Gizmodo
While the idea of actually holding onto a newspaper may still be appealing to some, those of us living in the year 2006 may want to give the tradition of reading the morning paper a little bit of an upgrade. Various newspapers, including the financial newspaper De Tijd in Belgium and the New York Times in the United States, are beginning to experiment with making e-paper versions of their newspapers available to subscribers.
The e-paper version would be viewable on devices such as the iLiad E-reader and a forthcoming reader from Sony that is compatible with a new underlying technology that electrically charges embedded ink, causing it to light up or go dark. The e-reader devices, which can only display several shades of gray, should weigh around 13 ounces and can be updated via Wi-Fi connections. The rules of economics still apply and because these devices haven't quite hit it big yet, they'll be a little on the pricey side, running around $400, but they'll also be able to download e-books and podcasts.
One Day Soon, Straphangers May Turn Pages With a Button [New York Times]
Comments
Great! I am totally into this Sony Reader! Now I have a great idea for Sony's business plan: release your products!
$400 + whatever the media costs + extra battery pack + car charger + titanium-graphite-honeycomb shell + warranty plan + plastic screen protector + leather case + Wifi card = I'll keep killing trees and buy my books printed on paper.
i would use something that: 1) comes on pretty much instantly, 2) downloaded the morning paper or magazine quickly with no fuss or bother, same for ebooks and 3) would also check my email and maybe a couple of web sites like Gizmodo.
Dude, eff Sony and their proprietary BS, the Illiad from iRex is where it's at. Touch screen with recordable stylus input, mp3 playback, integrated ethernet port, SD drive, amazingly crisp 160 dpi resolution. I'm on board if it falls under the $300 mark. Check out the insane screen caps after the jump: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5582
Iliad is going to cost more than Sony's reader, I think â¬540 was quoted (would probably be $500 in US), comparing to the $350 supposed price for Sony's reader. It's also larger, isn't it? I think a smaller format makes more sense for reading novels, although obviously the larger one will be much better for papers etc.
hey guys, get the facts before you comment. You don't need an extra battery for the ebook reader, a single charge is good for 7,500 page turns. As for sony propietary data, I never knew Sony owned PDF, oh ya, they don't. Secure digital cards? Nope, also not sony propietary. Who doesn't have a few of those lieing around not being used. Don't forget the internal memeory you already have in the machine. I will be first in line to get one of these, though this is the first I've heard about the illiad, so I'll definitely check that out too. The sooner I get an ebook reader based on e-ink, the happier I'll be.
Sony may not own PDF, but you can probably bet they're gonna make sure that you have to convert it to their proprietary eBook format first. Sure, their page says it supports PDF, and few other open formats, but check the footnote, it says some formats may have to be converted. And if you want a sense to see how the conversion program feels like, look at the NetMD - great concept, but the software sucked so badly, well... it turned a potentially great idea into a flop. Or the early Sony "MP3" players - sure they played MP3s, after transcoding to ATRAC. Of course, perhaps you're lucky and they do support PDF natively... maybe, maybe not. Given Sony's record, typically not.
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?