Posted on 10/16/2009 5:31:49 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Book seller Barnes & Noble is expected to announce its own e-reader next week, and a new report states the device will sport both black-and-white e-ink and a multi-touch, iPhone-like color display. New information and photos of the device were provided to Gizmodo, which revealed that a majority of the device will have a traditional e-ink display, much like the Amazon Kindle, which provides superior battery life. It will be a 6-inch screen with an 800x600 pixel resolution. But the bottom portion of the device will have an LCD color display sporting multi-touch technology. It will be used to browse through and select books in a manner described to be like Apple's own coverflow. The second screen is 480x144 pixels with a 150dpi resolution... "Contrast this with the Kindle which uses the e-ink display to emulate a slow menu system and requires a physical keyboard for searching. Likewise, Sony's e-ink readers with touchscreens layers have reduced visibility." The purported hardware has only a handful of buttons for flipping pages, searching, purchasing books, and connecting to social networking sites. The new device is believed to have a lending feature that will allow friends to share books and post excerpts to sites like Facebook and Twitter. "But that may be cut before launch," Gizmodo said.
(Excerpt) Read more at appleinsider.com ...
I plan on buying an ebook reader next winter when I think the tech will be a bit more mature and less expensive, and the universal book format will have all kinds of open source editing utilities.
But the question I have is whether or not these ereaders are backlit or not. I have no use for an ereader that isn’t backlit.
Could you please tell me whether backlighting is available on these readers?
In your opinion, is this brand better than the Kindle? I'm not understanding the 'won't work in Europe' thingy. Is it because of their type of wireless connections?
That’s good to know. Thanks!
No.
The technology is called ‘e-ink’ and they replicate almost exactly a printed paper page.
The idea of a backlit screen is bad - and it’s what the cause for most eye strain issues come from in the first place.
ALL of the current marketed e-readers use the same technology and you would require a normal reading light. The best thing about them so far (I’ve played with the Sony, the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX so far) they can all be used in bright sunlight.
I have a “Lifedrive” PDA as well - and it’s a computer LCD screen. I’ve used both for reading and am severely eye strained after an hour of reading on the PDA (small screen) whereas I’ve spent several hours on a plane recently reading the Kindle without the same problem.
Note that an e-reader is “an electronic device” and they have to be turned off for take off and landing. That’s the only thing I don’t like about them (whereas a book, you can continue to read).
OK, well that's what I wanted to know and it is clearly worth thinking about on my part. I would seldom use it outside the house but I would use it at night when my wife is sleeping.
Thank you for this info and the reasons behind it. I'll take it into account.
Won’t work in europe for buying books on the device.
The Kindle has a built in “wireless” connection that works in most places, using the Sprint 3G network.
The Iliad has “wifi” (802.11) so you can connect it to your own network.
I spent the better part of the last year researching the market and there are about a dozen e-readers available. Some are sold in Europe, China, and so forth. Kindle is the “big thing” in the states.
Sony has one available here in the states (you can buy one or play with them sometimes in the Borders stores since they have been typically selling them int he stores.. I didn’t get a Sony because they have been OUT OF STOCK for about 3 months!)
The Sony, you purchase books over your computer and connect the device to a USB port and download to your device.
You can do that with Kindle as well, but it’s vastly easier to set up an amazon account (they call it a 1-click account) and then you can purchase your book directly to the device. I did that recently on a trip to Detroit for a family reunion, and bought another book sitting in the airport :)
What I DO NOT LIKE about the Kindle.
1) Built in GPS tracking (they know where you are!)
2) Account is tied to your Kindle.
3) They can (and there was news about this recently) delete your book if they so desire.
4) proprietary mobi-pocket format (they use DRM as do most e-books)
Good things:
1) EASY to buy a book (TOO EASY! my wife is spending MORE money NOW than she did before. She used to buy 3-4 books a week. I think it is much more now. lol!)
2) Convenient to carry one device with 100 books (or more, mine will hold roughly 3000 books! Wife’s version about 1000 books)
3) I can’t copy ebooks I already have (non-DRMed of course) over and read them
4) My Kindle DX works with most PDF files (not all, it’s not perfect either!)
There’s a lot more pros and cons.
Ok, THAT might be a problem for my son...especially if he's going to Afghanistan next summer. YIKES!
Well... I am not sure everyone knows that stuff.
But, yes, there’s a gps device inside the kindle. I don’t know much more about it yet, and honestly haven’t had time to do any hacking.
I bought it because I got my wife one.
I’ve been looking at several. They were, in order
1) Irex Iliad Digital Reader (I think the model is 1000-s or something)
2) BeBook
3) Sony
4) Kindle
In that order.
My main parameters were:
wifi (Iliad only at the moment)
3G (Kindle Only At the moment)
external memory card (SD or similar - Sony, Iliad, BeBook)
All of these except the Kindle have external memory - BUT I needed to get a reader last month (and had the money) so I got the Kindle DX because mostly, it had the large screen.
Truth is, I might replace it with a different one in a few months (and pass the DX on to my wife, who will pass her’s on to one of the kids).
I do NOT know if the new Kindle will have GPS or not. It’s supposed to be able to be used with a phone network in Europe though.
The problem appears that Sprint is US only and they are using Sprint for the “freebie downloads”.
Very intriguing technology, but I won't pay that kind of money for that kind of treatment.
it will not be one that gives someone other than me the ability to access it and delete things from it, ala Amazon's Kindle.I don't blame ya. I mean, really, if they did their due diligence, that fiasco wouldn't have happened in the first place. Whomever said, send the signal to delete the title, should have been identified and fired. I've never had a mailorder company send me a letter saying, "send back that book we shipped, it turns out to have a copyright problem". If it were to happen, I'd toss said letter right straight into the trash.
I’m as much concerned that they built in the capability to access the device as I am that they used it.
Ooh, cool. Amazon has an obvious edge over all competitors because of its having already been in the book biz.
Which means, Amazon’d better stay on the right side of the street thugs who are attempting to take over every aspect of American life, otherwise, antitrust lawyers by the dozen will be all over its ass.
E-books and e-book readers have the solid approval of the Ministry of Truth. Less staffing will be needed to implement newspeak and revision of histories.
hehehe “Ministry of Truth” huh? LOL
Conspiracies are everywhere!
Look an ereader is just another way to read a book, nothing more, nothing less. A lot of folks would LOVE to see them implemented in college courses.... because, frankly having been a college student for over 40 years, I find it amazing when I go I still have to carry 2-3 freakin’ heavy books.
There’s even a BILL in Congress to make “open source books” the norm (which of course falls right into play with your conspiracy that folks will “write their own truth”)
In principle I agree with the fact that it would make it much easier to ‘rewrite history’.
But the internet is already helping people to do that....
So, are we going to throw out the internet too?
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