E-readers
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Samsung shows off color e-paper prototype, PVI might beat it to market in 2010
Now here's some yummy news to wrap our minds around. Samsung, a company with a manufacturing portfolio so wide that you wouldn't be surprised to see it selling toothbrushes and perfume, clearly also wants a slice of that growing ebook market and has now unveiled a 10.1-inch color display with that purpose in mind. It's still very early days, with a measly 10:1 contrast ratio and the ability to display only 7% of the NTSC color gamut, but baby steps are better than no steps, right? While Sammy is shooting at delivering this within two years, PVI -- the maker of displays for Kindles and Sony Readers -- is expected to ramp up production of its own color screens in the second half of 2010. Add these two heavyweights to the color e-readers already expected from Plastic Logic (spring 2010) and Bridgestone, and what you get is one hell of a thriving marketplace -- as long as Pixel Qi doesn't render them all useless when it launches later this year. Read - Samsung Exhibits 10.1-inch Color E-paper Read - PVI to ramp up flexible and color EPD in 2010
Ebooks making libraries popular again, can do nothing about your 80s scrunchie
A few forward-thinking libraries in the UK have started offering ebook downloads as an alternative to borrowing physical copies of books, and the local public's reaction has been one of overwhelming enthusiasm. Seemingly attracted by the idea of being able to collect and return books without having to actually attend the library, Brits have been eagerly joining up to the new scheme. Free downloads that last for 14 days before self-deleting can be had either in the library or at home, and transitioned onto your Sony Reader, iRex iLiad, or that new hotness, B&N's nook. Naturally, the proprietary-format Kindle isn't invited to this party. We've already seen a similar initiative in the USA, and can only hope this kind of convenience becomes mainstream before too long.
Sony outs pink Vaio W, Pocket Reader bundles for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Sony's announced it will support Breast Cancer Awareness month by outing two new bundles -- and both of them are super pink. The first bundle will include a Berry Pink 10.5-inch Vaio W with an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive, plus a matching sleeve and mouse. The second bundle will include the special edition Rose Pocket Edition reader with a gold clutch case, plus download codes for four e-books. Sony has said it will donate $110,000 to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation in conjunction with October sales for these bundles. The Vaio W bundle will run you $499, while the reader bundle is $199. Both can be ordered now at Sony Style.[Via Slashgear]
Kindle coming to the UK in October? Amazon might just tell us next week
Wanna know what we love? Authoritative sources. That fine breed of people who don't like keeping important secrets is back with another hit, this time suggesting that Amazon has finally tied up all the loose ends and is ready to bring the Kindle to Blighty. This implies Qualcomm has done its rumored job of putting together a 3G and WiFi connectivity package with one of the UK's mobile operators, and all that remains to be done now is the old dotting and crossing of i's and t's. An official announcement -- which should tell us whether the Kindle 2 will be joined by the chunkier Kindle DX -- is expected some time ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair, which commences on October 14. [Via Pocket lint]
iriver Story e-reader hits pre-order status in Korea, gets priced
We've been keeping our eyes peeled for any news of iriver's Story e-reader -- and it looks like it's on the verge of appearing in reality -- at least in Korea. The company is now taking pre-orders for the 6-inch, QWERTY keyboarded device, which runs 358,000 KRW ( around $290). The reader will come packaged with a 2GB SD card, the book-impersonating folding case we've spied it wearing in the past, and two free book downloads. While we've heard that the reader will eventually get global, we've still yet to heard pricing or release dates for the US of A. Until then, we'll just have to keep curled up on the sofa with our sad, dog-eared, public library copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Time looking to kick out the e-readers after all?
Hey -- this one makes sense, so we shouldn't be too surprised, but it turns out that Time, Inc. is seriously looking into getting into the e-reader business, according to a leaked presentation from June of this year. The slides, which are entitled "New Platforms & Business Models for Publishers," also contained notes which had been updated as late as this past August, indicating that Time has plans to launch a product as soon as the end of this year. Though Time had said back in March that it had "no interest" in getting into the e-reader biz, it's not terribly shocking to hear that they were either fibbing or changed their minds, considering how the market's been heating up lately, combined with the deaths of many, many print mags. NBC contacted Dawn Bridges -- a spokesperson for Time -- about the story, who said the company is "speaking with a number of hardware and software companies as well as other content companies about various projects." Vague enough for you? [Via Gizmodo]
Boston prep school nixes all the books in its library, replaces them with 18 e-readers
We love looking to the future here at Engadget. And while real, paper books hold a special place in our heart, we're fairly certain no one will accuse us of being Luddites for scoffing at a recent development at a Boston prep school. James Tracy, the headmaster of Cushing Academy, says that he sees books as an "outdated technology," and to that end, he's taken the drastic and expensive step of ridding the school's library of every single one of its books. Replacing the books will be a high tech "learning center," housing three flat screen televisions, laptops, 18 e-readers, and a coffee bar. The project -- which is costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 -- is one of the first of its kind. So, excuse us for our cynicism, but unless there are only 18 students at Cushing Academy, we're pretty sure the e-reader supply is going to come up short.
Switched On: Sony plays both ends against the Kindle
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Last week, Sony introduced Reader Daily Edition, the latest and most advanced Reader in its 2009 lineup, and attempted to recapture the excitement around the category that it had at the launch of the original Reader but then gave up to Amazon. By adding 3G connectivity to the Daily Edition, Sony's answered the biggest perceived feature gap between its products and Amazon's e-reader. However, far from playing me-too, the Daily Edition tells quite a different distribution story than the Kindle, from purchasing devices to the content. The $400 Daily Edition (a term that warmly evokes printed books and newspapers without being corny) will join the $300 Touch Edition and the $200 Pocket Edition. Of these, the Pocket Edition has the most near-term potential for success due to its greater portability and low price, particularly in these grim economic times. Speaking of which, Sony seems to have picked up more positive buzz about its library integration for free book lending than it has for adding wireless to the line. For all the struggles of subscription services, consumers don't have any problems with renting content as long as it's free.
Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo unite against Google Books
Microsoft, its new pet dog Yahoo, and Amazon have decided to join together in the soon to be formed Open Book Alliance. You might expect this to be a revolutionary new collaborative effort at delivering the written word in a way that makes Google Books pale into insignificance, but you would, of course, be wrong. Far from trying to compete with Google, The OBA is set to act as the collective mouthpiece for all those opposed to Google's recent $125 million settlement deal with book publishers and authors. With the US Department of Justice already investigating antitrust concerns relating to the case, the other big dogs just couldn't restrain themselves from coming together for a united whinge. Should the settlement be cleared, it will permit Google non-exclusive rights to orphan works (those without an established writer) and will give it a 30 per cent cut of books sold via Google Books, both things that authors have agreed to. So what's there to moan about, fellas -- we all trust Google to do the right thing, right?
Apple iPAD outed in Borders bookstore survey?
Now, we don't really know what to think about this one, considering how many rumors are swirling about upcoming Apple devices at the moment, but make of it what you will. An online survey currently being conducted by Borders bookstore lists the "Apple iPAD (large screen reading device)" in one of its questions about e-readers. There along with the Amazon Kindle, the Kindle DX, the Sony Reader and the Plastic Logic Reader is the option to check "I plan to buy an Apple IPAD this year." It's safe to say that there are two options here: either Borders has access to some privileged Apple tablet / Kindle killer info that we, the wondering masses, do not (and yet is still making blunders like "Blackberry" and "Apple iTouch") -- or they're just assuming that there must be some truth to all the fuss. And hey, who could blame them? Like we said, we're not going to put too much stock in it, but go ahead and hit the read link to take the survey for yourself -- but be forewarned: you're going to have to dish on your opinion of Dan Brown before you get to the good stuff. [Via MacLife, thanks AC]
Sony brings over a million Google Books to the Reader
Cool move by Sony to bolster the number of titles in its Reader ebook store -- it's linked up with Google to provide over a million free public domain works from Google Books, just like those fun folks at Barnes and Noble. The books are in the EPUB format and will work with the PRS-505 or the PRS-700 in the US only for now -- different countries have different copyright terms, so we'd imagine the lawyers are busy sorting it all out. Sure, none of this will do much to shake the Kindle's market- and mindshare, but at least Sony won't be deleting this stuff off your device without your permission, right?[Thanks, Tom]
Random House now disabling text-to-speech function of Kindle e-books
The much-touted and extremely controversial story of the text-to-speech function of Amazon's Kindle 2 could fill a very large e-book. The tale continues to get longer still, as at least one major publisher -- Random House -- has thrown the dreaded "kill switch" on about 40 of its titles, including authors such as Toni Morrison, and, ironically, Stephen King (who you will remember was part of the Kindle 2's launch). Random House disabled the function without much fanfare, or an official announcement, but you can be sure this isn't the final chapter.
New York Times R&D group is braced for the future of content delivery, being totally chill
In a collision of journalistic labs heretofore unseen, the folks at Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab hit up The New York Times' R&D lab for a look at what those ink-stained word-slingers think about the future of newspaper delivery. Nick Bilton, "Design Integration Editor" at the NY Times, and ever calm in the face of futurism, gave a guided tour of the devices they're currently looking at, and while there aren't a lot of surprises, it is nice to see they're taking ebooks, netbooks and touchscreen PCs all very seriously. Of particular note is a (sadly damaged) e-ink prototype with a newspapery layout, complete with typography, designed for an "e-ink device that [doesn't] exist yet." Nick also makes mention of Mary Lou Jepsen's upcoming Pixel Qi display, along with the marvelous world of RFID-based ads. Check out the full content delivery nerd-out on video after the break.
Switched On: Big Kindle on Campus
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Amazon's Kindle DX includes a few tweaks such as automatically rotating the orientation of the screen when it is placed in landscape mode and adjustable page margins because... well, CEO Jeff Bezos seems to like the feature. Literally, though, the biggest change is the new 9.7-inch electronic ink screen, which displays two and a half times more content than the 6-inch screen on the Kindle 2 and Sony Reader. The expanded display allows more detailed graphics to be seen without zooming or panning, and is better suited to a wide range of source material including maps, technical diagrams, and sheet music. But textbooks and newspapers were singled out as two printed sources that are particularly significant for the forthcoming device. These publications both benefit from the larger Kindle screen size, but each face different challenges in finding success on the Kindle DX. For newspapers, the Kindle DX cuts down on the costs of printing. Newspapers, though, are already struggling against competitors that did away with that expense years ago, including blogs that break stories and online entities such as Craigslist, eBay and Google that have siphoned away advertising revenue. Textbooks, on the other hand, have no major electronic competition, and print still retains advantages such as better readability and color. But digital textbooks must compete with used textbooks, a major market on college campuses, and likely will not be able to be resold if other digital content is a predecessor. At the Kindle DX launch, representatives from The New York Times Company and Case Western Reserve University both characterized their involvement with the Kindle DX as a trial or experimentation. What's behind the arm's length embrace?
Amazon sorta capitulates, will let publishers decide text-to-speech availability
While affirming its stance on the legality of Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature -- and in fact stating it'll actually get more customers interested in buying audiobooks -- Amazon's announced that it'll now let the books' rights holders decide on a title-by-title basis whether or not they'll let TTS be enabled. No word on when the update'll be fed to the devices, but we bet somewhere right now, Paul Aiken's cracking a tiny smile. Full release after the break.
Author Nick Hornby not feeling the fever pitch over e-books
This won't come as a massive surprise to most, but author Nick Hornby isn't so into e-books. After walking into a British Borders book store to find the £399 ($790) Iliad for sale next to some £4 paperbacks, he poo-poo'd the platform in a guest column on the Penguin Blog. So here we have a book author blogging on a book publisher's site about the downfalls of a technology that could supplant his industry. To be fair, he does make some salient points about the unlikelihood that e-books will replace print in the same way iPods have undermined CD sales. He points out that people, on average, only buy seven books a year compared to the number of CDs they used to buy. In addition, book readers just like books and tend to be suspicious of new technology. Finally, he goes back to the iPod: the popularity of portable entertainment devices, what with their TV shows, games, movies, and other fancy schmancy doohickeys will continue to make the notion of reading a book -- even in electronic format -- not so tempting.[Via Shiny Shiny]
Princeton to start publishing Kindle-edition textbooks
Amazon's Kindle ebook reader has been doing pretty well as a consumer device, but we've always thought it had amazing potential as a textbook reader -- especially coupled iTunes-style with Amazon's online distribution system. Apparently Princeton University (Jeff Bezos's alma mater) agrees with us, because it's just announced plans to publish Kindle version of its textbooks this fall, joining Yale, Oxford, and Berkeley in supporting the device. It's not clear how many books are due to be published on the device or how content like photographs and full-color diagrams will be handled (what's a bio book without red mitochondria? They're the "powerhouse" of the cell!), but we're certain students will gladly make the tradeoff to reduce their backpack loads just a little bit.
Dual-display e-book concept mimicks reading, makes complete sense
It's no surprise that more displays is always better, but when it comes to mimicking the act of reading a book, dual displays is a clear step forward. Researchers at Maryland and Berkeley Universities developed a prototype dual-face, modular e-book reader that allows readers to fan pages to advance in a book or via trackball. If you're doing some serious research, the displays separate from one another, allowing one to display in landscape mode while the other runs in portrait. To complete the book meme, the device can be folded over to run in a more compact manner, and a simple flip changes the page. Possibilities for future e-book readers are endless here, so we applaud Maryland and Berkeley for using those research dollars.
Publishing exec 'steals' Google laptops in silly demonstration
We can't say that we'd recommend a CEO steal property from Google in order to prove a point, but the head honcho of Macmillan Publishers pushed his superego aside and did just that at a recent BookExpo America in NYC. It's no secret that a number of publishers have been up in arms about Google's approach to digitizing their works, but Richard Charkin went so far as to recruit a colleague and swipe a pair of laptops from a Google Books kiosk at the event. About an hour later, the booth attendants actually noticed the missing goods and presumably began to panic, and the haughty executive then had the nerve to return the machines to their rightful owners whilst dropping the "hope you enjoyed a taste of your own medicine" line. He justified the bizarre behavior by suggesting that "there wasn't a sign by the computers informing him not to steal them," apparently referencing Google's controversial tactics when scanning books. That'll show 'em, Mr. Charkin.[Via TechDirt]
Google planning on getting into ebooks in a big way
We've been having life-changing ebook experiences of one form or another promised to us for what seems like forever, but it really could be just around the corner this time, honest -- though the whole life-changing thing is still debatable at this point. It turns out Google is pressing forward with its Google Book Search service, and planning to roll out full-on ebook sales "sooner rather than later," with downloadable books available to computer screens and mobile devices. Of course, with Sony already in the game, and Amazon prepping downloads of its own, it's not like Google will be doing this all by its lonesome, but some innovative features like the proposed rental and single-chapter purchase schemes could garner interest in the Google offering, not to mention the whole "Google world domination" thing. It seems like the primary obstacle at this point for Google is the publishing associations that still haven't decided they're so hot for Google throwing up the contents of books online for open searchability, but we have a feeling they'll come around soon enough, or Google will just go ahead with the licensees it already has -- which with buddies like Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster already warm to the book searching, probably won't be insubstantial.[Via Digg]
