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New Sony E-Book Device To Debut This Year
Luke PiWalker writes "Sony hopes to pen a new chapter for e-books with a device set to debut later this year. The secret? A display based on E Ink technology that goes miles beyond LCDs and CRTs. From the article: 'Scheduled to go on sale this spring for between $300 and $400, the Reader is a compact slab about the size of a small paperback book (5-by-7 inches, and a half-inch thick). But it's the 3.5-by-4.8-inch display that made it the buzz of the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in Las Vegas.'"
As a college student I think this could really be a great gadget. The price seems a little steep at first but it's actually about the same as only two or three textboks. And if you could buy one of these and then download the book onto it for a few bucks a you'd actually save a lot of money over the course of your education. And it's much lighter than books too. Last year I was taking two physics courses and calculus and my bag weighed about 40 lbs and that was on days I didn't need to bring my lappy.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
I want one.
My problem with ebook readers to date has been the transmissive screens -- staring at a light-source is just not as comfortable as staring at paper.
I'm not even too worried about if/how the content is DRMed, since buying books is what money is for.
But what I don't really want to do is pay royalties for a book I've already paid royalties for.
What's the chance that ebooks will be available on a media-charge-only basis to those who already have the dead-tree edition? (Zero, I expect!)
To me, spending a few hundred dollars/euro's on such a thing is only worth consideration if there is a possibility to buy plenty of content for a price that's much lower that I'd pay for paper versions of the same stuff. I guess theoretically it's possible that Sony will do the the same for books as Apple did for music.
However, given the recent experiences with Sony, I seriously doubt they have the vision to make this work. Possible DRM issues aside, they will probably screw this up by having too little content for too high price.
This may be a chicken-and-egg problem, but it's not *my* chicken-and-egg problem - I'll stick to books for now.
"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks
It is more to do with the perceived philosophy behind the move. That they think it is OK for them to have total access to your/anyone's PC. Reprehensible.
They deserve to suffer at the hands of consumers they treat with such contempt.
Well, depends on what you call a book. And frankly, I prefer the ones written on treated animal skins. It's a personal preference thing.
Anyway, DRM or not, the big problem I have with Sony (and the other, with the cooler-looking, fancier device) is that they seem to think I want to buy this thing so I can buy more things.
I've got tons of files -- my own docs, a bunch of
If you sell me something I can put two bookshelves of texts I consult regularly on, and maybe throw in some nonsense on birdwatching, I'll probably buy it.
If you make something that lets me read the Da Vinci Code for the same price as the paperback, plus $400, and doesn't let me give the work to a friend (a friend I don't like too much, given the choice of fiction), then forget it.
Oh yeah, battery life isn't just the screen, it's the processor too.
This is the E-Ink product based (partially) on the (linux-based) gumstix project which many people have long been waiting for.
Two things to consider when considering to buy this device:
- Other companies will likely be releasing similar e-ink readers within the year (at a lower price, as they're not first-to-market, and they're not Sony)
- If it has DRM, it's a no-go. If it has no DRM, it might be a turn-around for sony: it'd be one way to tell sony, "hey, this is what we want"!
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Mainly by using their own crappy, non standard, proprietary formats (minidisc... atrac... memory stick etc. etc.) whilst staunchly refusng to support any sort of standard format.
I can't believe some people can post such childish comments.
Look: do you own a printer? ever noticed you can't buy a printer with "standard non proprietary" cartridges? If I follow your train of thought, you should be outraged, no? Of course not, you keep printing.
Sony has always tried to do the Bic business model, it's nothing new. To their credit, when they develop a shite format like the MD, they stick to it. You can still find Minidiscs today, 14 years after it was introduced. You won't find cartridges for your printer 14 years from now, yet I'm sure you're nowhere as outraged with your printer's manufacturer as you appear to be with Sony.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If it is universal in a sense that it reads numerous .pdf and .chm e-books (not to mention .txt and offline copies of web pages) that you can google for and download right now it could be a succsess. If you can only read overpaied crappy sony books, they will fail as usual on the inteligent buyers market and get only supported by idiots (as all DRM schemes were and are).
Copy-right,left,up or down, consumers don't care what the DRM whiners and sony-virus installers are yapping, we are only interested in the minimum investment and maximum return.
E-books are all free (some only on p2p networks but with sizes of couple of megs who cares where you get it from), only the "player" is the payable part and the player should play everything we users throw at it. If it doesn't guess what? Competitior's player WILL and we will buy their product and ignore sony's crap.
Well, this is another customer that is not interested in the 20% of the market in Europe that does not use Internet Explorer.
It may be a good product (technically) but its marketing is fataly broken when it requires IE.
Thanks,
GerardM
I'm only interested in three things -
Mind you, if it could also read various eBook formats, RTF files, &c., it would be close to perfect.
To all the people pooh-poohing Sony on here- have any of you ever owned a (cassette) walkman or a (cd) discman? How about a Viao laptop, or a portable minidisc player? Whatever your opinions are about their non-portable equipment; their politics or their policies, Sony has ALWAYS made very durable and dependable portable equipment. Paying a "premium" for Sony equipment is like paying a premium for Apple equipment- except that you get durable devices instead of pretty ones.
Oh, and everyone saying they'll wait for Apple to release one? Remember, Apple hasn't always been the forward-thinking design firm they are today- gee, it's almost like they somehow CHANGED the way they do business? *gasp*... but Sony could NEVER do that! All sarcasm aside- Sony screwed up, folks, pure and simple. This rootkit business would obviously never have happened if their security people has been controlled better... and you can bet it probably won't happen again (at least not soon). Sony makes, has made, and will continute to make quality hardware, and I doubt that will change in the near future. These people brought us the betamax wars (beta was better!) and, more popularly, the CD format that has been the basis for data and audio transfer for two decades. Let it go.
Oh yes, Apple fans, remember- expect to actually pay MORE for a compareable Apple product then the Sony MSRP because, well, it's Apple!
That being said, I probably won't buy this product, but for different reasons then most people. I prefer my books in dead-tree format, because I can toss them in bags, bang them around, sit on them, whatever, and they only cost me about $6 to replace. Also, many of the books I like are out of print now, and although I'm sure the library they have available when these are released will be large, I doubt it'll have much in the way of out-of-print science fiction and fantasy.
What I'd like to see come out of this is the development of a thin-but-durable paper/plastic product that you can write on, and then save the data to put on a computer later. Pair this screen technology with a memory recording device and a touch-screen applique, and you'd have a low-power electronic 'notebook' that's good for taking notes in classes or at work, but doesn't require hauling around a $700+ device.
I'm getting quite tired of the "boycott SONY!" tirades some people go on.
:D
Yes, the music/CDs branch of SONY f'ed up royally.. and if you want to boycott them - by all means.
But boycott the entire company? That's just a little strange - do you really think that, for example, their overhead projector group has *anything* to do with the music division? Yet you're perfectly willing to 'punish' them equally. It's like as if you were to scratch up my car, and I suddenly shun business from your entire family - and make this clear to everybody, too.
So far my thoughts on it.. and I respect that you may not share those thoughts. You may still wish to boycott all of SONY. So be it.
However, have you considered just exactly how much you will be needing to boycott?
Just for kicks - did you happen to see "Memoirs of a geisha"? Let's say you did - oops: you already screwed up.. Memoirs of a geisha is a Sony Pictures Entertainment distribution. Maybe you didn't see it - but you'd like to go see "The DaVinci Code", "Spider-Man 3", "Hellboy 2", etc. Well, if you were to stick to your "boycott SONY", then you'll have to shun those, too. I'm sure your friends will understand when they ask you to go out with them, and you tell them "no - I'm boycotting SONY".
Of course it's not just these new movies. Did you happen to watch, rent, or buy any Columbia, Tristar or MGM movie? Yes? Oops again - SONY owns most of them. Yes, that's right - watching Tom & Jerry cartoons (that you didn't already own) means you're supporting SONY financially.
Maybe you don't care for those, though - I've yet to see any Slashdot person not like Stargate SG-1, however... and assuming you are among them.. I feel for you - for Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are Sony Pictures Television productions.
Now, obviously you didn't buy a PSP - but maybe some of your friends have, and you know they would really, really like this game for it.. and their birthday is coming up. Well, tough for them - because buying a PSP game also supports SONY.
And you certainly won't buy any CDs, yes (if you aren't already)? As, of course, SONY (and Philips) still get a tiny scraping of a dollar for every CD made - even if the music isn't connected to SONY in any way.
Come next hardware-upgrade, please also be sure to bring a magnifying glass so that you can check out the components on the PCB. Good chance there's some SONY Semiconductor...semiconductors on there.
The list goes on and on... quite honestly, you would be hurting yourself more than you would be hurting SONY. And what tiny little hurt you -do- do to SONY is being done to divisions that had zilch to do with the goof-up at SONY's music branch.
I'd love to see the day that Unilever, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble would all do something so outrageous (maybe RFID tracking) that somebody wishes to boycott them - hell, somebody make a documentary about that, and I'll gladly pay to see it
But will it actually read the foreign formats, or are Sony lieing like they usually do?
Chances are, the foreign formats are only 'supported' if you don't mind using their crappy Windows software to convert them to Sony's proprietry formats before copying them to the device.
They deserve to suffer at the hands of consumers they treat with such contempt.
They won't tho. My guess is that the day they release the PS3, we are going to see lines even bigger than the ones at Xbox 360's launch.
Besides, how long before someone cracks this e-book, and we are left we a nifty device with a nice display running linux? For just $300.
No sig
If you buy their hardware, you then must buy the media that Sony either sells you or gets a cut from every purchase from licensing agreements. When you then buy new hardware, you're more likely to buy Sony again to avoid the hassle of converting your data to standard media.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Yes, you can play MP3's on the NW-HD3 without having to convert them to ATRAC3-Plus, but the only way to get the files onto the device is using Sony's Windows only software.
That last paragraph isn't strictly true. Some people have played around mounting the device and modifying the database manually. Also, there appears to be some other software that works with the device, but it's also Windows only.