Posted 11/20/09 at 01:52:07 PM by Paul Lilly

Get ready for a blue Christmas if the only thing you asked for this holiday season was a Nook e-book reader. The device's popularity apparently caught Barnes and Noble off guard, who has sold out of the its initial supply and said preorders have exceeded expectations.

And if you listed Sony's Digital Edition Reader as your backup gift request, then it's a double dose of 'bah, humbug' coming your way. It too is in short supply, and Sony said it could not guarantee it would have enough to fulfill demand in time for Christmas.

The situation isn't dissimilar from what Amazon went through last year with its Kindle e-book reader, although the current king of the hill has managed to get its distribution channel squared away since then. So why are Sony and Barnes and Noble struggling?

"Even without specific problems in the supply chain, the manufacturing process takes time for new products -- it could be 3 months from the time they place the orders with their factories until they actually ship," Sarah Epss, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in an email. "Sony and B&N wanted to show the market they could compete with Amazon for the holiday season. Consumers responded enthusiastically, but unfortunately, these companies are struggling to deliver on their promise. Now they have to face disappointed consumers with empty packages under the tree."

According to Epps, both companies jumped the gun on their products announcements because neither was truly ready for the holiday shopping season.

Other items you're not likely to find in your stocking this year: HD 5970 videocard, handheld tablet.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 04:33:26 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The past couple of years have been a rollercoaster ride for Holland-based e-paper manufacturer Polymer Vision, the company best known for the Readius e-reader featuring its flexible e-paper technology. It was revealed last month that the board of directors of Taiwan-based Wistron had approved the acquisition of Polymer Vision, which had gone belly-up just a few months earlier.

According to a fresh report, Wistron is developing a 5- to 6-inch device featuring Polymer Vision’s flexible e-paper technology. Brian Chong, chief of product planning at Wistron, told Digitimes that the new device will borrow its design from the Readius e-reader. The plan is to launch it in 2010.

Polymer Vision’s Readius e-reader made heads turn when it made its first public appearance. But Polymer Vision soon found itself in financial disarray that culminated in bankruptcy, and the Readius never came close to being launched.

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Posted 11/11/09 at 11:30:35 AM by Paul Lilly

One of the hottest trends in electronics right now is digital readers, but no matter how many companies jump on the bandwagon -- and several of them have -- prices will have to come down before the public embraces them, according to Gartner.

"At the moment it appears that $199 will be the lowest price for fully featured e-reading devices for the 2009 shopping season, but prices will need to drop closer to $99 to gain significant traction," Gartner noted.

At the same time, Gartner predicts e-reader "mania" in 2010, though getting to that point won't be without a few hurdles. The market research firm says a wider variety of retail channels is needed, and more publishers need to be seen buying into e-readers.

"It's the perfect time for a trial and to establish relationships with others in the value-chain -- that is service providers and digital warehouses -- that can be positioned to assist in a rapid deployment if the market takes off earlier than anticipated," Gartner added.

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Posted 11/11/09 at 07:04:26 AM by Paul Lilly

Intel this week became the latest company to enter the e-book market, only Intel's is specifically intended for the visually impaired. The launch is being spearheaded by Ben Foss, a 36-year old who grew up with such a severe case of dyslexia that his mother used to read him books during his school years.

Not unlike other e-book readers, the Intel Reader is capable of reading digital files aloud. But it doesn't stop there. The Intel Reader can also capture images from any printed material and convert it to speech at a variety of listening speeds. It also boasts a high res camera used to convert printed text to digital text, and it can even capture words from Websites.

"We want people to experience the independence of being able to read on their own in a public place or anywhere they want to," said Foss. "A metaphor for this are the ramps that make buildings wheelchair accessible. This reader is like a ramp."

The reader's also worth its weight in gold, and then some. It's available now, but for $1,500.

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Posted 11/02/09 at 01:10:50 PM by Paul Lilly

Pretty soon, it might be easier to list out companies not releasing an e-book reader than ones ones that are. Just as quickly as netbooks took off, digital e-book readers are fast becoming the next must-have portable device, as evidenced by the number of product announcements from a variety of players. The latest comes from Creative, who will look to make a splash with its Zii MediaBook.

According to Creative, the Zii MediaBook will be unlike any other e-reader on the market. The Zii will come with a touchscreen, text-to-speech, an SD memory card slot, and the ability to play video files and roam willy nilly across the Internet. That means you can probably expect WiFi, though whether integrated 3G connectivity comes as part of the deal remains to be seen.

Creative will also implement a strong social networking element to its device by offering users access to Facebook and Twitter while on the go.

The Zii MediaBook will face stiff competition from Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's nook (with a lowercase 'n') right from the outset, and it won't get any easier over time. Asus, MSI, ViewSonic, and several other companies are either working on e-readers of their own or have shown interest in the fast growing digital reader segment.

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Posted 10/20/09 at 09:29:24 AM by Paul Lilly

The e-book reader market is fast becoming a crowded niche, so in order to stand out from the competition, some manufacturers are taking liberties with the basic design. Take Spring Design, for example, who on Monday announced a dual-screen e-book reader built around Google's Android platform.

"This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text," said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. "We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations. This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience."

Called 'Alex,' the new e-book readers sport a 6-inch e-ink EPD display on the top portion and a 3.5-inch color LCD on the bottom. Spring Design says Android has been optimized to support integration between the two displays to prolong battery life. But what exactly is the point of the color display?

Apparently Alex owners are able to capture and cache Web content on the color display and toggle to view it on the EPD screen without taxing the battery. Users can also create their own images and notes to augment the original text.

Spring Design says it is still talking with "major content partners" and hopes to release Alex into the wild by the end of the year.

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Posted 10/19/09 at 09:05:38 AM by Paul Lilly

As competition starts to heat up, we don't know who -- if anyone -- will emerge as the dominant ebook player, but if judging on looks alone, Plastic Logic's new "Que" might just take the crown.

Named after the English alphabet letter and not the Spanish equivalent for "what," the sleek-looking Que has received a glossy black finish that wasn't present in previous prototypes. And while this isn't always the case in real life, the Que has more going for it than just good looks.

The Que's letter-sized 8.5 x 11 inch screen boasts a "shatterproof" design and also includes a capacitive touch layer that won't interfere with the e-ink display. Users will be able to sketch and manipulate documents with it, and on the connectivity front, the Que features AT&T 3G and WiFi.

Despite all the Que has going for it, Plastic Logic insists it isn't going after the Kindle market, and will instead focus on providing a comprehensive platform for mobile professionals.

More details here, including a video demo.

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Posted 10/14/09 at 11:20:10 AM by Paul Lilly

Gizmodo managed to get its hands on the first product shots of Barnes and Noble's e-book reader, which will enter what's shaping up to be an increasingly crowded cage match with the likes of Amazon, Sony, Asus, MSI, and several others.

 We're still a week away from Barnes and Noble's official unveiling, but according to Gizmodo, the e-reader will feature a black and white e-ink screen similar to the Kindle, but with a multitouch display like the popular iPhone. The top screen size checks in at 6 inches with an 800x600 pixel resolution, while the bottom touchscreen portion will boast 480x144 pixels.

Pricing is not yet known, but word on the Web is that Barnes and Noble plans to offer significant discounts on the books it publishes compared to the print editions.

More pics here.

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