Nook Color gets overclocked, further blurs the line between tablet and e-reader
First, they ported Ubuntu to the Nook Color, and now the intrepid hackers at the XDA Developers Forum have overclocked its stock 800MHz processor to run at speeds up to 1GHz. The mod allows users to have their cake and eat it too, as the custom kernel ups the speed of the CPU while running it at a lower voltage, which means longer battery life -- though we don't know exactly how much longer. Apparently, the developer who wrote the code found that the system became unstable at the 1GHz level, but there were no such problems at 950MHz and below. Hit the source link to download the kernel and see for yourself what a supercharged Nook Color can do.
The Pocket eDGe has a 6-inch e-Ink reader to the left and a resistive touch LCD tablet to the right
For those users who simply couldn't make up their minds whether to buy an e-reader or a tablet computer, the enTourage eDGe dualbook offered a bit of both to ease the stress. Now the enTourage has a baby brother called the Pocket eDGe. Like its larger sibling, it has an e-Reader screen and a Tablet screen in the one device, is Wi-Fi enabled and includes a video camera, stereo speakers and microphone. We got up close and personal at this year's CES.
The Pocket eDGe from enTourage Systems consists of a couple of hinged screens with a 6-inch e-Reader display to the left and a 7-inch WXGA tablet to the right. The left side features a Wacom Penabled e-Ink screen at 800 x 600 resolution and benefiting from 16 shades of gray. As well as hand-written annotation and highlighting, users can also write notes on or sign a document and email it as a PDF.
The company may have a good reason for making the 800 x 480 resolution LCD tablet side a resistive touchscreen, but we still can't help feeling that capacitive would have been a better choice. The interaction between the two sides of the Pocket eDGe gives users the ability to attach links to documents or websites or to search Google or Wikipedia for words or phrases on the tablet side while viewing the e-Reader side.
The 1.35 pound (0.6 kg) Pocket eDGe runs on a Linux operating system with Google Android (version 1.6 on release, but it's not known if a newer version is now in residence) taking care of the Tablet side of the device. There's 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and although 3G is not available via the device itself, it is compatible with some 3G USB adapters. Users can choose to listen to audio via a 3.5mm headphone jack, through the stereo speakers or compatible Bluetooth headphones.
The displays can be folded over so that each is screen is back to back with the other or held like a book with both screens on show, and the LCD tablet has portrait or landscape viewing orientations. A video-capable 2 megapixel camera also features, the battery is said to be good for 6 hours of dual usage or 11 hours of e-Reader only and there's 4GB of internal memory, with 3GB being available for the user. Physical connectivity and expansion is courtesy of a microSD card slot and both standard and mini USB ports.
There's support for both ePub and PDF e-Reader formats, together with numerous audio and video formats including MP3, OGG, MP4, AVI and Flash. Users can head to the enTourage Systems' web store to select from over 250,000 commercial e-books or over a million public domain e-books, thousands of periodicals, millions of music tracks and numerous Android apps.
Hanvon brings E920, world's first color E Ink reader, to CES, we go hands-on
The chasm between monochromatic e-readers and color LCD-based tablets is being filled by Hanvon with this here Wisereader E920 device. It features the famed 9.7-inch color E Ink panel, the first of its kind, and offers the rather spectacular resolution of 1200 x 1600. That amounts to a pixel density of 200dpi, we're told, and other good news include a MicroSD card slot, standby time of 15 days, and the ability to churn through 10,000 pages before needing a recharge. Sadly, there's plenty of bad news here too: the E920's colors are muted and not really on par with what you'd expect from even a mediocre LCD, refresh rates are pretty glacial, and the touchscreen functionality is of the resistive kind, meaning you'll have to resort to using the integrated stylus for navigation. The biggest downer, though, is that China won't be getting this e-reader until May while US availability is promised "by June." That's a long time to wait for a $500-ish slate. Video after the break.
Hanvon Unveils Industry's First Large-Screen, High-Resolution eReader at CES
Hanvon WISEreader E920 Brings Crispness and Clarity to eReaders
2011 International CES
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hanvon, a leading global e-book manufacturer, today unveiled the Hanvon WISEreader E920, the industry's first large-screen, high-resolution e-book reader at CES 2011 (LVCC South Hall Booth #36062). The Hanvon WISEreader has a 9.7 inch screen and 200 dpi resolution, which provides some of the crispest and sharpest images ever seen on an E Ink-powered device. The eReader will be available by June 2011.
"Hanvon introduced the world's first color E Ink reader, and we are continuing to innovate with our large-screen, high-res eReader"
"Hanvon introduced the world's first color E Ink reader, and we are continuing to innovate with our large-screen, high-res eReader," said Mr. Liu Yingjian, president of Hanvon. "Consumers should expect clear, detailed text and images from their e-books, readable in bright light conditions, and the WISEreader E920 delivers this experience."
The Hanvon WISEreader is the perfect eReader for the traveler on the go, or those that do not want to remember to recharge their e-book reader. The WISEreader has a standby battery life of 15 days, and can read more than 10,000 pages before requiring a recharge.
The WISEreader will support extended MicroSD cards up to 32GB, allowing consumers to store more than 10,000 e-books on the reader. It provides all the traditional benefits of an E Ink reader and also supports a variety of formats, will speak in TTS voice, allows users to comment in PDF at any time and make instant Chinese-English translations.
About Hanvon
Hanvon Technology Co., Ltd. (Hanvon) was established in 1998 and is a high-tech enterprise that is dedicated to the development and production of intelligent products, technologies and services in the field of man-computer interaction. Hanvon is a leader in the global handwriting recognition market and entered the e-book market in 2008. With a full range of technological integration capabilities, it has developed a variety of e-book products and occupied 95% of China's e-book market and become a leading global e-book manufacturer. Additional information is available at www.hanvon.com.
Nook eReaders are Barnes & Noble’s Best Sellers Ever
I wanted an eReader really badly until I got my iPad. I like to read in spurts. I will go months where I read a book each week and then I will lose interest and not read for a month or so – and I find trips to the book store to be annoying. Before the iPad, I really wanted a Nook because it had that cool color screen on the bottom.
Despite the iPad’s popularity, a lot of other people out there bought a Nook. Barnes and Noble has gone official with the announcement that the Nook line are the best selling items ever in the 40-year history of the store. It’s interesting that Amazon, the main competitor to B&N in the book business also recently announced that the Kindle was its best-selling item ever.
B&N is strangely mum on exactly how many of the Nooks have sold since the device launched. You would think they want to tout that fact, perhaps they are embarrassed by how few they have moved compared to the Kindle. The only hard number the company offered was that on Christmas Day almost a million NookBooks were sold.
In the beginning, the language of the World Wide Web was English. Times change though, and the United States’ military’s gift to civilization knows no national boundaries, and growing worldwide adoption of the internet has changed the audience make-up to such an extent that the dominant language of the internet is about to become Chinese. That’s not to say the Chinese are all that comfortable with this either. There has just been an official decree requiring the use of Chinese translations for all English words and phrases in newspapers, magazines and web sites. While all countries have watched the unregulated global nature of the internet erode traditional cultural values and the integrity of national languages, it seems the Chinese powers-that-be have concluded that the purity of the Chinese language needs to be preserved.
Firstly, let’s start with the infographic put together by Nextweb. It is a terrific infographic, though I have my doubts about the veracity of the numbers behind it as there’s no good reason China should have slowed its internet growth to the degree indicated in the chart. My bet is that the number of Chinese internet users is far closer to the number of English internet users already, and like every measure of China's emergence as the dominant country in the world, everyone has underestimated the growth.
The official Chinese Government edict to protect the Chinese language is an interesting one. The General Administration of Press and Publication web site announced last week that the mixing of foreign words in Chinese language publications without an accompanying Chinese language translation has been banned. The ban is all encompassing and includes the names of people and places, acronyms, abbreviations and common phrases, all of which have become increasingly common over recent years.
Toshiba’s Solar Biblio Leaf: Do We Really Need Another E-Reader?
It looks like every major manufacturer out there has decided to come up with an E-Reader. The trouble is that since Amazon dropped their prices pretty steeply, it’s hard to justify spending a few hundreds on a gizmo like this, especially if for a little bit more, you could get yourself an iPad.
Toshiba and KDDI partnered up to come up with the Biblio Leaf, a solar-powered ebook reader. It has a 6-inch display, WiFi, 3G, a stylus, and 2GB of memory, which you can expand via a microSD card.
The solar panels are front-mounted. Whatever. I have no problems plugging my devices for a few hours, and with most E-Readers having weeks of battery life on a single charge, I don’t quite get the point. I suppose if you travel to locations without electricity for long periods of time, it might make sense. Maybe it would be good for education in developing nations, though. I’m just curious at how long it takes to charge the Biblio Leaf with the solar panel. It’s probably going to take a while.
Google eBooks and the eBookstore are based entirely within a Web browser, allowing readers to log into their books from a wide variety of devices.
(Credit: Google)
Google is finally ready to get into the bookselling business, one Web browser at a time.
The Google eBookstore is set to launch in the U.S. this morning after months of planning on Google's part to be the latest entrant into the hot market for e-books. Google has cut deals with many top-tier publishers, including Random House, McGraw Hill, Simon & Schuster (a division of CBS, which also publishes CNET), Penguin Books, and MacMillan. And it will have "hundreds of thousands" of in-print e-books to sell today along with the huge number of public domain books that Google has already scanned through its Google Book Search project, for a total of just over 3 million titles, said James Crawford, director of engineering for Google Books.
Formerly known as Google Editions when in the planning stages, the Google eBookstore is notable because of its Web-based approach to e-book selling. Customers will be able to buy books through their Google accounts and access them on just about any device with a modern Web browser, Crawford said. The company also plans to develop e-reader applications for both Apple's App Store and the Android Market that will sync with a customer's account, allowing you to purchase a book on your home PC, start reading it on your phone on the way into work, and sneak in a few pages at lunch on your work system without having to re-discover your place each time you log in, he said.
"The idea is to never have to wonder where you are," Crawford said of the autosync feature. Books will be locked to individual Google accounts, however, and protected by Adobe's ACS4 technology.
Google's books should also work on several e-reader devices that support Adobe's technology, like Barnes & Noble's Nook or Sony's Reader, with a notable exception: Amazon's Kindle doesn't support ACS4, Crawford said.
A look at the dashboard for Google eBooks
(Credit: Google)
Google has also cut deals to let other bookstores sell electronic copies of Google's inventory, including famed Portland, Ore., bookseller Powell's, Alibris, and the American Booksellers Association, which helps indie bookstores get online, said Amanda Edmonds, director of strategic partnerships for Google Books. Goodreads, a book-oriented social-networking site, will also serve as a Google eBookstore affiliate, offering users links to the store to buy books they are discussing.
As always, pricing is key to any new retail venture. Crawford said Google intended to be "comparable" to other e-book stores, such as Amazon's or Apple's.
"We've set up a pricing algorithm to be competitively priced with the going rate in the market," he said. "We're not trying to buy our way into the market by (underpricing), but we don't want anybody to say that we have higher prices."
Google's been talking about building a digital bookstore for years, but its entire Google Book Search project has been shrouded in controversy over the proposed settlement it brokered with groups representing authors and publishers that, if approved, would give it the right to sell the out-of-print yet copyright-protected books it has scanned from library partners. Final approval of that settlement has now dragged on for years, with a decision following a "final hearing" in February--that had itself had been delayed several times--having languished for months.
However, the eBookstore as launched today really has nothing to do with that controversy: Google is only selling books for which it either has an explicit agreement with the clear rights-holder of the book, or it's a title that has passed into the public domain, Crawford said. Google has attempted to drum up support for its settlement by arguing that authors whose books have gone out of print will have a chance to earn revenue from a digital store that wasn't possible before Google made a digital copy, but until the settlement is approved it doesn't have the legal clearance to go ahead and sell those books.
The eBookstore will live as a link off the main Google Book Search page, where visitors will be asked if they are interested in searching or buying. Previews of millions of books can be found in Google Book Search, but until today Google had been directing those looking to purchase a copy to other book stores.
Website: Media magnate Murdoch preps digital newspaper for iPad
Customers check out iPads in Coral Gables, Florida. Soon they may be reading a digital newspaper on them.
(CNN) -- Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is developing a digital newspaper exclusively for the iPad and other electronic tablet devices, according to the Women's Wear Daily website.
Murdoch, who has made no secret of his ambitions to charge internet users for news content, has assembled a team of journalists for the project, called "The Daily," and hopes to roll out a beta version around Christmas, WWD reported.
Available to the public in early 2011, the Daily would cost 99 cents a week, about $4.25 a month, and true to its name, publish seven days a week, according to WWD.
Murdoch and Apple CEO Steve Jobs have long been bullish on projections that the iPad, and devices like it, will soon evolve into the premiere content-reading device for the web.
Charging for news content has long been a challenge and philosophical crux for news organizations with large online presences such as News Corporation, which Murdoch owns. The Daily would focus on national issues and combine the features of a tabloid and broadsheet publication, WWD reported.
To show the seriousness of the project, Murdoch has enlisted top-tier talent from his media empire to run the show, according to WWD.
Jesse Angelo, former managing editor of The New York Post, will lead the effort, along with journalists culled from media outfits such as Page Six, AOL, ABC News and The New Yorker, WWD reported.
Upcoming color E Ink display is ‘milestone,’ but still can’t do video
By Ben Patterson
A Chinese company is primed to launch a color e-reader early next year—and unlike the recent Nook Color from Barnes & Noble, the new device will have an actual E Ink display (similar to those on the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader) rather than going the LCD way (like the iPad).
But the upcoming Hanvon e-reader, slated to be unveiled Tuesday at a Tokyo trade show (according to the New York Times), will also come saddled with several of the inherent drawbacks of current E Ink technology—particularly a glacial refresh rate that renders smooth, full-motion video next to impossible.
Hanvon's 9.68-inch, touch-enabled e-reader is poised to go on sale next March in China for about $440—almost the same price as the 16GB iPad—according to the Times.
The slate uses a color display developed by E Ink, which manufacturers the black-and-white e-paper display on such current e-readers as the Kindle, the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble's original, monochrome Nook.
The secret, the Times reports, is a color filter that sits atop the usual black-and-white E Ink display.
The Hanvon reader will also support Wi-Fi and 3G, says the Times, and it'll be primarily aimed at business users.
Of course, it's not like we haven't already seen color e-readers here in the U.S. There's the iPad, of course, not to mention Barnes & Noble's new Android-based Nook Color.
But the iPad and Nook Color tablets use traditional LCD displays, which can be hard to read outdoors and are battery hogs compared with E Ink readers like the Kindle, which keep going and going ... and going, for days and even weeks at a time.
The Hanvon color E Ink slate will also have extra-long battery life, the Times reports, and it will be nearly as easy to read outdoors as current black-and-white E-Ink devices.
Just don't expect to watch episodes of "Mad Men" on the Hanvon. As with the Kindle, the Sony Reader and the first Nook, the E Ink display on the Hanvon reader can't refresh nearly as fast as an LCD screen can, resulting in "simple animations" at best—and no video, of course, says the Times.
Even the color images themselves on the Hanvon are "muted" like a "faded color photograph," and the color filter "does reduce the brightness" on the E Ink display, the story continues.
So while a commercially available color E Ink reader probably is a "milestone" in the e-reader market, as one analyst told the Times, it'll still represent a trade-off—one that some players in the e-reader field, like Amazon, still appear unwilling to make.
Back in July, when Amazon unveiled its revamped Kindle, I asked Amazon reps when a color and/or touchscreen Kindle might be on the way—and the answer I got was that for the "vast majority" of readers, a sharp black-and-white screen is "a feature, not a bug." The Amazon spokesperson also argued that an extra layer of touch-sensitive glass would cut down on the contrast of the screen, which would be too high a price to pay given that Kindle users spend most of their time simply tapping the "next page" button over and over.
So for now, it appears we're still years away from the holy grail of display technology: a screen that looks great outside, works for days and weeks on a single charge, and is fast enough to display razor-sharp video, just like LCD.
At least the Hanvon e-reader sounds like a step in the right direction, albeit a small one.
New York Times: Color Comes to E Ink Screens
(Yahoo!)
The secret to building an inexpensive flexible computer display is not in the core components of the displays themselves. It's in the material those components are mounted on.
The fundamental elements of e-ink and OLED displays are small enough that they won't break if laid down on flexible backing. The problem, according to Janglin Chen of Taiwanese government-funded research lab ITRI, is the backing itself. The substrate the components are mounted onto has to have certain physical properties, especially during the manufacturing process. To date, the primary material on which displays have been layered has been glass, which meets the needs: it's rigid, transparent, and reliable.
ITRI has found a way, though, to create a display backing material that is all these things during manufacture, but becomes flexible when the building is finished. It's a polymer material that can be sprayed onto a glass backing and that maintains its properties (it doesn't discolor, for example) while the rest of the display is being deposited and built up on top of it. When the displays are done, they can be peeled right off the glass.
In addition to the polymer substrate, ITRI also had to develop a "release material" that's sprayed down on the glass before the polymer, so the final product can peel off without tearing or sticking. Think cooking oil and crepes.
The big advantage to this process, Chen says, is that existing fabrication plants can be used to make flexible panels. Aside from spraying on the chemicals to coat the glass with high-tech Pam and the polymer substrate, and the post-manufacture removal of the display from the glass, the process is the same as making a rigid display.
ITRI has signed at least one non-exclusive deal with a Taiwanese company that makes black-and-white e-readers, and Chen expects the first flexible panel using ITRI technology to be in a consumer product next year. Color displays based on OLED technology are likely after that. E-ink and OLEDs lend themselves well to working on flexible backing, Chen says. Traditional LCDs, which require separate lighting components and filters, do not. The sole existing color e-reader, the new Barnes and Noble Nook Color, uses traditional LCD technology. All current black-and-white e-readers, like the Amazon Kindle, use e-ink displays built up on traditional glass substrates.
Janglin Chen (center) and lab ITRI researchers Tzong-Ming Lee (left) and Jia-Chong Ho (right) with their sample e-ink display.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)
The flexible technology isn't limited to displays. ITRI's technology can be used for touch panels (on top of displays, or separately) and for sensor technology. And, I assume, for solar cells, although that's a somewhat challenging market.
I talked with Chen a bit about the market for flexible panels. It's a science-fiction dream to have a foldable or rollable e-book or phone, but there's more to the market than a little flexibility. Chen notes that removing the glass back-plane from a display makes it safer, more durable, and lighter than a traditional display. This is good for low-end products and for devices that end up in the hands of children. And while the ITRI process is not yet less expensive than current display-building technologies, the raw materials do cost less, as the backing glass is reused after every screen is made, instead of getting shipped with it.
But the real flexibility is what this could allow gadget designers to think up. "We're trying to break the glass dimension and give it back to the designer," Chen says.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Barnes & Noble unveiled a new full-color, touchscreen version of its Nook e-reader Tuesday in New York City.
The new version, priced at $249, will begin shipping on or around Nov. 19, and is now available for pre-order. Unlike Barnes & Noble's current Nooks, the new one won't have a 3G network connection. It will only be able to get online through Wi-Fi.
The NookColor is latest strike in an ongoing price and hardware battle among e-reader manufacturers --and a bold move away from E-Ink, the technology Amazon and other booksellers insist makes for a better reading experience.E-Ink boasts a backlight-free display and reflects light like regular paper does. It's more comfortable to read for hours, but it's far less flexible and much slower than a traditional touchscreen display.
The NookColor is powered by Google's Android operating system. It's a half-inch thick, weighs less than a pound, and has a "laminated" screen that minimizes glare, according to Jamie Iannone, Barnes & Noble's digital product head. The battery allows up to eight hours of continuous reading, and the gadget's 8 GB of internal memory can hold around 6,000 books.
Barnes & Noble played up the NookColor's social features and interactivity. A new developer platform invites creators to build "reading-centric apps," and readers can recommend books to friends on Twitter and Facebook with the tap of a button.
The company is particularly targeting parents and young readers with its new gadget: A new catalog of children's books will launch with "hundreds" of picture books, plus 11,000 chapter books. Interactive childrens' books will let kids play with animation, and a "read to me" button has a professional narrator read the children's story.
A tense battle: The original Nook launched last November with a black-and-white E-Ink screen for reading text, and a smaller color touchscreen for browsing book titles. Prices range from $149 for a Wi-Fi-only version to $199 for the Nook 3G, which can connect to cellular networks.
Barnes & Noble said it will continue to enhance its existing Nook technology, including enabling faster page turns. Those devices will remain part of the Nook portfolio.
"We think there's a sector of users who want E-Ink only," Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said.
The iPad's April debut cast doubt on the long-term survival of dedicated e-readers. For a starting price of $500, the iPad offers e-book apps plus broader multimedia features for Web surfing and watching videos. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) sold 7.5 million iPads in the gadget's first six months.
But competition is still hot. Amazon's Kindle has largely dominated the e-reader space, relegating the Nook, the Sony Reader and Borders' Kobo to also-rans. Amazon consistently refuses to divulge Kindle sales, resorting instead to vague press releases -- which most analysts take as a sign that sales aren't earthshattering. Still, the Kindle is believed to have sold several million units in its three years on the market.
"Nook has sold well over a million units, and we're on our way to a million more," Lynch said.
Barnes & Noble (BKS, Fortune 500) has a vast retail network, but it's been the underdog in the e-reader fight against Amazon.
On top of a two-year head start, Amazon has a much larger catalog of e-books -- and they're often cheaper than they are at Barnes & Noble, an issue that has drawn scrutiny from consumer advocates who suspect Amazon and Apple have negotiated some potentially unfair pricing deals.
Barnes & Noble is a major bookseller competing with tech companies, but its Tuesday announcement indicates it views the e-reader fight as one that will be won on technology -- not content.
On that front, it lags its rivals. Barnes & Noble touts its "2 million plus titles available" for the Nook, but a giant chunk of those books are pre-1923 texts that are in the public domain. Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), on the other hand, doesn't include public domain titles when it says there are 750,000 books in its catalog.
Prices have continued dwindling since then. Ahead of Barnes & Noble's event, Borders announced on Monday that would it cut the price of its entry-level E-Ink Kobo reader to just $99.
But the $250 NookColor price tag is here to stay, B&N CEO Lynch pledged at the launch -- even if Amazon races out with a cheaper, touchscreen Kindle.
"We're not thinking of lowering the price anytime soon, no matter what happens," he said.
iRiver rolled out the Cover Story e-reader last week at the IFA 2010 in Berlin. We can say it’s just another e-book reader but iRiver is offering it with more than the usual features. It comes equipped with a 6-inch touchscreen display, 800 x 600 E Ink screen resolution, a stylus, 2GB of storage, WiFi, browser and e-mail app as an option.
iRiver Cover Story is set at $295 for the basic WiFi model when it’s released in Europe and Asia.
The Acer LumiRead e-Book reader which we saw at the Computex 2010 backin June will be offered in Germany this October. This means, our Germany-based TechFever correspondents can get their hands on this mobile device. That is, if they decide to do so.
Specs of the Acer eReader include WiFi, 3G, 6-inch display with 800 x 600 pixel E-ink resolution. Price tag reads $316 which is about €250 in the country.
Yet another Taiwan publication is saying that a 7-inch iPad is coming. This rumor isn't new. In fact, it was one of the first rumored sizes. It echoes the always-unreliable Digitimes and iLounge's latest reports, but is it really possible?
iLounge recently claimed that a "highly reliable source" told them of a 7-inch iPad along with "news" of an antenna-fixed iPhone 4—coming out as early as January 2010. They also mentioned an iPod touch with a smaller screen than the iPhone. Back in early 2010, iLounge's original Apple tablet rumors said that Apple was preparing a 7-inch tablet. At the end, though, they backpedaled, saying that Apple thought a 7-inch screen was too small, and that that Steve Jobs & Co. decided on a 10.7-inch iPad instead.
The iPad's screen size is 9.7 inches.
Likewise, Digitimes has been banging the 7-inch iPad drum for a long time. Unlike the Economic Daily News—which points at an IPS display—Digitimes said the screen is OLED. It's highly unlikely that Apple will use OLED for anything, given the success of their IPS Retina display and that it is impossible to get OLED screens in the massive quantities Apple would need. The Economic Daily News claims this "iPad 2" is coming for the holiday season. Now that would be a Christmas surprise.
Why a smaller iPad?
Proponents of this rumor say that going down to seven inches will probably make the iPad lighter. They also say it will be cheaper to make and that Apple wants to keep control of the market they created by offering more flavors.
But we know that Apple has tried different formats for the iPad before settling on the 9.7 inch form factor. There's nothing wrong with that format. If anything, it's too small for reading things like comic books. But it feels good to handle, and has resulted in more than three million units sold in very little time (when everyone except a few predicted its catastrophic failure).
It doesn't make sense to change the winning formula with a screen that will be too small for comfortable reading, while being just double the size of an iPod. And the market doesn't seem big enough yet to have space for another flavor.
At this point, the only thing that the iPad needs is a higher resolution screen at the same 9.7-inch size. We will probably see this when version 2 is released—probably in a year from now.
Could the rumor be true?
Could the rumor reposted by PC World be true? Who knows. It doesn't seem very reasonable to me and Taiwanese newspapers have a history of posting false tech industry stories about Apple products in order to boost the reputation of component manufacturers. At the same time, the actual providers are extremely strict about secrecy because their contracts with Apple depend on it.
Like with every Apple rumor—especially in the summer—it's better to be highly skeptical until Steve Jobs actually confirms it on stage.
According to one of our most trusted sources, there is word that two new touchscreen Sony Reader devices (PRS-350 and PRS-650) with E-Ink technology are coming to the market soon. Many of you who observe product life cycles know this is the usual time of the year for a Reader product refresh, and we have secured further details about the upcoming devices. Sony has been under pressure in the E-Book Reader product category as they face increased competition from rivals Apple (iPad), Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Ectaco, and other companies.
The two new Sony Reader devices will be very attractively priced, and are definitely much more compact and lighter than previous models with a possible width under 10mm (extremely thin). From what we’re hearing the new models will also have improved contrast and faster page turns. The PRS-650 will have a six inch screen while the PRS-350 will have a five inch screen. There will also be a bump in capacity from the usual 512MB or less found in currently Sony Reader models to 2GB of internal storage. We are not sure if that capacity bump extends to both devices, but will most certainly be true for the PRS-650. We also know that the PRS-650 will have Wi-Fi (and possibly free 3G), while the PRS-350 will not have any wireless connectivity (like the PRS-300).
As for the software side of things, the Sony Reader UI in both devices has been revised with a new home interface, and the note-taking software (found in the PRS-600) will trickle down and now be available in the PRS-350 as well. Battery life will probably be the same as previous models at nearly two weeks (or perhaps a bit higher), and other features such as USB 2.0 and Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, BBeB Book, ePub/ACS4 and Adobe Digital Edition format compatibility will return. As for aesthetics, we see that the same colors as before should be available for both series.
Ever wondered how the Kindle and iPad displays compare if placed under a microscope? Me neither, but some folks decided to see how things look magnified. They even got closer than the picture above:
Amazon's new Kindle has plenty of desirable features -- like a month-long battery, double the storage and a more responsive screen -- but some exciting new additions weren't highlighted on the press release. Diving through the official User's Guide for just such unheralded items, the Kindle World Blog discovered the unit will come with a second English dictionary, a PDF contrast adjustment and... a microphone. As you can see immediately above, that last won't be accessible out of the box -- and may just lead to audio annotations down the road -- but the hacker community (or more legitimately, Kindle developers) could do very interesting things with the discovery. We hesitate to even mention for fear the feature will get pulled, but we're dreaming of Skyping across that free 3G connection already.
Thinner and Lighter Kindle Comes with Wi-Fi and Starts at $139
It may have taken longer than expected, but a replacement for the Kindle 2 has arrived. The addition of Wi-Fi and an aggressive $139 starting price make the new eReader a formidable upgrade.
The new Kindle is 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the Kindle 2, great for those like me who enjoy reading in bed. Even with a smaller form factor, the familiar 6-inch screen is still present with 50% better contrast (same as the Kindle DX). Improved contrast and font rendering aren't particularly noticeable for books, partly because it was never an issue with the Kindle 2, but the changes are nice for reading newspapers. The internal memory was doubled to 4GB, capable of holding roughly 3,500 books. A $189 Wi-Fi plus 3G model and $139 Wi-Fi only model will be available for pre-order today.
A notable feature of the new Kindle is an experimental WebKit browser. The experimental nature of the browser is fairly obvious. Pages take a while to load and don't always render correctly and the directional controls make web-browsing a clunky experience. The saving grace of the current browser is an ‘article mode' that converts web pages into an easier to read article format. While the browsing experience on Kindle isn't fully fleshed out yet, it's a good step in the right direction in terms of adding utility to the reader. The new Kindle is without a doubt improved, but the whole experience is still sluggish; page turns are 20 percent faster but still feel slow, especially compared to the Kindle iPad app. While some additional zip would be nice, improved ergonomics and a lower entry price make the new Kindle as enticing as ever.
SEATTLE – Jeff Bezos isn't just confident you'll want a Kindle e-book reader. The CEO of Amazon.com is bracing for a future in which you'll also want ones for your kid heading to college, your spouse in a book club and perhaps even Grandpa.
And despite increased competition from Apple Inc.'s flashy iPad and other e-readers, that future could be coming soon — as early as August, actually, when online retailer Amazon.com Inc. releases two new Kindle models.
With both versions costing less than $200, and one not far above the $99 psychological tipping point for gadget-buying, Bezos expects people to buy multiple devices for their households. If he's right, the new Kindles could help cement the company's status as the reigning e-reader and e-book champ, even in the face of an ever-growing field of challengers.
Sitting at the head of a conference-room table at Amazon's new headquarters on a late July afternoon, Bezos flips over a skinny, dark gray device. It's the upcoming Kindle, and he's excited to show it off.
Bezos zips through the new Kindle's features, rattling off a bevy of percentages. It's 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the current Kindle, he says, though its display is the same size. Its electronic ink display has 50 percent higher contrast for improved reading in low and bright light. It turns pages 20 percent faster.
Available on Aug. 27 in dark gray or white, the Kindle will have Wi-Fi access for the first time. Previous versions had only 3G cellular access for downloading books and other content. A version with both 3G and Wi-Fi will cost $189 — the same price as the current Kindle. A Wi-Fi-only version, which can just download books when you're in a wireless hotspot, will cost $139.
That second price tag makes the Wi-Fi-only Kindle $10 cheaper than the Wi-Fi-only Nook, an e-reader sold by competitor Barnes & Noble Inc. It will cost $11 less than Sony Corp.'s low-end e-reader, the Reader Pocket Edition, which doesn't have wireless connectivity.
That lower price is also less than half of the $399 that Amazon charged when it released the first Kindle in late 2007.
James McQuivey, a Forrester Research analyst, expects the new price will "shatter the bottom" of the e-reader market.
"Anything that doesn't have any kind of connectivity, like the Sony Pocket Reader, has to drop to $99 by the end of the year," he says. "Why would you buy that non-wireless device if you have the choice for the same or less money to buy a Wi-Fi-enabled Kindle?"
If Bezos has his way, you wouldn't — maybe you'd buy a Kindle with 3G and Wi-Fi for yourself, since you travel a lot, and a Wi-Fi-only one for your brother, who does most of his reading at home.
But even if the lower-price Kindle stimulates new demand, it will likely be hard to gauge how well they're really selling. While Apple happily touts sales milestones for the iPad, which starts at $499 and can be used to read e-books, surf the Web and more, Amazon has never divulged how many Kindles it has sold, beyond saying that readers have snapped up "millions" of the skinny e-readers.
Bezos said Amazon is so secretive with its sales figures because releasing the information could help competitors, making it easier for them to estimate how many e-readers they should manufacture, for example.
Forrester estimates that Amazon has sold 4 million Kindles so far in the U.S. and expects it will have sold more than 6 million by the end of the year.
That would fit with hints from Amazon that cutting the Kindle's price has helped. Amazon recently announced that Kindle sales growth accelerated since the company dropped the device's price to $189 from $259 in late June, a cut that came a few hours after Barnes & Noble announced a similar slash to the price of its Nook e-reader, which now costs $199.
The company also said Kindle book sales now outpace sales of hardcover books on Amazon. Amazon's Kindle store now offers more than 630,000 books, including a number of free, out-of-copyright titles. When the device first launched, there were only 90,000.
Bezos expects e-book sales growth to keep up, predicting Kindle books will outsell paperbacks on Amazon.com in the next nine months to a year. Eventually, he expects to sell more Kindle books than hardcovers and paperbacks combined.
"When that happens, because of the convenience of electronic reading, people will just be reading more," he says.
Although many of them will likely be clicking from page to page on $139 Kindles, plenty of others may not even bother to buy the hardware.
The company offers free Kindle reading software for several devices, including Apple's iPhone and iPad and smart phones that run Google Inc.'s Android operating software. There's also software for personal computers. That allows people to access Kindle content whether or not they have a Kindle device; Amazon still makes money selling the e-books.
For the foreseeable future, however, Amazon will need to watch out for competitors such as the iPad and the Nook. While Apple, with its iBookstore e-book store, is less of a threat to the Kindle Store and software, its iPad is a looming presence on the hardware side, McQuivey says. The Nook, meanwhile, is unlikely to catch up to Amazon, he says, but still something the online retailer can't ignore.
"The question is, are they ready for what they started?" McQuivey asks.
Bezos seems to think so, even as gadgets that can do everything from giving directions to supporting video chat proliferate.
"As far as e-books go, our point of view is that reading can be made better with a purpose-built device," he says.
The Future of Books: All About Apps?
By Adam Hadhazy
The Amazon Kindle had barely made printed books seem antiquated and already Kindle and other dedicated e-readers face a challenge from smartphones and other devices that can run e-book reading software, or apps.
Major booksellers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders are rapidly expanding the availability of these apps, often branding them with the name of each respective vendor's dedicated e-reader, such as the Kindle app, the Nook app, and the newest kid on the block, the Kobo app.
Barnes & Noble, for example, just announced a Nook e-reading app for smartphones with Google's Android operating system. This move into Android, which presently powers 13 percent of the burgeoning United States smartphone market, lets Barnes & Noble keep pace with Amazon and Borders, both of whom added an Android app to their lineup of e-reading Kindle and Kobo apps about a month ago. (The booksellers also offer e-reading apps for the iPhone and the BlackBerry, and also the Palm Pre in the case of Kobo.)
Despite this competition, reading an e-book on a smartphone can be a tough sell for some people because of the relatively small screen. "Reading a book on a smartphone is a stretch," said Mark Beccue, a senior analyst at ABI Research.
Yet Beccue sees great opportunity for e-reading apps in general. For one, they make books available across a wide spectrum of electronic devices that can run the apps.
An ebook purchased on one's smartphone can also be read on a desktop computer at home, a laptop, a tablet computer such as iPad, and of course on dedicated ebook devices made by the company.
This literary portability makes books purchased through e-reader apps very attractive for tech-savvy book worms. "It is certainly the choice of a lot of people to go for an electronic book," said Beccue.
On the rise
The introduction of the iPad in April, which has since sold a whopping three million units as of late June, has also fueled the rise of e-books, both through third-party apps and Apple's new iBooks app. Within its first month of introduction, 1.5 million iBooks were purchased by users.
A seminal moment in the ascent of e-books came earlier this year when e-book sales eclipsed hardcover sales at Amazon, with 180 e-books now digitally flying off the shelves for every 100 printed hardcovers.
Additionally, wholesale revenue from e-book sales jumped to over $90 million in the first quarter of 2010, doubling since third quarter of 2009, according to statistics collected by the International Digital Publishing Forum.
Retailers and publishers alike stand to gain from the skyrocketing sales of e-books facilitated in part by the proliferation of e-reader software. "Digital goods like [e-books] clearly are more profitable," said Beccue. "Amazon still sells physical books, but if they sell a digital version, there is more profit. They don’t have to store [the book or] ship it."
Given the fever-pitch demand for e-books, publishers have been duking it out with Amazon and other booksellers over the price (and profit margins) on e-books.
Little wonder, then, that the e-reader apps themselves are free. "Apps are really a conduit a lot of times to the Web" where the e-books are available, Beccue told TechNewsDaily.
Stocked e-shelves
In this cyberspace, retailers are jockeying to host the biggest and newest collections of e-books.
Barnes & Noble has over one million titles in its library presently for Nook and its Barnes & Noble eReader apps. Kobo boasts almost two million titles, and as an app is also available across various other e-readers including the Sony Reader, the Ashtak line and BeBook.
Though Amazon holds the fewest in its Kindle Store – 620,000 titles available for its United States customers – as of this writing, the company has rights to 109 out of 112 books on the New York Times bestseller list, a category of figure that its competitors do not advertise.
Ultimately, it is too early to tell whether e-reader apps will expand the market for books or merely replace the printed standbys of the last five-and-a-half centuries. Given the printed medium's apparent staying power in the advent of radio, television and the Internet, ink-on-paper might have a ways to go before relegated to the cassette tape bin of history.
"I don’t think [e-books and e-reader apps] will kill the book," Beccue said, "I think they will be complementary to it."
ExoPC nabs improved screen and e-book app, still on track for a September release (video)
Still pining for one of the best Windows 7 tablets we've seen to date? Yeah, we're talking about the 11.6-inch ExoPC. Well, we've got nothing but good news: the company's still on track for a September release and has been putting the finishing touches on the Windows 7, Intel Atom-powered slate. According to some new videos posted by the company, the tablet's been upgraded with a new LCD that appears to have much better viewing angles than the one we checked out at Computex. Additionally, the Canadian team's been doing some stand-up work on an e-book app. As you can see in the video beyond the break (more can be found there in the source link), it's got a simple interface, snazzy page flip animations and it looks fairly easy to import a book on your own. It's all lookin' quite good to us. Not that we're trying to rush this heat wave or anything, but is it September yet?
The Joule stand was my favorite iPad stand until I saw Twelvesouth's Compass. Now my heart is divided. I really like the angular design and its portability. But what I really like is its price: Just $40.
At $129, the Joule is way too expensive to the majority of people. At $40, the Compass seems reasonable enough. It also solves some of the issues I noted in my review: Looking at the photos, you can use the dock cable in portrait and landscape mode. It also looks light. While I like to tote my Joule around, many times I leave it at home because it's way too heavy.
I will try it to see if it beats the solid feel and simplicity of the Joule, but based on price alone, I bet many iPad users would prefer the Compass. [Twelvesouth]
We're being told that Verizon has a pair of devices that it's identifying as "e-readers" on the roadmap for September of this year, but what's really interesting is that they're called "Entourage." It's possible there's no association to the company of the same name, but we're kind of thinking that the carrier has hooked up with the makers of the oddball Edge for these devices -- especially since we know they both share an affinity for Android. We don't know the specifics of the units other than the fact that they'll be 7- and 10-inch tablets -- presumably sans the Edge's crazy dual-display design, though we can't say for sure. Verizon has yet to play the e-reader game the same way Sprint and AT&T have with the Kindle and Nook -- and of course, we've no doubt they'd love a viable iPad competitor. Who's buying?
Barnes & Noble Announces Nook Study Site with Cheap Textbooks
Just in time for students to start thinking about how much plasma they'll have to sell in order to buy textbooks this year, Barnes & Noble has announced a new arm of the Nook e-book store that gives students a way to get eTextbooks and other study materials online for a cheaper price.
Barnes & Noble's new NOOKstudy platform promises to provide a well stocked library of digitized textbooks for up to 40 percent less than those sold in the bookstore, according to a statement released by the company.
"NOOKstudy is a big win for college students: it will not only lighten their backpacks, but also help them save money and study more efficiently," said Tracey Weber, executive vice president of Textbooks and Digital Education, in a company statement. "NOOKstudy is a revolutionary approach to learning that offers students access to the reading and organizational tools they need, across all content sources and formats, enabling them to study smarter, not harder."
The eTextbooks are intended to be just as useful as the real thing, with built-in highlighting and annotating features. Moreover, those notes and highlighted sections are fully searchable, a feature many students over the years would have loved during those long nights of study, flipping through page after page trying to find that one note scribbled in the margin.
NOOKstudy is already in use at a few universities, including Pennsylvania State University; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Queensboro Community College; and Rochester Institute of Technology, but a full rollout to all students is planned for August. Those wanting to register for the service now (students and teachers alike) can do so through www.NOOKstudy.com.
The iPad's the best tablet around because it's the pretty much the only tablet around, but a whole legion of Android tablets, like Velocity Micro's Cruz Reader, are on their way. For $200, this one looks pretty good.
The 7" Cruz Reader, slated for availability in August, is being sold as an ebook reader—a $300 Cruz Tablet, with 4GB more memory, will come out shortly after—but it looks like it will really just be a cheap, functional Android tablet; it has a USB port and SD slot and it can display photos, play MP4 video and audio files, and browse the web. It might not do these things flawlessly, but hey, it's just an ebook reader after all! (That's what you call expectation management.)
Update: A-ha, here are the full specs for both the Cruz Reader and Cruz Tablet:
There are many mediums for ebook publishing today. But how does a publisher or author choose which one to use? Or does he or she even have to choose at all?
Now that the iPad has captured 22% of the eBook market in it's first 60 days, authors are clamoring to get their books into the iBookstore. What most are finding out is that publishing on the iPad is no simple task. Where Amazon has had 3 years to make publishing eBooks on Kindle a snap, Apple is just now clunking up to speed. The publishing process on iPad is almost not worth it, until you weigh in the fact that the iBookstore is now available on over 3 million iPads and all iPhones with the new iOS4-that's a potential audience of over 40 million people. That's right, it's not just eBooks on the iPad anymore, it's seamless distribution through the iPhone, too. Add to this a major push by Barnes and Noble and Borders to build their own eBookstore platforms and your eBooks could reach over 100 million readers.
A Little eBook History
Back in 1999 Nuvomedia built one of the first eBook readers. It was called the Rocket eBook and they thought they were turning a new page in publishing history. Unfortunately, they were 10 years too early. The connection between buying and reading books was too clunky. It wasn't until Amazon tied Kindle to a cellular network and made it possible to browse and purchase eBooks with one click, that the revolution began. Once readers could make compulsive book purchases, Kindle sales took off.
Then Amazon made another amazing move, they built a Kindle iPhone App. This was critical because it turned every single iPhone into a Kindle. This was a major turning point in the development of eBooks-the bookstore was more important than the device. Now Kindle apps are available on iPad, Android, Blackberry, Mac and PC.
Modern Day eBookstores
Today Apple, Barnes and Noble, Borders and even newcomers like Kobo are creating their own eBookstores and mobile eReading Apps. Initially these bookstores were tied to devices like the iPad, Kindle, Nook and the Kobo, but the device is less important than who sells the book. And as each company creates its own platform for selling books we need to find easier, faster ways to publish them-and to make them available in all the different stores.
Publishing eBooks
When Kindle and the iBookstore first opened they focused primarily on big publishing companies with top sellers. Then they slowly made it possible for self-publishers to get their content into the store. Today you have to jump through some hoops to get your books listed, but it's possible. The biggest problem is getting your content into the right format so it can flow nicely on all the different eReaders. Amazon created their own format and Apple went with the industry standard ePUB format. Unfortunately, most authors don't have a clue what an ePUB is or how to turn their beautiful PDF into one. Enter the publishing service providers.
Though it gets more complicated for authors to publish and manage their own books, services like FastPencil.com are making it easier. By using a service, authors can focus on their content and leave the formatting, publishing and distribution to FastPencil. Unlike Lulu.com or CreateSpace.com, FastPencil is the only online publishing system that provides authors with a free online book editor, free formatting and design templates and totally integrated publishing and distribution for all platforms-including print-on-demand and eBooks.
As a result, it's much easier to publish your eBook on all the different devices-iPad, Kindle, Nook, Kobo-and reach your readers when they are ready to buy. You don't have to worry about ePUB formats, design or distribution. You can do what you were meant to do: Write.
Suggestions for eBook Publishing
Having helped thousands of authors get over the hurdles on their way to publishing, I've come up with three suggestions that can save you a lot of trouble and help you decide where and how to sell more books.
1. Self-publishing is for workaholics-use a service. Before you dive into Self-publishing make sure you are ready to start your own business. Self-publishing is essentially acting as your own publisher which means you have to register ISBN's, collect sales taxes and manage a business. There's a better way to do it using online service providers like FastPencil.com who will manage everything for you, collect taxes and pay huge royalties.
2. Don't limit yourself-publish multiple formats in every channel. When you want to sell copies of your book why limit yourself to just the Kindle or just paperback? Readers in the future will not walk into
bookstores, browse around and buy books. They will hear about a book from a friend, look it up on a mobile device, download a copy and start reading within 15 minutes. You want to be there when they come
looking.
3. Link directly to your book-readers want instant gratification. Take advantage of every new marketing and sales tools available to get your book in front of your readers. Get direct links to your book on Kindle
and iPad and put them on your web site or blog. Learn from the Rocket eBook experience and make it fast and easy to order your book.
Kindle, iPad, Nook, Kobo?
Kindle is by far the leader in eBook sales today, but Apple is gaining marketshare fast. The iBookstore is really hard to get into, but if you use a service like FastPencil it's a snap. Barnes and Noble is setting up their own publishers system this summer for the Nook, and Borders has partnered up with Kobo to do the same thing. The ideal situation would be to release your book into all the different bookstores and also provide direct links for your readers from your web site or blog.
Today it's easier than ever to write, publish and sell your book. Couple that with the extensive reach of these new eBookstores and authors have an opportunity like no other time in history. Don't get caught up on the whether to stick with Kindle or iPad... do both!
Michael Ashley (a.k.a. "Mash"), is the author of iPad Publishing Guide: Write, Publish and Sell Your Book on the Apple iPad with FastPencil. Now available on: Kindle, iPad, and FastPencil.com.
Mash is Founder & Chief Technology Officer at FastPencil, Inc. which helps authors connect, write, publish and distribute books with just a few clicks. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 12 years experience in web applications and Internet publishing. Mash is responsible for innovation and product strategy at FastPencil. In this role, Mash has transformed the company from an online writing tool, to the only end-to-end social self-publishing platform with multi-channel, multi-format distribution. In his free time you can find him stand-up paddle surfing in his hometown, Santa Cruz.
Acer's LumiRead 600 hits the FCC with slow bursts of 2.4GHz radiation
Acer's 6-inch LumiRead e-reader just hit the FCC, but there's not a lot to learn -- the company smartly withheld the user's manual and detailed images, so all we have are the triplicate forms of stalwart government employees trying to irradiate themselves. Those thankfully painless tests reveal that the Kindle-alike will have standard 802.11b/g WiFi alongside its monochrome E Ink screen, and the whole 532MHz Freescale iMX357 kit will be powered by a 3.7V, 1460mAh battery. Exciting stuff, we know. In other news, the FCC's "ancillary equipment" list features genuine Apple iPod earbuds, and a Dell Vostro 1510 -- because that's how they roll.
It may have taken longer than expected, but a replacement for the Kindle 2 has arrived. The addition of Wi-Fi and an aggressive $139 starting price make the new eReader a formidable upgrade.
