World's Largest Collection of Digital Content Planned for New eReader
EReaders are becoming increasingly popular and there have been more trickling their way into the market place over the last few months. One of the major drawbacks is the current limitation on the amount of digital content available for users to download.
Amazon Kindle rival, Plastic Logic, plans to amass one of the largest collections of content available for an eReader. The company announced details yesterday of its first content partners which includes two of the most respected daily newspapers in preparation for their new eReader which is due for public distribution next year.
Financial Times and USA today along with Ingram Digital (ebooks), LibreDigital (enewspapers), Zinio (emagazines) and Fictionwise (econtent retailer) are the first partners to lay the foundation for the Plastic Logic eReader's vast collection of digital content for business and leisure users.
The company has deals pending with other partners and is also working with a wide range of content aggregators, publishers and content creators for their econtent store where users can download a rich variety of business and leisure digital content from newspapers, magazines, trade journals, blogs, ebooks, etc.
The company plans to make a device about the size of an 8.5 x 11-in. pad of paper, larger than the screens on an Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, two of the more popular models currently on the market. It's differentiated by its unique and industry-leading plastic display that is based on Plastic Logic's revolutionary plastic electronics technology.
The eReader will be available for trials and pilots with partners and key customers during the second half of 2009, followed by widespread commercial availability in 2010.
Amazon Kindle 2
Plastic Logic's news comes at the same time as an update of the popular Amazon Kindle was unveiled yesterday. The Kindle 2 has 25% longer battery life, faster page turns, over seven times more storage with 2GB capacity and sharper images from the electronic paper display which provides 16 shades of grey versus 4 shades available in the original Kindle. But its newest feature is speech to text which means Kindle can read out loud every book, blog, magazine and newspaper to you.
The main characteristic though that sets this apart from other eReaders is the 3G wireless technology - there is no need to look for Wi-Fi hotspots and unlike cell phones there is no monthly broadband bill, service contract, no software to install and no syncing required.
The downside is the 3G will not work in some rural areas and it is only available in the USA although there are plans to launch in the UK but details are still not available.
Sony PRS 700
Sony only a few months ago updated there PRS 505 eReader with the PRS 700 which is the only eReader to offer a built-in LED reading light - most eReaders use electronic ink paper display technology which reads like paper but unlike a computer display does not have a backlight so cannot be read in the dark.
The expanded memory offers enough capacity to store about 350 average digital books. Using optional removable Memory Stick Duo media or SD memory cards, this Reader can hold literally thousands of books and documents.
An advantage over the Kindle is its native support for files types like RTF and most notably PDF and Word files/text documents, as well as its own locked file type. It also displays picture types such as JPG, GIF and PNG, and allows MP3 playback. Ebooks are limited to the Sony eBook store.
Article by Teresa Henry
Teresa Henry is Editor of Printed Electronics World
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