Monday, February 06, 2006
E-Reading - New Markets and Old Blogs
Last March, I posted on E-Reading - New Foms for New Functionality and discussed the difficulty of predicting the future based on current paradigms (or the trap of thinking that New Functionality must follow Old Form). I discussed the E-Ink spin-off from the MIT Media Lab that was teaming with Sony and others to offer very readable electronic book forms. I suggested that Sony might combine that technology with its Portable Playstation (PSP) to offer consumers a single multifunction box.
I was wrong. Sony has decided to offer the Sony Reader which debuted at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show and will hit the shelves this April. It's a paperback book size, half pound device that can store 80 books. The user selects a book and turns the pages on the screen, just like a paper book. Storage can be increased by adding memory cards or sticks. New books can be down loaded from the CONNECT Store, which offers both new bestsellers and older titles. This seems to deal with the problem of accessing copywrited content.
Ralph Kinney Bennett has a good review of the Sony Reader in this TCS Daily article, ranging from the advantages of traveling with an E-library in your pocket to the comforts of a paper book when the power is out.
I doubt that books will cease to be a viable medium for many of us. I do think that we will have many more electronic options to read books, see videos, and play games in convenient form. As well as to create and communicate our own media as personal e-publishers and distributers.
And I'm not giving up on the idea of a converged Reader - PSP device in the future.
I was wrong. Sony has decided to offer the Sony Reader which debuted at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show and will hit the shelves this April. It's a paperback book size, half pound device that can store 80 books. The user selects a book and turns the pages on the screen, just like a paper book. Storage can be increased by adding memory cards or sticks. New books can be down loaded from the CONNECT Store, which offers both new bestsellers and older titles. This seems to deal with the problem of accessing copywrited content.
Ralph Kinney Bennett has a good review of the Sony Reader in this TCS Daily article, ranging from the advantages of traveling with an E-library in your pocket to the comforts of a paper book when the power is out.
I doubt that books will cease to be a viable medium for many of us. I do think that we will have many more electronic options to read books, see videos, and play games in convenient form. As well as to create and communicate our own media as personal e-publishers and distributers.
And I'm not giving up on the idea of a converged Reader - PSP device in the future.
