i escape

It's what we thought; The Sony Daily Edition reader is Sony's first (AT&T) 3G reader with a seven-inch touch widescreen display that you can rotate to view books in landscape. It'll be available in December for $399. Updated.
But yeah, check out how crazy wide that display is. Newspaper content announcement is coming later, unfortunately—as in weeks later, not later today. Also unfortunately, Sony only brought one model and we can't touch it. And while 3G will be free, just like the Kindle, wireless access only gets you access to Sony's book store, none of the other new partnerships announced. Boooo.

One saving grace? The electronic library program: The eBook store will now have a Library Finder page, where you type in your zip and it'll take you to local library, where you can check out books from your library electronically. Books will expire in 21 days. They're taking the "virtual library" concept fairly literally here, so libraries will have to purchase licenses for each individual copy, which is loaned and returned in the same way as a physical one would be. That means a library will have a limited stock of virtual books—weird, I know—all licensed from an outside company called Overdrive. We'll have to see what the selection is like before getting too excited about this, but it's a pretty cool concept. And hey, free books!

Also, anybody else disappointed there's no Barnes & Noble partnership to really fight the Amazon book Borg?

[gizmodo]

This is latest advance luxury design based E-book FLEPIA Fujitsu gadgets product are presenting much gratefully future and whole part of body is based on latest advance concept and future. And today that we have good information for those wishing to read more of your books but have no desire to take them all and Latest gadgets product has finally launched its awaited e-book color is called FLEPIA.

And I think this is while great news and that is not all good news are given that the company has announced that the FLEPIA gadgets product that will be available at the moment only in Japan and I want to say that is interested should make a short trip or request to have your new e-book.

For those who do not know the difference between this and other models and that we say that the Fujitsu FLEPIA gadgets product has a touch screen 8-inch featuring 260,000 colors and a mini USB port. One of the interesting points of this machine is its battery and that as it offer up to 40 hours of use and that can be which results in the light of 2,400 pages are according to engineers from Fujitsu in which that can be controlled with a keyboard on the screen .

[gadgetsblog]

Braille E-book is a conceptual design of a digital and portable e-book reader, developed by Korean industrial designers. This is quite certain that by seeing the design, everyone will admire that this gadget is really necessary for reading e-books. However, e-books of Braille compatible version are not much available in the market because of the higher price. EAP is the mother technology that can develop special patterns on the plastic surface by raising those elements with an electronic signal. This unique technology used by Braille E-Book can translate the content into Braille.

[tuvie]

Brother also wants in on the E-ink reader bandwagon by unveiling its first model ever - the SV-100B. Dubbed as a "Document Viewer", the SV-100B comes with a 9.7" display at 1,200 x 825 resolution, making it boast double the pixels found on the recently released Kindle 2. However, resolution count along does not win the battle, as the SV-100B was not positioned to be a Kindle-killer since it has the business user's best interests at heart. Best used with PCs or mobile devices when paired via Bluetooth for content to be transferred over frequently, the Brother SV-100B will ship early this June for a yet undisclosed price.

The I-Slate device looks like some kind of touchscreen-capable digital photo frame, but in reality it is a stylus-controlled classroom aid that draws power from the sun thanks to the inclusion of solar panels. Unveiled at the IEEE's 125th Anniversary event on Tuesday, this LED slate aims to replace chalk slates that are being used across the world today, enabling students to learn new math skills without requiring a literate teacher around. Dr. Krishna Palem and his team at Rice University are currently working on the final iteration of the I-Slate, where it will use a "probabilistic" computer processor that makes tiny trade offs in performance in order to reap immense energy savings. Coursework can be downloaded wirelessly, while these chips will be dirt-cheap to produce compared to today's high-powered processors, making the I-Slate suitable for third world environments.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos this morning unveiled the next-generation Kindle, the company's e-reading device that first appeared in November 2007. The new Kindle improves upon the old one by making the chassis even thinner, increasing the battery life, jacking up the memory, and adding a few extra features. As expected, the chassis is exactly what we've been seeing in leaked photos, but it's surprising just how slim it is: Kindle 2 is 0.36 inches thick, half as thick as the old one. It also has 25% more battery life, said to be good for two weeks of reading without a recharge. And the 2GB of memory is a huge improvement over the 256MB in Kindle 1, letting you store up to 1,500 books onboard.

Also new is Whispersync, which uses Amazon's 3G Whispernet wireless tech to automatically sync your content between multiple Kindles (old and new) and, in the future, other wireless reading devices (iPhone, anyone?). The built-in dictionary lookup has been improved as well, with definitions of highlighted words appearing instantly at the bottom of the screen.

Interesting upgrade: The new Kindle has built-in text-to-speech, so the device can actually read to you when you want it to (say, while you're doing dishes). Unfortunately, the voice sounds like the most awful GPS you've ever heard (think the evil computer in WarGames), so you probably wouldn't want to use it for anything but the most basic of articles.

Kindle 2 will be available Feb. 24 (but Amazon's site actually estimates a March 2 ship date) for the same price as the original: $359. If you have an old Kindle and want a new one, you should order before 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 11 so you can get to the front of the line.

See for yourself just how thin the new Kindle is in the gallery below.

[dvice]

Sony has displayed what it calls the "Flex OLED" screen at the CES, a flexible OLED screen that might be used in portable devices of the future.

The display measures a few inches across and is capable of being bent slightly, even as the device is functioning, for example, as it plays a video. This is the first time that a flexible OLED display has made an appearance outside Sony's research labs. The technology is still nascent and has seen a lot of improvement since a similar screen that was demo-ed by Sony back in May 2007 in a video. Sony's screen was riddled with technical defects and issues - most of which have been corrected in this new display.

While there has been a dearth of OLED panels in this year's CES, mainly owing to the fact that they are still expensive to produce as compared to LCDs and plasma screens, companies do see a bright future for the OLED technology. OLED is competing with LED, another promising technology that is quite power efficient as compared to the technology used in existing plasma and LCD panels.

OLED technology is slowly making its way into devices with smaller displays, although it may take a while for it to be seen on large screen TVs and displays.

[techtree]

[DowJones VentureWire Technology Showcase - EuroTech] I was happy to meet with iRex CEO Hans Brons who was exhibiting his great e-book at the VentureWire Technology Showcase conference. I was impressed by the quality of the 10.2" display that looks way better than the Plastic Logic prototype that I saw at DEMO. According to Hans Brons, this is due to the 16-level grey scale featured in the iRex, the Plastic Logic e-book has only 4-level grey scale like the Kindle. Another unique feature is the ability to write and store notes on the documents, the Plastic Logic e-book had it too but not as advanced (from the demo I saw). The iRex 1000s launched in September, has no connectivity, but the iRex 1000 SW , available in Q1 2009, features Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, a proprietary web browser and may be Bluetooth and 3G (I have to check for sure, it is not on the product sheet). The battery can last several days when in the standard reading mode only (flip one page per minute). This product is targeted to the people who manage tons of documents every day like lawyers, professors or bankers. Click on the gallery photo button to see all the pictures, full specifications after the jump.

iRex 1000s specifications from manufacturer

• Display
• 10.2 Inch (diagonal) electronic paper display
• 1024 x 1280 pixel resolution at 160 pixels per inch
• 16-level grey scale

• Input and output
• Capacitive buttons with optical feedback
• Mini-USB connector
• Wacom® penabled® touch sensor input with Stylus

• Storage Capacity
• 1GB Removable SD card (replaceable with larger SD cards)
• Holds over 1000 documents or pictures¹

• Power
• Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery
• Recharging time 5 hours with USB charging from powered computer

• Media formats supported
• Unsecured Text: Adobe® PDF, TXT, HTML
• DRM Text: Mobipocket PRC
• Image: JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and BMP
• Additional formats supported in the future

• Languages
• Dutch, English, French and German
• Additional language support in the future

• System requirements
• Windows® XP or Vista®
• 800MHz processor
• 128MB RAM minimum
• 25MB minimum available hard drive space
• USB Port (optimal with USB 2.0)

iRex 1000s specifications from manufacturer

• Display
• 10.2 Inch (diagonal) electronic paper display
• 1024 x 1280 pixel resolution at 160 pixels per inch
• 16-level grey scale

• Input and output
• Capacitive buttons with optical feedback
• Mini-USB connector
• Wacom® penabled® touch sensor input with Stylus

• Storage Capacity
• 1GB Removable SD card (replaceable with larger SD cards)
• Holds over 1000 documents or pictures¹

• Power
• Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery
• Recharging time 5 hours with USB charging from powered computer

• Media formats supported
• Unsecured Text: Adobe® PDF, TXT, HTML
• DRM Text: Mobipocket PRC
• Image: JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and BMP
• Additional formats supported in the future

• Languages
• Dutch, English, French and German
• Additional language support in the future

• System requirements
• Windows® XP or Vista®
• 800MHz processor
• 128MB RAM minimum
• 25MB minimum available hard drive space
• USB Port (optimal with USB 2.0)

The electronic reader industry has promised a lot for a long time and despite bullish forecasts, has yet to make mainstream status. That may be about to change with Plastic Logic previewing a gamechanging new device at the DEMOfall 08 technology conference. With a large 8.5 x 11-inch form factor, the Plastic Logic reader is thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience aimed at professional users and will be available in Q2, 2009. “Research confirms professionals read much more business content than recreational content. They require access to all formats of digital content at their fingertips, and want a large readable screen,” said Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta. Most significantly, the Plastic Logic display is flexible.

[gizmag]

The latest word on the street -- or screen, in this case -- is that Amazon plans to ship the second version of its digital book reader come October.

According to CrunchGear, an Amazon insider leaked information on two new upcoming models of Amazon's Kindle. The first model will be a minor upgrade to the original Kindle, which featured a 6-inch screen. The second model is the bigger deal, literally -- measuring 8 1/2 by 11 inches, like a sheet of letter-sized paper.

Considering the Kindle sold out on its launch date in November 2007, it would appear the device is popular, although Amazon has suspiciously remained tight-lipped about releasing sales numbers.

[wired]

Fujitsu is soon to launch the FLEPia e-ink e-book this coming fall. The latest gadget by Fujitsu is rumored to cost $941. This A4-sized e-ink reader has advanced features like Wi-Fi capability, 50 hours of continued use, and six control buttons plus a scroll key for scrolling. This allows users to have a better view of visual alignment. The FLEPia contains a 4GB SD flash card for memory space, and is 320-grams in weight, and about 12-millimeters in thickness.

The FLEPia e-ink e-book was once rumored to be having an integrated backlight, but that was pushed aside by Nikkei. These new, set-to-be-released-e-readers are an improvement from Fujitsu’s color e-ink prototypes. Those are capable of having a whole VGA display into a 4.7-inch x 6.3-inch handheld tablet units.

The FLEPia units will be available in three color motifs, namely white pearl, silver, and the usual pink pearl colors.

[gadgetell]

The new miBook promises to change the whole definition of stereotypical chores that’s been associated with the respective gender. It’s a PDA with a 7″touchscreen and teaches skill through step-by-step videos and other multimedia. So whatever is the task be it changing diapers or gardening, miBook will surely teach you. It also works as the digital picture frame and the format supported being MPEG video, MP3 audio and SD/xD/MS/MMC cards for cheaper storage.

[tuvie]