Posts tagged EReader

Is Amazon hiring devs to build a robust web browser for Kindle?

Mar 10th

Posted by Joseph L. Flatley in Gadgets

Are you a software dev with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, familiarity with current Web standards, and experience with browser engines, Linux on embedded devices, and Java? If so, do we have the job for you. Lab126, the group at Amazon responsible for the Kindle, wants you to help "conceive, design, and bring to market" a new embedded browser on a Linux device. Might this be a sign that the company is ready to start taking web browsing on the e-reader seriously? We don't know, but it sure sparked some interesting discussion over at All Things Digital. As Peter Kafka points out, a decent browser for the thing is pretty much a no-brainer in light of the Apple iPad. On the other hand, the idea of a robust browser on the Kindle has its own complications. What about subscription content like the New York Times -- why would anyone pay for something that's available for free on the web, if you're using the same device to view both? And what about all that new data traffic? Surely AT&T will have something to say about that. Of course, we've been hearing enough scuttlebutt about a mysterious next-gen device being developed at Amazon that perhaps this has nothing to do with the Kindle whatsoever. Who knows? These are all questions that will have to be answered sooner or later, but in the meantime we can say with some certainty that E ink is definitely not the best way to troll 4chan.

Is Amazon hiring devs to build a robust web browser for Kindle? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung E6 e-reader coming to Barnes and Noble this spring for $299

Mar 9th

Posted by Nilay Patel in Gadgets

Samsung still hasn't committed to a formal launch date for the e-reader line it launched at CES, but the company narrowed down the launch date from "early 2010" to "this spring" this morning -- which makes sense, seeing as spring has nearly, uh, sprung. We're only hearing about the six-inch E6 at the moment, along with a new Barnes and Noble partnership -- we're not sure anyone will pick the Samsung over the the popular Nook, especially at the $399 price point we heard at CES, but at least there's a built-in content ecosystem. Interestingly, we're not hearing anything about the 10-inch E10 or QWERTY-equipped E61, both of which would fill large gaps in the B&N lineup, but we're looking out for more info -- we'll let you know. In the meantime, you can watch a video of all three devices right here.

Update: Samsung says the E6 will be $299 at launch, which is a nice little drop. As for the E10 and E61, all we're hearing is that they "may be coming soon," so who knows what's going on.

Gallery: Samsung announces E6 and E10 e-book readers at CES

Samsung E6 e-reader coming to Barnes and Noble this spring for $299 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spring Design Alex still not available for pre-order, ‘early spring’ ship date still planned

Mar 9th

Posted by Joanna Stern in Gadgets

The first week of March may have brought warmer weather and an awesome episode of the Engadget Show, but unfortunately we're still missing a Spring Design Alex pre-order page. The company had promised to have its dual-screen, 3.5-inch Android and 6-inch e-ink e-Reader ready last week after the original February delay, but we've now been told that there were some slight issues with the order page and that it should be up within the "next week or two," and Spring Design still plans to have the reader in customer's hand's by "early spring." We've got no choice but to wait, but we can tell you we are looking forward to this whole spring thing in general.

Spring Design Alex still not available for pre-order, 'early spring' ship date still planned originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spring Design’s Alex e-reader hits the FCC

Mar 6th

Posted by Donald Melanson in Gadgets

Spring Design's Alex e-reader has certainly had one of the more interesting product launches in recent years and, with an actual release now seemingly imminent, it's finally turned up in the FCC's hands. There's not many surprises left at this point, but the agency has at least treated us to a peek inside the device, and offered us our first look at the device's user manual. Head on past the break for a few more exciting images, and hit up the link below for the complete rundown, FCC style.

Continue reading Spring Design's Alex e-reader hits the FCC

Spring Design's Alex e-reader hits the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’: exclusive pictures and details (update: video!)

Mar 5th

Posted by Nilay Patel in Gadgets

We've been dying to know more about Microsoft's Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We're told Courier will function as a "digital journal," and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed. That's a lot smaller than we expected -- this new picture really puts it into perspective -- and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we're told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series, which we're taking to mean Windows CE 6.

As we've heard, the interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments. We're also hearing that there will be a built-in camera, and there's a headphone jack for media playback. Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft's e-book device, with a dedicated ecosystem centered around reading. It all sounds spectacular, but all we have for a launch date is "Q3 / Q4", and we have no idea how much it's going to cost, so we're trying to maintain a healthy skepticism until any of this gets official -- call us any time, Microsoft. One more pic showing the interface after the break.

Update: We've added a gallery of user interface shots -- some of which we've seen and some of which are new.

Update 2: We've just gotten two full-length HD videos of the interface in action. We've seen parts of these before, but there's some new stuff here that's quite interesting. Check it below.

Gallery: Courier user interface

Continue reading Microsoft's Courier 'digital journal': exclusive pictures and details (update: video!)

Microsoft's Courier 'digital journal': exclusive pictures and details (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Reader Daily Edition reviewed: unworthy of cost premium or love

Mar 3rd

Posted by Thomas Ricker in Gadgets

For all the fuss made at its launch back in August, Sony's Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony's response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we've got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish. According to Laptop, it was common to suffer a delay of a few seconds after tapping an icon or other interface item. Worse yet, about a third of the time the Daily Reader's touchscreen display wouldn't respond to taps or swipes at all. Conversely, page turns responded with a relatively snappy (for E-Ink) one second delay -- faster than both the Nook or the Kindle. The EPD display was also a bit "dull" compared to non-touchscreen e-readers like the Kindle and Nook thanks to the additional screen layer that enables touch -- a common issue that affects all touch-enabled e-readers, we might add. This resulted in some eye strain in medium to low light. Connectivity also proved a sore spot. AT&T's network would inexplicably drop out during testing. It was plenty fast, however, when available, capable of delivering new books to the device in just seconds. Performance still lagged both the Kindle and Nook during comparison testing though. Laptop's verdict isn't surprising then, finding the $140 premium you'll pay for the Daily Reader difficult to justify compared to the EPUB supporting Nook or Kindle 2 with its better design and superior content selection.

It's worth noting that Laptop did not test the Daily Reader's library finder services that lets you check out e-books from the local branch for free for a period of up to a month. A shame; as library nerds we think that's one of the killer features compared to the competition.

Sony Reader Daily Edition reviewed: unworthy of cost premium or love originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS makes DR-900 e-reader official

Mar 2nd

Posted by Vladislav Savov in Gadgets

We've spent all our time hearing about a DR-950, but today at CeBIT ASUS has trotted out a DR-900 as its first 9-inch ebook reader. It doesn't appear manifestly different from what we've heard and seen already, with WiFi connectivity augmented with a 3G option, and a battery life rated to last a pretty radical 10,000 pages on a single charge. The interface on show clearly invites touch interaction, and we can fill in a few gaps with what we know of the DR-950, namely a 1024 x 768 resolution on a Sipix panel, 4GB of integrated storage, 3.5mm headphone jack, and support for PDF, TXT, MP3 and ePUB files. We'll be tracking down an official price and release date shortly, as well as smudging a few fingerprints on these before the day is through.

ASUS makes DR-900 e-reader official originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qisda QD060B00 e-reader hits the FCC

Feb 26th

Posted by Donald Melanson in Gadgets

We've already seen MIDs, high-res phones, and a few other odd devices from Qisda since it spun off from / encompassed BenQ, and it looks like it's now trying its hand at another e-reader as well. Still no official word about this one, but the device does look like it'll hold its own with a 6-inch capacitive touchscreen (16 levels of gray), along with built-in WiFi, a microSD card slot for expansion, and support for all the basic formats you'd expect (including ePub and PDF) -- the e-reader itself is also Linux-based. Coming from Qisda, it's also possible that this one will be picked up by someone else and rebadged before its released, although there's no indication of that just yet. There are plenty more pics (both internal and external) to be found at the link below, however, along with the device's user manual.

Qisda QD060B00 e-reader hits the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pixel Qi has ’several more’ partners since CES, is working on new form factors

Feb 26th

Posted by Vladislav Savov in Gadgets

There's nothing, nothing, we love more than talkative CEOs. And though this may not be a case of some brash smack-talking, we still appreciate Mary Lou Jepsen giving us a fresh update on the development of those delectable Pixel Qi displays. As you already know, CES provided us with our first opportunity to see one in person (in the shape of the Notion Ink Adam) and we were left highly impressed with the versatility and responsiveness of the hybrid display. Since then, Mary Lou and company have recruited a few more partners and, while production of the 10-inch units is ramping up as expected, new form factors are also being contemplated. She still won't tell us any names, but we're excited by the possibility of (relatively) pocketable Pixel Qi devices -- how does a Dell Mini 5 with a 40-hour battery life sound?

Pixel Qi has 'several more' partners since CES, is working on new form factors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo to release 100 Classic Book Collection for DS on June 14

Feb 25th

Posted by Nilay Patel in Gadgets

The Nintendo DS's dual-screen design has always invited book comparisons, and the new DSi XL even more so with those two 4.2-inch displays, so now's as good a time as any for Nintendo to announce that its 100 Classic Book Collection will be coming to American shores on June 14 for $20. Joystiq says they're expecting the book list to be the same as the Euro pack, so expect some choice public domain works here -- we doubt this has got any of the big e-book players shaking in their shoes, but just wait until Miyamoto releases the $129 Wii Eye Motion Detector with packed-in Mario's Read Speed mini-game. Then it's gonna get crazy.

Nintendo to release 100 Classic Book Collection for DS on June 14 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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