Kurzweil Takes On Kindle With "Blio" E-Reader

kkleiner writes "Ray Kurzweil, prolific inventor and Singularity enthusiast, is planning to debut Blio at CES 2010. Blio is an e-reader platform, not hardware, that can be used on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod touch. Developed by Kurzweil company knfb Reading, Blio preserves the original format of books including typography, and illustrations, in full color. It also takes advantage of knfb’s high quality text to speech capabilities and supports animation and video content."

Comments

Is this new?

[iamapizza]

There are already many other software based ereaders that exist, this one is just a bit more featured. Or am I being cynical again?

Re:Is this new?

[_KiTA_]

You mean like the free Acrobat Reader? No wait, that supports only PDFs.

Really the main advantage of this e-reader is that unlike Kindle, it uses a full sized monitor AND your computer, is NOT portable, and since it's plugged into your wall, will last as long as the power's on in your house, as opposed to that dreadful Kindle that lasts upwards of 10-15 days battery life (when wifi's turned off). So there!

Yes, because this will never ever be ported, ever, and the existence of this eReader, pushing technology forward, will not influence the Kindle 3 and Nook 2's features in any way.

I think the new toy in this (and it's Kurzweil, he ALWAYS has a neat toy in his stuff) that we should be paying attention to is that it has actually good Text to Speech, and it on-the-fly translates to 16 different languages . While neither are particuarly NEW technologies they are technologies that are:

1. Ripe for maturing (machine translation is getting better and better every year, for example)
2. World-changing if they get perfected.

The world changing thing I want to explain -- Kurzweil has already done something similar -- the first OCR + Text to Speech commercial application was the Kurzweil Reading Machine, back in 1976. 30 years later, those tabletop sized prototypes are now... hidden inside pen sized scanners. It kinda pushed forward Assistive Technology quite a bit, for the time -- before then, the only choice Blind people had to read things was braille. Now, with the right gadgets, they can read anything.

When you add on the fly translation to the mix, things get... interesting. Manga fans, for example, won't have to wait for translations, just click, click, bam, instant translations. You'll be able to subscribe to a French Newspaper, get it in the morning, auto translated, ready to go. And finally the US military can finally feel safe and justified in firing all those gay Arabic translators, cause they can finally be replaced by robots.

Technologies such as Vocaloid (an artificial pop star software kit... thing) put forth another idea -- combining this with Speech to Text. Automatic, in line translation of diplomatic speeches, news programs, and (of course), anime and entertainment, anyone?

In short, while as a bookreader it's pretty good (and it is, it looks a lot better than the Nook or Kindle PC apps)... I'm more excited about the translation tech inside it.

Computer versus Kindle

[jimbobborg]

My Brother-in-Law has a Kindle. The main reason he uses it is it's a lot easier to read text on the Kindle's LCD than on a computer LCD as there is no refresh rate on the Kindle. The screen refreshes only when you turn a page, which makes it easier on the eyes than a 60Hz computer LCD display.

Also, Blio on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod touch, but no Linux? WTF?

Re:Computer versus Kindle

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I find this color inversion setting? That sounds amazing...

One standard

[Enderandrew]

There are 50 million e-book formats and standards. What appeals to me about Kindle or Nook is that it is backed by a huge retailer. I feel fairly confident that if I buy a book from them, I can access it in the future. I know they will have a huge library of titles in their format. I feel strongly that they stand a chance to become the dominant standard. Kindle is opening themselves up to other devices and resellers. My wife has been buying books via the Kindle app on her iPhone.

Would I prefer a nice open standard with no DRM? Certainly. Will retailers ever support that? No.

Re:One standard

[MtHuurne]

They promised to never do it again, except in certain situations. This includes "judicial orders", so this means that if a government outlaws a book, they can not only prohibit future sales, but also make existing copies disappear. It also means that a copyright conflict could still cause a book to be removed, but only after a judge orders it.

Re:Does Kurzweil get the idea of an e-Reader?

[YourExperiment]

Horses for courses, my friend. Complain all you like about the size of a smartphone or the screen quality of a laptop, but I'm not going to carry around a dedicated piece of hardware just to read books on. I already have a smartphone that does the job almost as well right here in my pocket, and that's good enough for me.

iPods are superb e-readers

[fyngyrz]

Who reads a book on an iPod or phone?

I do. All the time. And I own a hardware Kindle, too. But the Kindle app on the iPod Touch is *much* better (brighter, faster, lighter, better contrast, less eye movement, easier to hold, works in the dark, no ghosting, totally one-handed use, tons more storage.) Of the five font sizes, I use the three smallest depending on how much movement is going on. Passenger in a car, middle size. Late at night, still in bed, I use the smallest size. Otherwise, the next to smallest size. While I'm reading, my iPod Touch is checking my email, my chess games, my Words with Friends games (similar to Scrabble), allows me instant access to the weather, checks my servers to make sure they're all up and accessible, basically all kinds of apps, plays my favorite music for me, fits in my pocket, handles LOTS of other e-reader formats including PDF, in full color... downside? I have to charge it about once a day... which doesn't stop me from using it, it just temporarily (and vaguely) tethers me to the car, couch, desk or bed. Big whoop.

This is why I don't even bother with the hardware Kindle. It's also why I'm very interested to see what Apple does with the hopefully forthcoming tablet. Not holding my breath after the no-camera, no-GPS iPod non-release last cycle, but one can hope. :)

Re:Does Kurzweil get the idea of an e-Reader?

[pilgrim23]

I recall reading Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad on a Newton. To this day a Kindle is the only machine with a screen the size of a Newton (which is portable) but lacks one feature. a green back light. I STILL occasionally use my Newton 2000 to read books and many Pub Domain books are still available in Newton package format. Of course I also read...books.. you know paper, has a cover. fits easy int he lap...