{ enygmatic } | mobilis in mobili

Sony recently announced the launch of the Reader Pocket edition and the Reader Touch edition, which will go on sale at the end of the month for $199 and $299 respectively. Sony had also hinted that a wireless offering along the lines of the Kindle may be in the pipeline. Yesterday, Sony announced the release of a wireless device called Reader Daily Edition. The 7″ touch screen e-ink device is expected to go on sale in December. It features an AT&T 3G modem for free wireless access to Sony’s bookstore.  This means that if you are in the US, you can potentially use the Sony Reader on the go as well.

In a previous post, I had speculated as to how Amazon could use its Kindle technology to become the world’s biggest library. Turns out that the idea isn’t so far fetched and the concept has been used by a company called Overdrive for quite some time. Now imagine being able to access books from the collections of public libraries and millions of out of print books all on one device, along with titles from your regular bookstores!! The new Sony Reader promises just that. Sony has already partnered with Google to get out of print books on it’s devices. In addition to this it has partnered with the New York Public Library and Overdrive, to get content from libraries onto the device. You can now “borrow” a book from a supported Library, read it for the check out period and then “return” the book using the Reader. And here comes the kicker, the service is free. Yes, you heard me right, free !! Of course, you do need a valid library card to access the books, but the possibilities are amazing. Add a $399 price tag to all of this and I think we have a winner from Sony.

I think with this new addition, Sony will definitely be something to watch out for in the e-book reader market.

PS: I’m waiting for the reviews of the Sony Reader Touch Edition. Might just get one

Amazon did something very interesting a couple of days ago. It was approached by one of its sellers to remove the books Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from its store. Apparently there was a rights issue of some kind and the vendor no longer wanted to offer the book for sale at the Kindle store. Amazon pulled the book from its stores, but it went one step further – it remotely deleted books from its customers Kindle devices!! (more…)

Continuing on from where I left off on part 4, I’ll now look at some trends that I have noticed about the E-book Reader market.

• iPhones and other smart phones are fast becoming popular as alternatives to E-book readers.  In fact Wired.com contends that the iPhone surpasses Kindle in the popularity stakes. Whether this trend will continue to hold in the future though remains to be seen.
• A limitation of the current crop of e-book readers is that they show text and images in black and white only. This is largely due to a limitation of the e-ink technology used. However we might just see color e-book readers soon. Fujitsu released it color e-book reader dubbed Flepia in March this year. In addition to this the first color e-ink displays might soon enter commercial mass production by the end of next year . So look forward to reading your favorite magazine in color on your e-book reader in the near future. (more…)

Given the choice of E-book reader devices,  it certainly is a bit confusing to select one. Well, here is a list of ten things I feel you should consider before getting yourself one.

1. Own a smart phone, iPhone, iPod touch or a netbook?
   If you already own the above devices and you don’t mind the smaller screen / LCD display and lower battery life, then look no further. You don’t really need an E-book reader device. You can merely use software like Lexcycle’s Stanza or MobiPocket E-book reader to convert your phone / netbook into a very capable E-book reading device. And you can spend the $200-300 you’ll save on books to read. If you still want an E-book reader though, read on. (Amazon also has a Kindle app for the iPhone)
2. Build quality and weight
   Since you will be carrying around your E-book reader  all the time, its weight and build quality assume importance. Try and go for a device that looks and feels sturdy and is low on weight. Also another aspect to look at is the control design. This may be especially important if you are left handed. (more…)

Today you can find E-book readers of all shapes and sizes and at prices to suit all wallets (almost, prices could come down a bit more). The graphic below shows a comparison of the popular models that are available on the market today.

E-Book Reader Matrix

This matrix was created from manufacturer information and from data on a more comprehensive matrix at the MobileRead Wiki. I have largely concentrated on what I feel are the most important parameters for comparison.  If you want a more comprehensive view, you can see the original matrix here.
There are a few alternatives to using a dedicated E-book reader device. If you already own an iPhone or an iPod touch, you can read e-books on your device by installing third party applications. Lexcycle’s Stanza is a popular free e-book reader solution for the iPhone or iPod. Stanza supports ePUB, MS LIT, AZW (Kindle’s format), MobiPocket, PalmDoc, HTML, PDF, TXT, DOC and RTF, which means you are pretty much covered as far as content is concerned. The only drawback I feel, is that you have to put up with the iPhone’s much smaller 3.5” screen.
Another alternative is to use your netbook as an e-book reader by using software like Stanza Desktop. With netbooks costing as much as the entry level E-book reader (in the $250-$400 range), I think they present a great alternative to the e-book reader. However, their LCD screens may cause eye strain in the long run and the battery life definitely won’t reach that of e-book readers. Still considering that your average netbook can still do a lot more than even the most sophisticated e-book reader, I’d say they are a good alternative.
In the next article, I’ll look at the various factors to consider when deciding on an e-book reader.

In this part of the series on E-book readers, I’ll take a peek behind the screen and try and show what makes an E-book reader tick. I’ll also look at the common specifications that most e-book readers have. I’ll be concentrating on E-ink based e-book readers, because these seem to be the most dominant form of e-book reader devices today.

The Screen

Most E-book readers today use an e-ink display screen. Sounds really high tech right? Well, it is. I’ll try and explain how e-ink works.

An e-ink display basically consists of material called “electronic ink” which is printed onto a thin sheet of plastic. “Electronic ink” or e-ink consists of millions of micro capsules which have colored chips that may be black or white in color. Each color responds to electricity in a different manner. Let’s assume that the white chips respond to a positive charge and the black chips respond to a negative charge. Now when an positive charge is applied to a micro capsule this causes the white chips to rise up to the top of the capsule, while the black chips sink to the bottom. This makes the capsule appear white. When a negative charge is applied, the capsule appears black through a similar process.
(more…)

I’ve been fascinated by e-book reader devices, ever since I first saw a review for one of these devices, way back in 1998. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be presenting a look at the wonderful world of e-book readers in a 5 part series of articles.

What is an E-book reader?

The term e-book reader can refer to both software used to read electronic books or e-books to dedicated hardware devices for reading e-books. I will be largely focusing on the dedicated hardware devices for reading e-books and not on the software used. The evolution of the software and file formats used for e-books is in itself equally interesting and deserves much more attention.
In its simplest form an e-book reader had a screen for displaying the text of the e-book, buttons to move forward, backward in the book and to access device functions. To a large extent this basic design is still seen in most e-books today, though gradually touch screens where gestures achieve the same function as buttons, seem to be catching on.
I will touch on the specific technology that goes into making e-books a bit later. For now, let’s look at the interesting history of e-book reader devices.

(more…)