E-readers - Page 11

Sony says that over one million public-domain books are now available for their e-readers (PRS-505 and PRS-700). Sony is using Google's Books project for these books, which are available in EPUB format.

Amazon has over 300,000 titles in their Kindle store, and Barnes & Nobles, which recently announced their own online bookstore, has over 700,000 titles, out of which more than 500,000 are public domain, also powered by the Google Books project.

Samsung is set to release a new e-reader, the SNE-50K, in Korea. The display is a 5" Touch screen, monochrome, probably E Ink but we do not have official word yet.

Smarthouse reports that Apple will soon launch a new tablet with a 10.6" display, made by LG Display. It will either be an OLED, or a LED-based LCD. The new tablet will double as an e-reader, competing with Amazon's new Kindle DX).

This is interesting. E Ink displays are much more suited for books than LCDs (more efficient, readable in the sun, and easy on the eye) - but a general table has much more usages, and also color, of course. What will people prefer?

Polymer Vision has had financial problems for a while, and back in April they delayed their flexible E Ink display based Readius reader. Now we hear that the company is bankrupt. This is sad - it would have been great to finally have a flexible display reader!

The Readius had a 16-grayscale 320x240 5" e ink based display. When closed the size is 115x57x21mm, and when you open the display, it's 160x115x21mm. 

Slashgear reports that Amazon are close to setting a release date in for the Kindle 2 in the UK - December 2009. They are in advanced negotiations with a carrier (for the UK whisperNet connection).

Amazon kindle DX

The UK version is said to include WiFi as well as 3G.

A Chinese company called Peking University Founder is showing a new eBook reader, that looks just like Amazon's Kindle 2. They say they will release it by the end of 2009, in Japan, for around 210$ (the kindle 2, by the way, costs 299$).

It includes a cellular connection (they say it needs a SIM card) to download new books, and will use their own 'Apabi' ebook software. The screen is 'about' 6", not sure what kind of display yet.

iRiver will soon launch an eBook reader, in Japan only. It will be called the Libre, although it's not yet clear which brand will iRiver use. The reader has a 6" 800x600 E Ink display, is made by PVI, and it uses Foxit software. Data is loaded using USB or memory cards (no wireless).

iRiver hopes to be leading the eBook market in Japan, just like it did in the MP3 players way back. They will sell it online only, and hope to reach 1,000 units sold per month.

TechOn reports that they will sell it for around 300$, saying that PVI sells it for around 150-200$.

News article can be collected by the Foxit software crawler, and PDF files can be read, too. iRiver are in talks with newspaper companies and other content providers.

Netronix is showing some new E Ink e-readers at Computex. There are several devices, ranging from 5" to 9.7" (using the same display as the Kindle DX). The 6" device comes with wireless and touchscreen...

Netronix is an ODM, so we will not see these devices under that brand... hopefully someone will pick them up and market them...

Amazon announced that the Kindle DX will start shipping on June 10th. It costs 489$, and currently available for pre-order. The Amazon Kindle DX is a wireless e-book reader. It got a large (9.7", 1200x824, at 150 ppi with 16 shades of gray) E Ink display, and Amazon is not just aiming this for books - but also for newspapers (they already signed up the NY Times, Wall street journal, The New Yorker and Time magazine).

Amazon kindle DX

The DX weights 535 grams, and the size is 10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38". It's got 4GB of internal memory (around 3.3Gb of which are available to the user). The modem is a EVDO 1xRTT (Sprint 3G).

CNet reports that Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos says that a color kindle is years away. Bezos says: "I've seen the color displays in the laboratory, and I can assure you they're not ready for prime time".