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Amazon Kindle 2 Leaked, Sony Reader To Get Touch Screen
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Oct 04, 2008 12:24 PM
from the upgrades dept.
from the upgrades dept.
suraj.sun writes with news that the e-book reader market is getting more competitive. The Boy Genius Report got its hands on pictures of the Kindle 2, successor to Amazon's first e-book gadget. The new version is a bit bigger, with edges that are less awkward, and it has a revamped key layout. On the same day these pictures were found, Sony announced that a new model of its Reader would be getting a touchscreen, allowing users to "turn the page by swiping their finger across the screen" and "annotate text using a touchscreen keyboard." The advances for each gadget may help them regain market share against the iPhone, which, according to Forbes, has eclipsed both in popularity as a reading device. Hopefully the competition for sales and the work being done by the OLPC Project will help to drop prices as well.
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Hardware: 2nd Generation "$100 Laptop" Will Be an E-Book Reader 286 comments
waderoush writes "At a conference sponsored by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation this morning, OLPC founder unveiled the design for the foundation's second-generation laptop. It's actually not a laptop at all — it's a dual-screen e-book reader (we've got pictures). Negroponte said the foundation hopes that the cost of the new device, which is scheduled for production by 2010, can be kept to $75, in part by using low-cost displays manufactured for portable DVD players."
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So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
From the first link:
Typefaces in PDF files formatted for 216 x 280 mm (8.5 x 11 inch) pages may be too small to read comfortably. Such files can be reformatted for the Reader screen size with Adobe Acrobat Professional, but not by Adobe Reader software.
That's going to be the same for any 800x600 6inch screen (like the Handlin). A reader capable of displaying scientific papers readably (8.5x11inch, 10pt font) is still a wet dream unfortunately.
Parent
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A reader capable of displaying scientific papers readably (8.5x11inch, 10pt font) is still a wet dream unfortunately.
That pretty much sums up the state of affairs, doesn't it? While some are enjoying reading their paperback novels, the rest of are waiting.
Maybe they should add groff support, paint it black, and rebrand it as a Manpage Reader.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
I had a PDA that I used for reading eBooks, the Toshiba e805 with its beautiful 640x480 screen. The problems always seemed to be battery life (3.5-4 hours with screen set to near minimum brightness) so you really had to charge it every day, and distractions (real easy to get distracted while reading, go to look something up, then get distracted surfing the net). Because of this I bought a Sony PRS-505. No regrets. I bought a $2.50 book light, and guess what, I can read a night too. The screen is like reading paper in daylight. I charge it about once every 8-10 books.
Before I bought it I could never manage to really find time to read for enjoyment, I got tired of carrying multiple books, so I welcomes eBooks, but I got tired of forgetting to charge the PDA every night.
Great battery life, multiple books, looks great in sunlight and a cheap booklight makes it readable even at night. Great buy and as a dedicated reader its damned near perfect.
Parent
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i think Sony should add e-book reader functionality to the PSP. it's not as big as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, but its high-quality screen is very easy to read text on. the only major benefit to the Kindle & Sony Reader are that they use e-ink displays which are viewable under direct sunlight.
but i still prefer the PSP as it doesn't have the slow refresh rate of e-ink displays, can produce vibrant colors for reading magazines and other e-books containing graphics, and has wi-fi and web browsing ca
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
the only major benefit to the Kindle & Sony Reader are that they use e-ink displays which are viewable under direct sunlight.
And that they don't drain battery life nearly as much as back-lit high-refresh rate screens do. And that they typically are much less likely to cause eyestrain.
Parent
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i agree that the longer battery life is a significant advantage, but i hardly think that the technology being packaged is worth $300~400. if anything, they should be cheaper than portable entertainment devices like the PSP. if they were, i would go out and get one immediately.
personally, i'm not really affected by the eyestrain caused by LCD screens, but maybe that's because i'm used to staring at the computer screen all day long. it's probably not good for me, but i'm more accustomed to reading on an LCD s
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I don't disagree that they're pricey, but they're definitely worth it for a certain segment of the population, and not just limited to early adopters. I do a lot of traveling, and when I'm not I have about 3 hours/day of commute time to work via public transit. For me, the huge battery life is incredibly important, as is the ability to bring a LOT of reading material with me in the same small space. I absolutely hate the fact that my laptop won't last throughout an entire flight unless I bring extra batteri
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You can sort of do this already.
If you can get the eBook in HTML format, you can load it onto the PSPs memory card, and then browse to it directly.
Because its hard to type in addresses, I'd suggest making a "home page" for the eBooks (like a Table of Contents), add a Bookmark for the "Contents page" and then just add a link to each eBook's home page from there.
I've been using the eBook's from Baen that way for a year or two.
Yeah ... it would be easier if Sony just incorporated a Moby-book reader, but this w
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There's also Bookr [sourceforge.net], which hasn't been updated in a few years but can do some basic PDF reading as well as straight ASCII text. I imagine that if you wanted to add support for formats like the non-protected form of .LIT, you probably could since Bookr is open source.
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Does Bookr rely on a homebrew "cracked" PSP?
I haven't done that to mine, and probably wont. One of the things I liked about the HTML approach was that it didn't require anything more than simple File copying, and editing one HTML page to set up a main index. :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
hrmm... right now i'm using Bookr (i used to run PSPDF, but i think that project is dead). but these are homebrew solutions that void your warranty, which a lot of consumers might be afraid to do. i just think e-book support would be a major selling point for a lot of potential PSP buyers (it's one of my favorite uses for the PSP).
but the HTML method is a good solution too that i'd never even thought of. i might just develop a browser-based e-book library so that i can run the application on a local web ser
Gutenberg project texts preformated for eReaders (Score:3, Informative)
This people will serve you Gutenberg project texts on a series of specific formats (or custom created PDFs or HTML). To the best of my knowledge, there is no other site like this.
manybooks [manybooks.net]
Pick a book. On the right side, you will find a button free download and some 500 formating choices (many custom, many gadget-specific).
PS I have no relation whatsoever with manybooks, but I was horrified that it took me so long to find them again at Google).
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It depends. I've tried large-format books with source code and while the text was legible, the code was hard to read unless I put it in landscape mode.
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Second Post (Score:2)
Slashdotted. :-(
Kindle 2 pics (Score:5, Informative)
Since the original link is slashdotted, you can find some pics here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10058352-1.html [cnet.com]
Scrollwheel vs joystick (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't a scrollwheel be better than a joystick for the purpose of this reader?
I had been considering purchasing one, now I wonder if I should hurry up and buy v1 before the new one comes out.
Great, just what I need... (Score:5, Funny)
"turn the page by swiping their finger across the screen" ...
Leaving smeary, Cheetos marks across my books.
Wait, that isn't really a change.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Speaking of pages smeared with Cheetos marks, I can't wait until I can get a set of DnD books for the reader. PDFs get the job done on my laptop, but the form factor of the Kindle would be a real win.
Count me in as an ipod touch reader (Score:5, Interesting)
after being left in the cold by Sony with their librie (closed format, no fw upgrades to read pdf or epub) I will stick with my ipod touch and stanza, the screen is a bit small and not as nice as the librie's e-ink one, but at least I can read every format without issues and the integration with feedbooks is awesome.
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And I'll stick with my tablet computer. But both really use up batteries quickly. With E-Ink displays, battery life goes from hours to weeks.
For me, the closed architecture, tiny displays, and high prices are all deal breakers. But it's still a fundamentally a better way to read an E Book.
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as much as I agree that the batteries in my librie last longer, I wouldn't say 'weeks' unless you leave it off all the time: from my experience reading about an hour a day I had to change the batteries on my librie every 2 weeks, and recharge my ipod maybe once a week (turning it off after reading).
The thing is, though, if you ever added wifi to the e-ink reader its battery life would get a lot lower, not to mention that turning pages on an e-ink display is so slow as to be distracting (ok, I am a fast read
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Bwahahaha! Read a real book on the tiny ipod touch screen?! Seriously, how long do the batteries last? I guess you like reading extremely slowly too.
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? batteries on the ipod touch last about 5-6 hours of reading, and if you make the font small enough (and read landscape) you can fit about 1/3rd to 1/2 of a standard paperback page on the screen. I am a very fast reader (120-140 paperback pages/hour usually) and I haven't noticed any decrease in reading speed using the touch, it was more of an issue on the librie since changing pages took 0.5-1 seconds, which is an eternity.
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the librie did not fail, sony just rebadged it and upgraded the firmware and sold it all over the world (instead of just in Japan), they could have easily upgraded the librie FW to support pdf also but they didn't.
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yes, I did use makelrf and html converters, but it was always a hassle (try to convert the original format to txt, then convert to lrf, then upload, then rebuild the index), and there is still no way to convert pdf besides installing the printer driver and printing the pdf to it, which just generates huge bitmaps and upload those.
The reading interface is also not very good, with user-created books missing chapters and capability to jump to a particular page (you better never stop halfway 'war and peace' and
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You don't need to convert PDFs for the Sony eReader. I've read PDFs on my PRS-505 model eReader simply by dragging them to the /database/media/books directory on the device.
The original librie did not support PDF, but the current eReader does.
filthy screens (Score:4, Insightful)
"turn the page by swiping their finger across the screen"
Only appeals to those whose laptop screens are encrusted with fingerprints. Ugh. Gross. I'm also not impressed with cellphones that accumulate a "face-print" on their LCDs.
Yet another product that looks great until actually used. I'm sure the focus group loved it.
Perhaps the target market is those folks whom still run their finger along underneath the words?
It's like promoting the "quality" of HDTV to nation where 90% of sets have 1/4 inch of dust and pet hair and badly maladjusted picture controls.
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I'm also not impressed with cellphones that accumulate a "face-print" on their LCDs.
Maybe I'm a degenerate slob in your eyes, but I never found this to be a problem. When I need the screen for something, I just rub it on my shirt a couple of times.
I mean, what's your alternative? Where would you put the screen on a phone such that it won't get dirty?
Just rub the screen... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thing is, with a cell phone you only need the screen for a few seconds, you won't be trying to read text with no backlight for hours and cursing every single page turn.
Still, it'll look cool in the marketing videos and that's what counts.
Parent
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You tell 'em Internet Snob Guy!
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Perhaps the target market is those folks whom still run their finger along underneath the words?
Do you mean speed readers following the Evelyn Wood [wikipedia.org] system?
maybe the Sony reader would be more (Score:4, Insightful)
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You can hook up the eReader to a Mac or a linux box. It appears as a drive. Copy any pdf or lrf file to the /database/media/books directory. Unmount the drive, turn on the reader and the books will be available for reading.
There's a number of sources of free lrf files, and lots of sources of free pdf files. The only thing that requires Windows is their store.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's why he mentioned the Mac and not Linux. Everyone knows Linux users thrive on being ignored...
Kindle Design (Score:5, Interesting)
Ugh. The Kindle is one of the best-designed gadgets I've ever owned. I hope we don't suffer through a series of crappy re-thinkings based on some misplaced notion of hipness to try to sell readers to people who don't actually read books.
For instance, a touchscreen is an incredibly lame idea. You spend a _lot_ of time with an e-reader, ok? It takes hours and hours to read a book. Are you really going to want to read the another novel on that screen you've been dragging your finger across for the last three months? Yuck. Not a mobile phone, folks.
I was totally skeptical about the Kindle until I actually held one. It fits great in either hand, and unlike other readers I've seen you can use it one-handed. If you use your Kindle in the supplied leatherette case you're doing it wrong!
The Sony reader looks nicer in photos but doesn't have the same kind of balance. I'll take function over form on something like this any day.
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Same here, there's a training period of a few minutes while you learn how to hold it without hitting the page turner buttons by accident but that's about it. The rest is pure joy.
I had secretly planned to wait until v2 to buy our second Kindle and come up with some kind of lame excuse to take over the new device and give the old one to my wife, but it looks like it is going to be the other way around, if v2 is the one available when we purchase the second unit, it goes to her and I'll keep the v1 device.
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I'm with ya. The *only* thing that I don't like about the Kindle design is that I haven't found a way to reassign the next and previous page buttons. The new Kindle doesn't look good to me. They've made it longer, took away the carrying case to put it in a bag, and it doesn't seem like there are any compelling features.
As for the touch screen on the Sony... Yeah, unless it's multi-touch, not glass, but very resistant to wear and marking, I have absolutely no interest. Moreover, how well would the touch scre
Kindle and Sony have the same basic problem (Score:3, Insightful)
They're single-purpose devices with closed formats in an increasingly multipurpose open-format world. Why would anyone in their right mind spend about $400 on a device that is locked to proprietary formats and doesn't do much else except "read books." Just one more [expletives deleted] gadget to carry around.
On the other hand, smart phones like the iPod and Android, which can also presumably serve as schedulers, notepads, book readers, mp3 players/audiobook players and *gasp* phones?
Kindle and Sony were effectively obsolete the day they were released.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I can only assume that you are still young and have great eyesight. I've tried reading on small screen devices and either the font is too small to comfortably read, or too large so you get to read only a few sentences between "page flips". The appeal of the ebook readers is that they are legible and provide a good reading experience.
However, the closed formats have got to go! When somebody comes out with an affordable device which will take a wide range of open formats, then there will be one in my hands.
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However, the closed formats have got to go! When somebody comes out with an affordable device which will take a wide range of open formats, then there will be one in my hands.
While I don't disagree that it'd be nice to not have to convert files, I haven't had any problems converting stuff for my Kindle... I set up some automation around the MobiPocket software that will batch process LOTS of files to convert them. I downloaded thousands of Gutenberg files and had my computer convert them for me while I slep
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I don't think so, necessarily. E-ink is great for this application, but pretty terrible for most others right now. I can't imagine reading something long on an iPhone, while the Kindle, and I'd assume the Sony are very easy to read off of.
Of course, the target market for e-book readers I tend to think is significantly smaller than mp3/pda/cell phone convergence devices, but that doesn't mean that they're obsolete. But if you enjoy reading (I try to make at least half an hour a day to read novels), then i
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Well ... there is at least SOME stuff out there if you look in the Mobibook format (and like SciFi/Fantasy).
From Kindle's Tech Specs
(emphesis mine
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As for the
Why a keyboard, anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still not clear to me why precisely I want a hardware keyboard in my ebook reader. There just aren't a lot of reasons to interact with an ebook reader that can't be done with a couple arrow buttons.
Frankly, the Kindle looks like a bargain-basement product, with an upper-tier price. Yes I know most of the cost is in the screen, I just wish it didn't look like crap. Also, open formats would be nice...
Book prices are holding these back (Score:3, Insightful)
The PRS-505 launched in the UK recently, and I was all set on getting one until I saw the price of books for these things.
When I buy a book from Amazon, it's delivered the next day and at least two people read it. The same titles as e-books cost the same amount on the Waterstones store, if not slightly more than on Amazon, and only 1 person can read them unless I shell out for a second reader. And in some cases, I was able to get new books from Amazon BEFORE they would be available on the Waterstones store.
E-books have to be at least 30% less than their physical counterparts before I'll start buying them or a reader to read them.
Of course, if I could find a decent site on the net I might be convinced, but I never managed to find one that caters to most of my reading tastes.