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Gadget Rewind 2006: Sony Reader PRS-500
Sony may not have been at the forefront of the digital music revolution, but when it came to e-books and e-readers, the company was certainly a pioneer. It all started in the '90s with Sony's first chunky, flip-topped Data Discman. This two-pound, paperback-sized player came bundled with a selection of reference books on disc, each capable of storing up to 100,000 pages of digital text. When that cumbersome early e-book solution failed to gain traction, Sony went right back to the drawing board and returned in 2004 with the Japan-only LIBRIé e-reader. This particular device used an innovative E Ink display and relied on an e-book loan program -- a distribution model that proved unpopular with consumers at the time.
French newspaper goes electronic
It's not like this is the first e-newspaper we've seen, but France's Les Echos is now offering up an electronic flavor of its product to those with an iRex iLiad or STAReBook. Oh, and the Amazon Kindle, too as you'll recall from that little inadvertently mentioned tidbit from their press release. Reportedly, the e-paper edition "will include whole articles just like in the printed" version, but unlike the traditional medium, those with e-readers will receive constant updates of the day's hottest stories and will actually be able to read the 6:00AM print edition at 9:00PM the night prior. Notably, the newfangled Les Echos edition will cost a stiff €365 ($506) per year if you provide your own reader, and for those of us far, far away from the Eiffel Tower, check out a video demonstration after the jump.[Via MobileRead]Read - Press Release [PDF]Read - Photos of Les Echos e-newspaperRead - Videos of Les Echos e-newspaper
STAReBOOK STK-101 reviewed
As the ebook market widens, it's only natural that competition will start heating up, and the STAReBOOK STK-101 is quite a good example of a small player making a big impact. The STK-101's main claim to fame is built-in MP3 playback, which with an included 512MB SD card and the ability to listen to music while you read, sounds pretty well executed. Fortunately, STAReBOOK didn't stop there, and have made quite the peppy and intuitive reader. CommanderROR, who reviewed the unit, found book loading and page turning to be much snappier than his iRex Iliad, and battery life looks to be quite good as well. Obviously, the 6-inches of E ink screen isn't quite as impressive as the 8-inch Iliad, but it should be fine for most reading tasks, especially considering the Sony Reader's 6-inch form factor. Page navigation bests that of both the Sony Reader and the Iliad, with easy to use bookmarks, and a simple method of inputting page numbers using the cursor. Unfortunately, the biggest drawback to the STAReBOOK might be the biggest deal breaker: the book only supports .stk books, and the included converter deals badly with styling and only includes one hard-to-read font. Luckily, JPG books work fine, so a PDF-to-JPG converter should be able to supply you with reading material well enough, but it's a far cry from the open format support of the Sony Reader and iRex Iliad.[Thanks, Branko C.]
STAReBOOK e-book reader to hit China, US next month
We're still not sure exactly how successful this whole eBook thing will be. That said, if you believe Sony, "overwhelming demand" delayed the release of the PRS-500 until November, meaning that surely people will be rushing the streets to get their paws on an eBook. However if you don't want to wait until Sony gets its act together, you may want to check out Staretek's "STAReBOOK e-book reader," which is slated to be released for $440 in November, with two Chinese versions and one in English. MobileRead tells us that this new e-reader will bring a 6-inch SVGA 800 x 600 four-color grayscale e-ink display, 250MHz Samsung processor, 64MB SDRAM, USB 2.0, mono speaker, and it all runs on Linux 2.4.1 (including an MP3 player, apparently). If Staretek plays its cards right, it may just be able to stave off some of Sony's frustrated masses before they turn into an unruly mob.
