is wonderfully bright and, no question here, it's big! Instant gratification. Yes, two more inch can make a difference especially if you intent to display complicated layouts on your e-book reader. My only gripe is still the bit of a steep price (US $699).

I chatted with Peter Maas who is responsible for market research and online retailing. Interestingly, Peter too was wondering what prevented Amazon from unveiling the long-prophesied Kindle reader during their presentations (so we shared the disappointment). For iRex, Amazon & co. are not necessarily competitors. In fact, Peter told me, as long as we are dwelling in a niche market, it only helps when new players enter the market (to spread the word, to raise awareness). He also mentioned that iRex is going to step further into retail business, with the first stores in Holland likely to carry iLiad devices soon ("you must be able touch it before you buy it"). I agree one hundred percent.

01:37 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

"We don't comment on speculations and rumors" is what I heard today from Genevieve Kunst, Amazon's European Head of Business Development for Digital Media, when inquired about the status quo of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. Instead, Mrs Kunst elaborated for almost thirty minutes on how Amazon's Search Inside! feature helps publishers boost their sales (by a "statistically proven" good 6 percent) and how Amazon Upgrade, basically an extension of Search Inside!, allows customers to receive full-text access online (for an additional fee of course). Both features are still easily overlooked on Amazon's excessively crowded and busy pages, but Mrs Kunst pointed out that those will be better integrated in near future. She also touched upon the topic of e-books by mentioning MobiPocket and eBookBase; but really, nothing new here either.

Now, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for the information embargo surrounding the Kindle reader. Whether just clever marketing or an actual technical reason for a possible delay, it remains open to speculation (here we go again) whether we will see this drool-worthy device unveiled any time soon (like, say, October 15).

Related: Amazon Kindle likely launch date: October 15!, Kindle Launch at Frankfurt Book Fair?, "Kindle Editions" showing up on Amazon

10:33 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

In the "truly amazing if true" category, the Digital Chosun reports that "Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced Thursday that it has developed a micro-fuel cell and hydrogen generator that runs on H20.
'When the handset is turned on, metal and water in the phone react to produce hydrogen gas,' explained Oh Yong-soo, vice president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics' research center. 'The gas is then supplied to the fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power.' Other fuel cells need methanol to produce hydrogen, while Samsung's needs only water."

This water powered fuel cell is said to:
* Produce up to three watts
* "Hit the market by 2010"
* "Power a handset for 10 hours, twice as long as rechargeable batteries"

And whenever we hear of any new technology for powering cell phones, we know that there are likely to be benefits for e-book reading devices.

Surely this is too good to be true. What's next? Water powered homes and cars?

Via Textually.org.

04:56 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

1. We added a new development section dedicated to the Sony Reader PRS-505. Still fresh of course, it's the right playground for everyone who loves tinkering around with the latest Reader incarnation. Remember that most (if not all) of the hacks (and custom application) currently available do only work with the PRS-500.

2. It wrings our hearts, but it's time to retire the Sony LIBRIe section (in case you don't remember, the LIBRIe was that cute little reader equipped with a qwerty keyboard and the world's first commercial E Ink screen). All existing LIBRIe threads have been merged into the legacy e-book devices section. Needless to say, feel free to continue discussing LIBRIe-related topics over there.

04:51 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Sony is expected to launch its e-book reader in the UK at the 2008 London Book Fair, fuelling speculation that Amazon will try and pip it to the post by rush-releasing its own rival device, the "Kindle".

According to publisher sources, Sony is in talks with Waterstone's to sell the device.

Sony would not confirm its plans for entering the UK, but publishers point to a launch next April and are already getting excited about the potential of a new e-reader launch to stimulate e-book sales.

from:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/46...er-launch.html

08:01 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Formats | Workshop

Today's one day sale on BitsDuJour is for Text2Go. It's reduced to $5 from the regular price of $25.

"Text2Go is an innovative application that lets you transfer information from the web to your iPod. Listen to any text content on-the-go and utilize moments that would otherwise be wasted. Make productive use of those 'dead' times like commuting and exercising. Text2Go integrates with Internet Explorer and iTunes, making it the quickest and easiest way to get information from the web onto your iPod." There is an mp3 sample of the text conversion here, which is based on the Microsoft speech engines.

For someone that wants to do this "the easy way", it might be worth looking into. But I bet that hard core tech fans can find many other ways of doing the same thing.

01:46 PM by NatCh in E-Book General | News

This tip comes from grimo1re

Japanese Company Looks at Using E-Ink in Cell-Phone Keypads

DoCoMo, which is apparently big in the Japanese cellular market, is looking at using e-ink technology to allow cell-phone keypad labels to change with the application being used. I.e. numbers for phone calls and letters for messaging.

The cellular carrier showed off prototypes of a phone with an e-paper keypad at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan, this week. But the displays, from SiPix Imaging Inc., are not yet ready for commercialization in phones, said Shuichi Aoki, an assistant manager in DoCoMo's Product Department who helped developed the phone.

The prototype phone, which has been in development for about one year, has a keypad that switches the display on each key from numbers to Japanese phonetic characters, called hiragana and katakana, depending on what application is being used. For example, when a user opens the e-mail client, the keypad switches from numbers to the phonetic characters, making them easier for users to see, Aoki said.

Once you get to thinking about it, the usefulness of such a move would be pretty mind-boggling, particular for those who find the present arrangement confusing.

Apparently they're still pretty early in the process, and they're encountering some of the same obstacles that everyone else is with this e-ink stuff.

Before e-paper can be used in handsets, more work must be done to improve the technology. In particular, the response time of the e-paper display must be improved so that the symbols and icons used with each key change faster when switching between applications.

"It's a little too slow right now," Aoki said.

DoCoMo also wants to switch from using segmented e-paper displays to an active-matrix display for future prototypes. The current prototype uses a segmented e-paper display, which limits the display to pre-set characters, numbers and symbols.

An active matrix display will allow any symbol or letter to be displayed, and allow applications to use their own, customized icons instead of drawing on a pre-determined list of available options, Aoki said.

It's not mentioned, but I expect they're also encountering (or will shortly) the conflict between backlights and e-ink -- perhaps they'll come up with something clever and solve that problem for us all.

I think this is the first time I've encountered anyone trying to use e-ink to explicitly re-purpose controls on something like this. It brings hardware controls a bit closer to software ones, such as in an application GUI. Even though it's still years away, it's a very interesting development.

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