[Web Informant] 4 May 2009: The new breed of eReaders

[David Strom]

Web Informant 4 May 2009: The new breed of eReaders

The New York Times has a story today about progress that is expected
on the next generation of eBook readers, but I have already seen this
future thanks to a long-time correspondent and independent software
developer Hank Mishkoff. The Times story can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/technology/companies/04reader.html

The Times piece talks about the main supplier to the Amazon Kindle and
Sony reader, E Ink, and a new entry to the scene PlasticLogic.com who
is also mentioned in last month's Technology Review here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22490/

I don't have a Kindle, but have borrowed a couple of friends' units
for a few minutes. It has its own broadband modem that does the
selecting and downloading of content and that is why the initial price
of the device is so high (around $350). Instead, I have read several
books on my iPhone using the Kindle app.  You need to go to Amazon's
Website using a standard browser and select and pay for which books
you want to receive on your phone, and then the download happens
relatively quickly once you bring up the app on your phone. I found
the iPhone app to be very satisfying for the pulp fiction trash novels
that I like to read on planes and other fill-in time when I don't want
to drag around my laptop. It is nice to have a book to read
"automatically" – without having to carry something else.

But the Kindle and its ilk only do monochrome and static text. They
aren't well suited to the hyperlinked world of the Web, and they
require specially formatted books for each device – the version that
you download for the Kindle will work on both the device itself and
the iPhone, but that is about as cross-platform as you get. These
books won't work on the Sony reader. And the books aren't free,
although Amazon at any specific time has a lot of sales going on, and
indeed I found a new series of thrillers by Lee Childs that I have
quickly become a fan of, since one of them was available free on
Amazon's store.  (Great marketing idea, by the way, and yet another
way for authors to seed their content to early adoperts.)

So what about Mishkoff's idea? He calls it the "xBook" and
incorporates video, full color pictures, and hyperlinks into his
reader. The idea being that an inquisitive reader would want to do the
same sorts of explorations and Web surfing expeditions that someone
who is used to a browser would perform. He has cobbled together a
video that demonstrates his idea here:
http://www.WebFeats.com/xBook/

Note that the xBook is still very much a concept and far from an
actual product. Mishkoff wants to try to get someone to help fund a
project to build a device, or at least some software that will work
with existing platforms.

As many of you know, I am a pretty voracious reader and I welcome
these experiments. I still buy lots of books and don't think that will
change, even with the Kindle et al. coming of age. And do contact
Mishkoff (his information is on his Web site) if you are interested in
following up with him further.