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LG Presents Solar Powered E-Book
MikeChino writes "At first glance, e-readers offer a great set of benefits over paper-bound books – they’re light, versatile, and a great alternative to lugging around a tote full of dead tree tomes on your next trip. However these new reading mediums have one glaring fault — can you imagine the frustration of running out of juice mid-sentence and halfway through Infinite Jest? LG's new solar e-book aims to address this issue by harnessing the sun's rays to power its display. The device features a 10 centimeter wide thin-film photovoltaic panel that can power the reader for a full day's worth of reading after 4-5 hours spent sitting in the sun."
Couldn't the aftermarket industry simply offer up a E-Book sleeve/cover that has a built in solar cell and stays connected to the reader's power jack and bring this 'breakthrough' to any other E-Book desired?
Now all I need is a portable sun to read in bed.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Is it wrong to want an ebook with a little furnace to burn books as fuel?
Not to mention the rest of the device -- I'm sure you've seen what happens to plastic left in the sun! That clear plastic screen will look great once it turns yellow. Of course, I imagine it's a) mainly a gimmick and b) designed to die (so we can buy the newer model) long before sun damage...
Given the most e-ink readers last about a week or more on a single charge, and can charge from a USB port, I'd say the chances of this being a gimmick are pretty high.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.