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Toys Books Media Technology

New Sony E-Book Device To Debut This Year 273

Posted by Zonk from the ireading dept.
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.'"
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New Sony E-Book Device To Debut This Year More

New Sony E-Book Device To Debut This Year

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  • But will it come with a rootkit? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21, 2006 @06:37AM (#14525591)
    No more Sony in my house, sorry.

    • Re:But will it come with a rootkit? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:09AM (#14525662) Homepage
      I heartily concur.

      Their root kit fiasco really was the last straw. Over the last years their entire raison d'etre seems to be to lock you into their products. 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.

      Every time something appears on the market Sony makes something slightly different which is incompatible with everything else. But then they pulled the root kit trick and tried to start owning peoples Windows based computers like some 13 year old wannabe "crackers".

      What are they going to do next ? start DDOSing competitors websites ? start writing XBox viruses ? Nothing this bunch of low life scumbags do will suprise me.

      So I say to Sony the corporation. Fuck You. Go crawl in a hole and die.

      I'll never buy another thing from them as long as I live.

      • Re:But will it come with a rootkit? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:28AM (#14525711)
        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.
        • You can still find Minidiscs today, 14 years after it was introduced. You won't find cartridges for your printer 14 years from now

          Of course you can still buy minidisks, you think Sony doesn't profit from them? They sold well in Asia, if not the US.

          As for printers, the printer manufacturers profit obscenely from selling cartridges, to the point of selling the printers below cost to get them into your home. They'll happily be making them as long as anyone is buying, though it would be a rare inkjet to last

        • > 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.

          I have a canon BJ10ex printer that's approaching 13 years old. I bought a cartridge for it from the post office just before christmas.
        • You won't find cartridges for your printer 14 years from now

          Sure I will. Worked just fine with the Laserjet II, will work just fine with the laser I have now... failing that, remanufactured cartridges and bottled toner will be around for longer...

          In fact, I'm pretty sure you can buy generic cartridges too.
        • To follow the same logic for those who say "No more Sony in my house" would follow the same logic of "If you're stupid enough to use Windows that happened to be the only OS affected by the rootkit, you deserve what you got."

          Sony is a big company. The dudes who put the rootkit in the CD's aren't the dudes who make Spider-man and aren't the dudes who make the eBook and they aren't the dudes who make the cameras and aren't the dudes who make the stereo systems and aren't the dudes who make the video cameras a
          • Sony is a big company. The dudes who put the rootkit in the CD's aren't the dudes who make Spider-man and aren't the dudes who make the eBook and they aren't the dudes who make the cameras and aren't the dudes who make the stereo systems and aren't the dudes who make the video cameras and aren't the dudes who make the PlayStation or the PlayStation games.

            No. But they all subscribe to the same corporate code of ethics - because they have to while being employees of the corporation.
            • Then explain why if you put a Sony (Columbia) DVD movie in your Windows computer that you don't get a rootkit installed and the same for any Sony software that accompanies their cameras.

              I can understand the Sony bashing for the CD debacle but to hold the entire company to the same code of ethics is just plain stupid. If anything, it's the stupid RIAA and their 'above-the-law' attitude.

        • Re:But will it come with a rootkit? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Nimey ( 114278 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @11:19AM (#14526488) Homepage Journal
          The difference is that there is no standard for printer ink cartridges. There are standard flash-memory modules and standard music media, but Sony chooses to ignore those standards as a customer-control tactic.

          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.

        • Nobody collects printer cartridges. Nobody gets emotionally attached to printer cartridges. Nobody finds a dusty old printer cartridge in their grandfather's attic and weeps that they're unable to use the glorious old ink it undoubtedly contains.

          Printer cartridges are just throwaway consumables; obsolescence is built in. Many people don't consider their favourite books, music or films to be throwaway; when they buy them, they expect to be able to keep them for as long as they want to. DRM combined with prop
      • I'm getting quite tired of the "boycott SONY!" tirades some people go on.

        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 - a

        • Re:Oh please... how tiring can people get? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Jasin Natael ( 14968 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @11:00AM (#14526404)

          This is exactly the sentiment that ensures the consumer will get screwed every time. Let me sum up your claim:

          Sony is so big, they already ownZ0R3d j00. You can't be diligent enough to avoid buying any of their fine products, so why bother?

          The logic is so flawed, it's insane. It's like saying "You can't keep all the dirt off your counters, so what's the point of cleaning, ever?", or "You can't live forever, so why live at all?". Every penny this guy, or someone else like him, can keep out of Sony's pockets, is one less penny that Sony can use to marginalize and repress the public good. Whether I agree with his choices or not, he's acting in a conscientious way, with the ultimate goal of improving our society.

          You probably think everyone's overreacting, but there are always calm, contented people who wake up to a new world one day, full of regret. "Slippery Slope" isn't just a Historical Analysis tool.

          Jasin Natael
        • It's not just the music division that's screwed up. The original Librie had DRM that would DELETE the books you BOUGHT after 60 days. Everybody has standardized on SD and/or MMC (but since SD is compatible with MMC, they're effectively the same thing) but Sony is still using its memory stick which by the way has DRM built in. This goes across the entire corporation. Sony needs to stop punishing its customers. Best way to make that happen is to not be a customer.
          -russ
        • I've personally been boycotting the music industry ever since Napster (the real one, not the new one that stole the name) shut down. Not just Sony, but all of them. Except indy's. And no iTunes store either (because of DRM). I haven't been 100%. I mean, I've bought 5 or 6 CDs over that time. Overall that's a huge drop in my music purchasing, and besides I'm only human.

          I did pretty well until I discovered allofmp3.com. Now I can buy music in open formats at a better than reasonable price. Allofmp3.co
    • 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"!
      • It has DRM, e.g. licensed downloadable content that will become unreadable after 60 days, and their eBook format is proprietary.

        But. They also deliver a PDF- and JPG-to-ebook-converter - though, Windows only as of yet, as far as I'm informed -, and they halfway published the format as well, so that there are already people working on freeware converters.

        Moreover, the reader actually runs on Linux, and I've already seen a patch enabling you to open up a console on it. Might turn out to be fun, similar to

        • Getting praise for products instead of PR disaster (Score:4, Interesting)

          by D4C5CE ( 578304 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @11:14AM (#14526459)
          One should hope that someone (preferably high up the corporate ladder) at SONY starts to think about it:

          When they make things digitally restricted and quite literally "locked up in crypto bottles" [heise.de] (John Perry Barlow), the fallout (especially among all the tech-savvy that should be the earliest adopters at premium prices) tends to be the one that can be seen from the start of this discussion: an immediate association with practices perceived as "evil" (why would any company in their right mind want to match Microsoft on this one?!) that only billions in advertising (if anything) can make go away again...

          Once they do get over their impulse to restrict and restrain, however, and simply sell the customer what the customer wants (cf. reprogrammable Aibos, MP3/4-capable players - and remember when everyone wanted a "Walkman(TM)"?), volume, clever additional applications, and the power of a premium brand more than make up for anything DRM (and lawsuits against tinkerers) could ever have earned them - and this improves rather than taints the image they enjoy in the public eye.

      • I'm definitely waiting for something like that. But I never cared much for Sony's products (nothing to do with the recent DRM fiasco - just never liked their stuff).

        There are many factors that will affect my purchasing decision:

        -Price
        -Memory (built-in and expansion type)
        -Build quality and good interface

        But I think the main factor will be the software. I have a ridiculous amount of ebooks, most being in either pdf or chm format (and a handful in other formats; iSolo, etc). Getting these to work well with the
    • I certainly won't be buying a Sony book device. It probably hides the ending from you, and makes you pay extra to reveal it.

  • Could be great for textbooks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbrader ( 697703 ) <stillnotpynchon@gmail.com> on Saturday January 21, 2006 @06:40AM (#14525596)
    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.
    • 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.

      But I can do most of that with my palm pilot, which cost around 100USD. Why should an e-book be so expensive? The small screen on the palm works fine for me.

    • Won't happen this decade. College textbooks, and primary/secondary school as well, is a profit-hungry business. Why would they only charge a few dollars for something they can get a hundred for? Say a textbook costs $15 to print and sells for $50. The same e-book which costs $0 to reproduce would still cost $35 to download if they publisher wants to maintain their profits.
      • Your prices are way too low. Try buying a school book you'll pass out.
      • I just bought a Physics textbook for less than $10 at lulu.com [lulu.com], the same book is downloadable for free in non-DRM'd format. (The class is for a friend at University of Texas).

        There is money to be made without DRM and without insane prices, it's just hard to give it up and treat your customers ethically if you are used to making monopoly sized profits.

    • Why would the publishers down the prices of the books because of they wouldn't have paper? Paper isn't that expensive (of course one could say it's not just the paper, but also stocking and distribution). Anyway, I believe the publishers would keep the prices as they are and consider the move as a "costs reduction", and either improve their profits or convert this in small discounts. I believe the greatest actual advantage this could bring is the reduction of the weight you will carry in your backpack.
      • They can give you a few good reasons to pay the same price for the non-phyisical version. As you mention, it's much lighter (takes up less room too), but to me a portable book reader done properly can also be hyperlinked by chapter and sub-chapter topics, have a linked index of terms, and of course, it could be freely searchable. Being so used to reading on the computer, sometimes I'll be reading an old book and want to flip to some specific part of it, having to fight the urge to CTRL-F. It's time that I w
    • I don't think I would ever use a textbook on such a device. One simple reason lies behind my statement, and it has to do with the way I use textbooks. Over half of the time I'm looking in a textbook, I'm trying to find information that I know I've heard or read before. Often times I know exactly what the page looks like, but can't remember the one important term.

      So, when I go looking through a textbook, I'm skipping around - open in the middle, 50 pages forward, 15 back, etc. That's easy to do with the
  • I bet he didn't even go to Castleton.

  • I want one... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mrak and swepe ( 799450 )
    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!)

    • Re:I want one... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jens Egon ( 947467 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:08AM (#14525658)

      I want one too, but only if it can read HTML.

      If it can't access Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] or the Baen free library (and subscriptions) http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com], well, what use is it?

      But wouldn't RSS imply the ability to display HTML as well?

      • From Sony's website:

        "Books are just the beginning for the Sony® Reader. It also displays Adobe® PDFs, personal documents, blogs, newsfeeds, and JPEGs with the same amazing readability, so you can take your favorite blogs and online newspapers with you. It even plays audio files (unencrypted MP3s)."

        Unlike other Sony hardware it accepts more than just a Memory Stick, it also has a slot for SD cards. The connection is via a USB port, but the one big question remains -- do you have to use their softw

    • What's the chance that ebooks will be available on a media-charge-only basis to those who already have the dead-tree edition?

      Youth of today has no historical memory!

      Remember when we went over to CDs? You could trade a LP in for a CD. Very generous. It will certainly be the same here. Sony is second only to Microsoft as the ethical bedrock of the world; they care about customers.

      (So I don't start a bad meme -- this post might contain a little bit of irony.)

    • If you already paid for the rights, you already paid for the rights. That's as simple as it gets. The media companies aren't legally allowed to tell you anything more strict than "Don't download music and movies you don't own", or Apple's pandemic "Don't Steal Music". A lot of books can be found on P2P sites, and author/series anthologies are pretty common on BitTorrent sites.

      Do consider that, even if you're the publisher, there's considerable work involved in re-formatting and proofing an eBook transla

  • funny move (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DarkClown ( 7673 )
    While this sounds like a cool gizmo it's strange that they shut down their zire operation, which had some success, and are going in a pretty much unproven direction like this which will likely not do much in retail.

  • if Sony follow their usual practice (Score:5, Informative)

    by Yahweh Doesn't Exist ( 906833 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @06:59AM (#14525632)
    they'll take cool technology and make it useless by imposing stupid restrictions and design flaws.

    for example, in TFA they talk about how iTunes is such a success because of its ease of use and non-obtrusive DRM. the Sony reader will use the Sony Connect store based on the same idea - except you can't even look at Sony Connect without IE5.5+

    well done Sony, yet another fuckup.

    • Re:if Sony follow their usual practice (Score:5, Informative)

      by BarryNorton ( 778694 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:07AM (#14525650)
      they'll take cool technology and make it useless by imposing stupid restrictions and design flaws
      They did [wikipedia.org] - the hope is that in this second generation, they'll relax some of these restrictions (DRM etc.) It's suggested that the thing can read PDFs this time...
      • ... in fact Wired say so categorically: "Sony has said that the Reader will be able to display content from RSS feeds and from PDF files in addition to e-books in Sony's own BBeB format."

        An on-going list on reviews are now available at the new Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]

      • Yeah, it'll be nice if it has at least one format that isn't locked. With my iPod I can buy music from iTunes if I need to, but if I already have the music I want to put in it, I just can. With this ebook reader, I can choose to buy protected content that's offerred, and if I already have a downloaded text file from somewhere else, I just need to export as a PDF from Office (OO too, though Office XP does it better) and I can load it up with all sorts of content that I don't have to buy from Sony. They can c

      • It's suggested that the thing can read PDFs this time

        According to Sony's product website [sony.com], it will only display their BroadBand eBook (BBeB) format. Anything else you want to read will have to be converted before loading to the reader. You have to dig around quite a bit and find the footnote to learn that, though.

        I would hope that this is a technology-simplifying, cost-saving measure -- since it's easier to make a product that will display only one format -- rather than a DRM measure, but I have my do

    • Oh, come on. Let Sony blaze the way, throwing all their money behind it and bringing the cost of the materials down. They'll screw it up in a dozen ways for sure, but that'll just help out the company who eventually sends the better version down the line.

      Say, why does the 1 laptop per child $100 laptop only cost $100 and it's got one of these cool, cutting edge screens? Didn't MIT "invent" this e-ink? Is there expensive licensing involved? Is Sony maybe helping to bankroll the 1LPC program with this

      • Say, why does the 1 laptop per child $100 laptop only cost $100 and it's got one of these cool, cutting edge screens?

        Does it have one of these screens? Last I read it had a more conventional LCD. These devices are not suitable yet for general purpose computers since they have a very, very slow update - fast enough to be okay as a turning-the-page replacement, but not fast enough for use in an interactive environment.


    • iTunes is such a success because of its ease of use and non-obtrusive DRM


      Can you list how the other players have obstructive DRM?
    • A half an inch thick E-ink based gadget? What are they thinking? The whole point with the E-ink is that it can be on a flexible super thin piece of plastic. All Sony is doing...is making an inferior PDA like gadget with a worse screen, sure - it will save batteries... but then again - so will an black and grey Palm-pilot without backlight too. Pointless stuff.

  • iBooks literature store? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ecotax ( 303198 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:03AM (#14525643)
    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.

    • 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.

      Supposedly, the device will be able to display unrestricted PDFs. If that's so, you can get quite a lot of content from Baen [baen.com]. Assuming you like the fiction they publish, anyway. I use a Gemstar e-Book right now for that purpose, and for manuals. It's great, but gradually dying, hard t

    • ...too little content for too high price

      I expect you're right. If this thing takes off, it's because we will agree on a standard, open, easy-to-convert-to format that will have both DRMed and un-DRMed flavors. I don't doubt that Sony will propose such a standard, but who will sign on to it? Companies are scared of letting Sony own the standards. The fights about Betamax and Blu-ray are just two of several examples.

      In a much better position to legislate a standard for this would be:

      • Apple: No doubt the

  • Dupe (Score:4, Informative)

    by BarryNorton ( 778694 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:05AM (#14525646)
    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
    ... when it was reported in Slashdot [slashdot.org], with a helpful link to the earlier Librie [wikipedia.org]

  • See Sony - Run for the hills! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:05AM (#14525648)
    Sony may have a good marketing machine, but I make a note to always stay way clear of them.
    * Sony products are usually 20% more expensive, with *less* features than the competitors.
    * Sony products adhere strictly to DVD Region coding: corrupt racketeering of the DVD distribution.
    * Sony products are simply not as competitive as other products.
    * Sony products are slow to move to the marketplace, MP3 players were the most amusing addition to their product line, almost 4 years after the ipod.

    Everytime I see some fashion crazy gumby tell me they just bought the top of the line Sony TV I sit back and have a quiet chuckle. They just spent 20% more than they needed too, and with probably only 50% of the features found in other leading products.
  • My big question is, what will it display? If it will only show eBooks bought from Sony Connect, in whatever asinine incompatible format Sony dreams up this time, then I'll have no interest. But a device that could take an unencumbered text-like file (PDF, HTML, plaintext, etc) would be a killer device. If its compatible with Project Gutenberg, sign me up.

    But this is Sony, so I'm not holding much hope.

    • Re:User-generated content? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kesh ( 65890 )
      You'll be able to view plaintext, HTML and PDF on the new reader... but, before it gets loaded onto the reader, it gets converted into Sony's proprietary file format. So, it's not a simple matter of drag-and-drop, you have to run it through a file converter to get it onto the reader.

      That's the deal-breaker for me. :/

  • LCDs don't need to be refreshed (Score:5, Informative)

    by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender@@@gmail...com> on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:16AM (#14525678)
    Wired writes: "There's no flicker, because the pixels are completely static (in an LCD or a cathode-ray tube display, by contrast, pixels need to be "refreshed" 60 times per second or more)."

    LCD pixels don't need to be refreshed, ever. LCD panels are typically updated at 60 Hz, but this is just new data being sent from the computer, and mostly just due to how things were done before. Incidently, CRTs are typically refreshed at at least 80 Hz to make the flickering less obvious and less straining. Electronic ink does have the distinct advantage of not having to look basically directly into a lamp all the time. But anyway, if your LCD flickers, you should return it because the backlight is damaged.
    • my understanding is the ebook uses a new display technology (epaper). It holds the image on the screen without power like "flash memory" you use in digital cameras. So battery life is described in "# of page flips", instead of hours.

      Its described in the article. How readable is in all lighting conditions is anyones guess.

  • Well shucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DingerX ( 847589 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:19AM (#14525689) Journal
    from TFA:
    Books have been written on sheets of dried, mashed plants for about five millennia. Paper is a cheap, relatively durable and versatile technology. Sony's new Reader will not spell the end of that long history, but it could be the opening of an interesting new chapter.


    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 [irextechnologies.com], 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 .pdfs, and the like -- that I can see being useful in a handy format; I'd love to have a device like that to store a small reference library. Books are cool and they already work pretty well. When you've got something revolutionary, play to its strengths.

    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.

    • Re:Well shucks (Score:3, Informative)

      by vitalyb ( 752663 )
      How about using a regular Palm (or any other PDA)?

      I use iSilo [isilo.com] on my Palm and I read already around 50 regular books on it and it felt great (partly due to how awesome iSilo and partly to the nice, even if small, Zire71 screen). It can accept anything you can convert to HTML or plain text. That means .doc, .pdf and pretty much anything else I can think of.

      The only other device I'd consider to read my books:
      1) Treo-like device - Because then it is PDA, books, video, music AND cellphone.
      2) DRM-less eBook reade

    • 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.

      It sounds worse than that, actually. Sony thinks you want to buy that thing so you can buy more things from Sony. "What about me?" he says, to some extent playing the Devil's advocate. I work for a publisher (fact). We could potentially provide our content every month in electronic format. Would we be able to support th

  • 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
  • As someone once said,

    No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

  • This is hardly news (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21, 2006 @07:55AM (#14525790)
    This is hardly news, Sony Librie has been out in the market for quite a while already. Just about all the questions that are being asked have answers on the web.

    This new version has inbuilt (I think) rechargeable battery instead of 4xAAA, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. I have preference for the AAAs, because you can always get disposable ones if you are somewhere you can't recharge the batteries.

    Also new is that it accepts SD card as well as MemoryStick. This has got to be a good thing.

    Layout is different, Librie had a ful QWERTY keyboard, missing on this new one I think.

    The file format for Librie is annoying, but manageable. There are many third party softwares that can easily convert most kinds of text files to the BBeB format. At the moment, only Sony Japan sell e-books tailored for Librie, with DRM attached of course, these DRMed files also have some stupid 60 day (I think) expiry period. But files you convert yourself do not expire.

    Converting files from Gutenberg is trivial. I've uploaded a lot of books on mine with no problem. Only beef I have with it is that in Gutenberg files the line breaks are hard, so I had to remove all linebreak characters at the end of lines which are not end of paragraphs. There are probably some 3rd party software that can do this easily.

    The screen is amazing, but can only do 4 level greyscale. Great for text, not bad for comics, useless for photos. It's for reading, not for pictorial porn.

    Text font size is changeable, there are some five or six level of font size you can select, depending on your eyesight and the book default.

    In Librie, the sorting on the Bookshelf is useless, probably because I can't decipher the Japanese too well, I hope the US version is more useable.

    At the moment, PDFs suck. Although you can convert pdf to the format, it's converted as image (I think) and the resolution is decreased to the native resolution of the screen: 800x600. The entire page is squeezed into the screen, and you can't zoom for images, so you can't read the PDF files, unless the text on the file is headline sized. I read somewhere that the new version can actually zoom, I hope this will improve.

    Battery life is as good as Sony claims, although remember this is number of pages, and the number of pages per book depends on the font size and the actual book. If you use a big font size to read War and Peace, you will probably only get through half of the book.

    And if you worried about rootkit, why, isn't this Slashdot? just use Linux and don't install Sony software. Just plug in your choice of the flash memory into the memory read, and upload the converted files and database/TOC without using Sony software. Even better, since the Librie (and I assume this new one too) runs on Linux (source is available from Sony), just hack this thing yourself!

  • only IE (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GerardM ( 535367 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @08:11AM (#14525828)
    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 would keep this to myself, but, since it is highly unlikely I will ever develop it or even work seriously in its development, I will share this very simple requirements with you.

    What I want (and what I think the market would love to) is an e-book reader I could hook up to my computer and see it as an USB hub connected to a disk and a printer. If I drag a bunch of PDF files to it (and a popular format is essential for this to work) I should be able to read them. If I print anything on the device, it will b
  • I have one of the older readers, the RCA device. There were four major problems with it. It cost too much, the book selection wasn't there, the display was weak, and I couldn't upload my own files to it. The last was what really got me ticked off. Especially since the original advertising implied I could load my own files. If I got the story right, it was a "security" update that closed down that capability.

    For me, and e-book will have to have a great display, be durable enough to give to a grade schooler,

  • Spare me the eBook technology stories (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @08:25AM (#14525852) Homepage
    Although the new technology is attractive, the technology in the Rocket eBook or the Franklin eBookman was more than adequate. I still have my five-year-old Rocket and I still use it. I can bring ten books on a trip in a device that's smaller and lighter than a trade paperback and have a pleasurable, immersive reading experience.

    What has prevented the eBook from taking off--killed it, at least for the moment--is not the devices. It is, in order of importance: limited title availability, limited title availability, limited title availability, excessive price, and DRM. Fix those problems and the eBook market will take off, even if you have to read them on a cell phone screen.

    Of these, title availability is the most serious. At one point I checked, and at that time, of about 44 books on Oprah's Book Club list, something like 35 of them were available as audiobooks... and something like six of them were available as ebooks in ANY format. And no more than about four of them in any specific format.

    TFA is entitled "Screening the Latest Bestseller," but unless something changes drastically, only a small fraction of the latest bestsellers will be screenable. Maybe you don't care for Barbara Kingsolver but I do, and none of her books has ever been available as an eBook.

    Price. I've had about half-a-dozen conversations with strangers who saw me using my Rocket. They would be interested, I'd hand it to them so they could scroll pages, they'd be impressed, they'd ask about price and capacity and so forth. Then would come the question: "How much do the eBooks cost?" I'd answer "About the same as a hardbound for books that are not out in paper, about the same as a paperback for books that are in paperback." They'd give me a you-gotta-be-kidding look of disbelief and that would be that. End of story.

    And, DRM. Look guys, don't you get it? One of the pleasures of books is lending them. Why do you think bookplates were invented? If I can't lend my son the latest Stephen King, don't bother. True story: just last year, my wife bought a copy of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." "Wow, this is really good," she says. "You'd probably like to read it when I'm done with it." Pregnant pause. "Uh, honey... I'm afraid I've already read it. I bought it for my Rocket eBook a couple of years ago." Phooey. Paid twice for the damn book. Not that it would have mattered, as my wife doesn't own a Rocket eBook, and even if she did the content was keyed to the serial number of the individual device and I couldn't have loaned it to her anyway.

    • On DRM, the sole semi-rational scheme I've seen yet is the one Secure Palm eReader uses. You just need the user name and credit card to use the files. You can use it in any device with Palm eReader, including a PC.

      It's the only format with DRM I ever buy ebooks for. Everything else has to be open (open PDFs, regular PDB files in Fictionwise.com, HTML, etc), or I'm not interested.

      If Sony's reader can read PDFs/HTML/text without too much of a hassle and (hopefully) Palm eReader files, and has a decent battery
  • Let's see, every update to the PSP has been designed to remove features that allow owners of the unit to enjoy it with content not controlled by Sony. Why should anyone think that this new device will be any different?

    I'll stick with dead tree format, thanks. Less chance of my collection being rendered useless because of some stupid "upgrade".

  • Sony issues... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bill the Bilby ( 787404 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @08:35AM (#14525888)
    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.
    • "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."

      I totally agree that Sony's portable equipment is durable and dependable. The problem is that Sony DRM's the hell out of everything on their newer equipment. I have owned Son

    • To all the people pooh-poohing Sony on here- have any of you ever owned a (cassette) walkman

      Not since the early 80's when they were the only show in town. It was replaced by an AIWA who made far superior portable cassette players than the walkmans. They weren't as neat or pretty, but they had far better sound quality.

      or a (cd) discman?

      Yes it crapped out after 18 months, the price SONY quoted to fix it was more than the price of the unit, and it wasn't one of their cheaper models.

      How about a Via

    • Re:Sony issues... (Score:3, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 )

      have any of you ever owned a (cassette) walkman or a (cd) discman? How about a Viao laptop, or a portable minidisc player?

      Yes (multiple), yes (multiple), No, and Yes (multiple).

      Walkmans were good, but nearly every (all but one) Sony discman I've owned went defective in about 3 months of heavy use, and I'm talking about a dozen super-expensive ($200+) units (when $50 was normal). Similar situation for Minidisc players, I traded-in about 2 of each of 3 different models of $400 portable minidisc recorders (ov

  • This thing has been discussed pretty thoroughly elsewhere since announcement, and the overwhelming consensus is that since it won't display txt and html (or pdf, while we're on the topic) it's crap. sadly, i agree. I haven't paid full price for a book in years, and i'm not starting just because sony says so.

    The story itself is stupid, too:

    It's not for a lack of dedicated e-book devices, either.

    Yes it is. When i decided to go ebook two years ago, I had to go through a ton of 5-year-old reviews and w

    • This thing has been discussed pretty thoroughly elsewhere since announcement, and the overwhelming consensus is that since it won't display txt and html (or pdf, while we're on the topic) it's crap. sadly, i agree. I haven't paid full price for a book in years, and i'm not starting just because sony says so.

      Typical Slashdot idiot. Read the specs -- it supports un-DRMed PDFs natively and will have some sort of system to convert HTML to Sony's proprietary format.
  • If this thing is as hyped, I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. I have a lot of manuals and documents that I have to read. They are very large PDF files, so I don't want to waste the paper printing them out. But I really, really hate trying to read them while sitting in front of the computer. I was thinking about buying a tablet just for this purpose, but it seems like a waste of money to buy one just to read docs more comfortably. I've look at all the ebook devices out there, and
  • Will it let you view non protected content that you make yourself? ( like a pdf.. )
  • Can't think of a better display for resurrecting something like the Newton [wikipedia.org] or better yet, the Psion [psionplace.com] - just half as thick and at third of the weight, four times the battery life, and only a fifth of the 1990s' price...

    How about proposing just that to the manufacturers [eink.com]?

    (BTW not that this would be needed in a PDA, but they do have even have color prototypes [eink.com] already...)

  • I just blogged (http://mark-watson.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]) about this. For people who need to do a lot of offline reading of technical papers, etc., I think that this device is a winner. You can load it with PDF files in addition buying DRMed eBooks. This will work well with material from, for example, ACM's Digital Portal.

    I am a big fan of the iTunes Store. My wife and I watched an old Alfred Hitchcock show last night (fantastic, BTW) that I bought for $2. I have no problem buying DRMed eBooks as long as I can back
  • If you read the fine print on their web page, it can display PDF and other open formats but only if you run them through their converter. Sorry, no go.
  • Only PDF and Sony's proprietary format? What about various things I have in text formats? Could they really not implement a few open-standard text formats?
  • This whole rootkit thing surely plays a role in my deciding not to buy this thing, but I never liked Sony's products actually. This thing too has a memory stick, which makes it more expensive than necessary. I really want a device like this but I want to be able to choose the manufacturer of the memory, and I want to be able to upload any .pdf file to it without having to convert it first. O, and I also want to be able to read ASCII text files on it, because I'd like to use it to read the books you can down

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