10:49 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

We just received a friendly reminder from Sony that the $50 launch promotion -- which everyone who registered at Sony Connect on or before Dec 31, 2006 should have received -- is to expire by January 31st. I still have a few bucks on my account, so I should better grab another book or two before it's too late. Any recommendations (preferably in the sci-fi/fantasy genre)?

02:19 AM by Fugubot in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Gamespot: Could you give us an update on the Sony Reader?

Stringer: We are very happy with it. It's selling as fast as we can make it. We're not making enough. We've been very cautious in launching it because, as you know, it failed in Japan two years ago. This is a totally different version with totally different economics and software, and we understand that Amazon is also coming on with something in the relatively short term. So, we need to get a second reader out. We probably need a Wi-Fi component.

But we're very pleased that the acceptance from the consumer is unusually strong. I don't want to be a salesman, but people love the device. How many ultimately can be sold is a question mark. I think the next iteration will be the educational marketplace. We've sent some to England. I haven't heard back from the English publishers that I've sent them to, but clearly there is a component in the English-speaking world where you can stack so much educational content that kids can take [the entire content of] their whole [collection of] textbooks [in their Sony Reader].

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164270.html

03:41 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Have you got a hankering for a highly mobile TabletPC or UMPC, but find you are not quite convinced you want to spend so much money on one before it has your favorite features?

I've had my eye on the Fujitsu 1610 small TabletPC and the Samsung Q1P UMPC. The small form factor and touchscreen sounds very useful, while still mobile. But I just can't justify paying the price. I would buy one right now if it had Vista, 1gig ram, a decent power-conserving CPU, usable keyboard, SVGA or better resolution, wi-fi and 5hr+ battery life all for less than $1000.

I suspect that many others want to jump into the TabletPC, but are also waiting for the price/feature ratio to come more in line. So what are the alternatives in the meantime?

Standard Options

Option 1: Gateway Tablet PC -- They have two convertibles in the $1,000 price range and it has nice specs. Looks like a nice powerful full-sized option, but pretty big and heavy. Not sure about battery life and quality.

Option 2: New HP Tablet PC -- This HP tx1000 was recently announced and looks like another contender that may show up when consumer Vista notebooks come out.

Option 3: UMPC -- The Samsung Q1 or Q1P are pretty attractive alternatives, but are fairly pricy. Especially if you include the case and keyboard and extended battery, etc.

Update: I should point out that the Fujitsu P1610 is still pretty neat if you have a lot of dollars to spend.

A Couple of More Creative Options

Creative Alternative #1 -- Get a regular small screen notebook plus a graphics tablet. Craig Pringle explains this option at his blog article. You get tablet pc features on a Vista notebook, but you have to touch the external graphics pad instead of the screen. Still, it should allow you to do electronic note taking, and it probably isn't a lot to carry.

Creative Alternative #2 -- Get a scanner!
What does that do for you? Well it might not be of interest if you need the input to happen interactively. But if you just want to be able to get freehand stuff in the computer, then why not use paper (which is still a better way to write than a touch sensitive screen) and then scan the papers.

It's a little bit of hassle to process the papers. You have to scan them (hopefully with an auto feed scanner, like on some all-in-one printers have), and you have to get them into whatever program you will use to manage all the notes and documents you created during the day.

You can even make use of the scanner for book scanning and general document scanning, so if you don't like processing your papers this way, you still get your money's worth from the scanner.

But if you are just trying to get that stuff into electronic form to carry around with you, it might be another way to get a feel for things without jumping into a Tablet PC. Why buy a desktop and a TabletPC and a smartphone and a regular notebook, when your notebook can be dual purpose until you see what you really want on the market?

Conclusion

I do think that the TabletPC revolution is coming eventually, and well integrated touchscreen capabilities will be very useful. Especially for small form factors. And it will be a lot more powerful than what we see on PDAs and smartphones.

But until the technology advances a bit, we will have to accustom ourselves to some compromises. Price or specs or size for certain. Plus the typical usability issues with any immature technology.

Then in the years to come, when it catches on, look out!

05:20 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Not much has been said after the initial launch of Adobe Digital Editions in October last year, but today David of TeleRead reports that a beta of the Flash-based PDF/ePub XHTML reader is now also available for the Mac platform, both for PowerPC and Intel-based machines.

Also, a friendly tipster let us know that the beta of the PC version has been updated. Among the changes are support for bitmap printing, copy to clipboard, a basic set of short-cut keys, mouse scroll-wheel support, proxy support, and lots of bug fixes.

Link to the download: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/d...tions/install/
Link to the sample library: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/d...tions/library/

07:22 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Details are sketchy at this point, but dareview was able to shoot some more photos of the iriver e-book reader which was first revealed by Engadget @ CES 2007 last week.

Did you notice one photo depicts "Powered by Adobe Reader LE"? Although I admit to not knowing exactly the details of this software, it's fairly safe to say from reading the specs that the iriver will support encrypted PDF files.

Related: iriver announces new reader - watch out Sony, iriver enters the e-book business

06:55 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology (a joint venture formed between Toshiba and Matsushita) announced today that the company has developed and started mass production of a new monochrome LCD panel for use in electronic dictionaries and e-book readers. Specs:

• Display size: 5.01-inch
• Resolution: 640 x 480
• Display mode: Monochrome reflective display / Internal reflective display (someone care to explain?)
• Contrast ratio: 12:1 (no backlight)
• Response time: 20 ms
• Levels of gray: 16
• Power consumption: 4mW (2-level grayscale), 20 mW (16-level grayscale)

Compared to the usual E Ink display, the new panel has a higher contrast ratio (12:1 vs. 8:1) and also relatively low power consumption (20 mW vs. 1mW (E Ink standby) and 750 mW (E Ink active update)). Screen refresh is a lot faster (20 ms vs. 0.5-1s).

Before you get too excited keep in mind this is only a 640x480 screen, so hardly as high-resolution as TMD likes us to believe. [Edit: Thanks to RWood for clarifying that 640x480 on 5" is indeed high-resolution]

04:16 AM by TadW in E-Book General | News

This week Thursday Google is going to host the "Un-Bound" event @ New York Public Library to discuss how the book business has changed and how it will continue to evolve. Some of the prominent speakers who will be there: Seth Godin, Cory Doctorow, Tim O'Reilly.

Today, digital technology offers a similar opportunity, and the Internet now represents a powerful platform for promoting and distributing books. Online book sales alone account for nearly four billion dollars in annual US sales—almost 15% of the entire book business.

[via Boing Boing]

09:18 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

We've heard all sorts of buzz about how electronic paper might change the world, like you know, with displays bendable in every direction, readable in the brightest sunlight, and requiring virtually no power. Alex Griffin goes one step further. In what I suppose is a student project, he rendered a series of awe-inspiring scenes of the London Underground equipped with electronic paper technology. All I have to say is that this guy is seriously talented!

To check out Alex's video, go to his website, click on "Design", then on "E*Ink", and then "Play Film" (don't we all love Flash for its user-friendliness?).