Blio seeks to take digital reading in a new, more inclusive, and colorful direction

As if we didn't have enough pretenders in the ebook space, here's Ray Kurzweil with a new format of his own and a bagful of ambition to go with it. Set for a proper unveiling at CES in a week's time, the Blio format and accompanying application are together intended to deliver true-to-life color reproductions of the way real books appear. Interestingly, the software has been developed in partnership with Nokia, in an effort to turn Espoo's phones into "the smallest text-to-speech reading devices available thus far," though apps are also being developed for the iPhone, PC and Mac. The biggest advantage of this format might actually be behind the scenes, where the costs to publishers are drastically reduced by them having to only submit a PDF scan of their books, whose formatting remains unchanged in Blio. We'll be all over this at CES, but for now you'll find more pictures and early impressions over at Gizmodo.

[psycros Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:20AM]

Screw Kurzweil.

[psycros Posted Dec 29th 2009 7:24AM]

I should elaborate: what good exactly are "true-to-life color reproductions" in medim that is mostly black and white? And does Nokia actually think that a proprietary format of ANY kind is going to make them relevant in the smartphone space again? They need less Kurzweil and more cowbell.

[Dr Yusuf AlKindi Posted Dec 29th 2009 8:51AM]

@psycros Cowbell won't help. That is plain stupid. A cowbell will only make it harder to read the books since it will be a distracting noise.

[vhoyt Posted Dec 29th 2009 12:05PM]

@psycros I think it's like a veggie burger.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:33PM]

I'm holding out until they have 3D e-readers.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:41PM]

@psycros
Check the gizmodo link to see what it's about, I'll give you a starter quote:
"Blio's cross-platform functionality makes it a natural fit for something like the Apple iSlate, which along with other tablet devices should be perfect for reading cookbooks, children's books, and any other illustrated tome. It marks a natural evolution away from the current stock of ebook readers, which are bound by the drab black and white of e-ink."

See, it's for illustrations into e-books but bypassing pdf's.

Why they don't simply use formats like odf (or ones that have been around for decades) or HTML escapes me though, but companies often forgo working free stuff for buggy stuff they have to pay for.

[Apocalyptic 0n3 Posted Dec 29th 2009 9:43AM]

Just looking at the screenshot, why are the shadows on the books going toward the light and away from the dark?

[nineball Posted Dec 29th 2009 10:27AM]

twilight? someone is a loser with unrealistic expectations of men

[donaldtownsend Posted Dec 29th 2009 12:23PM]

Looks like a real innovation to me, scanned pages. I can't see where this reduces publishers costs unless we talk about old books printed before the digital age and who would want those anyway if Google already has them scanned.

[gmeader Posted Jan 7th 2010 1:20PM]

How is this different thanAdobe Acrobat reader that displays the industry standard PDF format?