Folks are finally starting to pick up on something we’ve been saying for years — there is a market for e-books on phones. Before you start the “it’s painful to read books on the small screen” comments, hear me out. I agree with those comments, but only to a point. I’ve read dozens of entire books on various smartphones and PDAs since 2003 and ‘ll admit that it’s not the ideal experience. But back in the day, it was the only way to read e-books on the go without booting up a clunky computer with relatively poor battery life as compared to today’s solutions.

Having said that, the ability to read a few pages, or even a few chapters, in a short chunk of free time at any location is priceless. And that’s why I believe we’re recently seeing more book-related apps than games launching in the iTunes App Store. There’s surely other reasons, but this one trumps the others from where I stand. Think about it this way — if you’re always carrying your phone and an unplanned short opportunity arises to read a book, you don’t want to whip out a computer, do you? In a situation like this, you’re not limited to how much space you have. You can read with just one hand. You don’t need great lighting. It’s simply a win-win, all around.

Don’t get me wrong, because I love reading on the Kindle2 I bought back in March. It’s my primary e-book reader — I use it daily and I read one or two books a week on it. However, there’s something to be said for consuming e-book content in bite-sized chunks here and there. I find reading most enjoyable when the activity doesn’t have a planned time or location. And thanks to my phone, it doesn’t have to be.

Our platform focus continues this fine Sunday with the e-Book Echo, our take on the week in the digital publishing world. The e-book world has been full of product announcements of late, and this week saw things quiet down. The wait is on for the appearance of all the new e-book readers that have been announced right and left lately. Samsung is an electronic giant with a lot of resources, so when they start talking about color e-book screens we sit up and listen. This week they demonstrated a very early prototype of a color e-paper using E-Ink technology. Samsung believes they will be able to bring the color display to market in a couple of years, adding fuel to the color e-book fire.

PVI is another company that makes reader displays, and they are ramping up to produce color screens for them in the last half of 2010. The company currently produces black and white displays, and may have color screens using AMOLED technology appearing soon.

Netbook creator ASUS is talking up making its own e-book reader, and bringing it to market early next year. The company has been investigating products they can produce to address competition in the netbook segment, and e-book readers is one such product. They are expected to make a reader announcement before the end of the year.

Our platform focus continues this fine Sunday with the e-Book Echo, our take on the week in the digital publishing world. Barnes & Noble lit a fire under Amazon with the introduction of its own e-book reader, the Nook. The Nook matches Amazon’s Kindle feature for feature, and adds a small color touchscreen. The Nook will take advantage of the e-book experience with the ability to lend e-books to friends for two weeks. Nook owners will be able to read any e-book for free while inside any B&N brick and mortar store. It is running the Android OS, which opens the possibility up for homebrew apps for the Nook.

Amazon will be releasing a PC version of the Kindle reader, to allow reading Kindle books on any PC. The software is full-featured, with a library manager and reader that is touch optimized for Windows 7 PCs with a touchscreen. The PC program will work with the Amazon WhisperNet, so it will sync libraries and reading positions the same as the Kindle and iPhone versions. The PC Kindle reader program will be available in November. Amazon is working on a version of the program for the Mac platform, but no release date has been provided.

Two other e-book readers were announced this week, the first being Spring Design’s Alex. Alex is similar to the Nook, with a second screen that is a color touchscreen for navigation. Another unique dual screen reader is coming from enTourage that foregoes a tiny color touchscreen for a 10.1-inch variety. The eDGe has a unique hinge that allows operating the reader in a number of forms, including configured as a laptop. Both the Alex and the eDGe are running the Android OS, which is rapidly becoming the OS of choice for the e-book reader.

MoTR 187 is 33:05 minutes long and is a 30.4 MB file in MP3 format.
CLICK HERE to download the file and listen directly.

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Windows 7 is here, and so is the Windows 7 Whopper.
Will Starter Edition help or hurt netbook sales?
More time spent with Nokia’s N900 and a definitive guide.
B&N Nook vs. Amazon Kindle (which will have a PC edition soon)

CONTACT US: Email us or leave us a voicemail on our SkypeLine!
SUBSCRIBE: Use this RSS feed with your favorite podcatcher or click this link to add us to iTunes!

Kindle for PC Demo on Windows 7

Want to read e-books from Amazon on hardware you likely already have? There’s an app for that but it doesn’t come from Cupertino. At a Windows 7 launch event today, Amazon introduced a Kindle application for PCs that will be available next month. Like the Kindle for iPhone application, the PC software works with Amazon’s Whispersync — stop reading your book on a Kindle or iPhone and you can pick up right where you left off on a computer. And if you’re out of content, Amazon says you can purchase books right from the PC.

The new application also takes advantage of the native touchscreen support in Windows 7, although you’ll need a touchscreen computer, of course. With touch, you can simply swipe through your page flips or, if you have a multitouch computer with Windows 7, you can zoom in and out by pinching. That’s a great implementation, but I think the best news of all is legacy compatibility — the new software doesn’t require Windows 7 as it can be used with Windows XP or Vista. As a Kindle owner, I’m looking forward to the new software, which makes the PC a “third screen” for the Kindle. It ought to come in handy on my netbook in the rare case I’ve left the Kindle at home!

It seems the race is on to produce e-book readers based on the Android platform that have two screens. The enTourage eDGe has a novel book form with a 9.7-inch e-Ink screen on the left (Wacom PenEnabled) for reading e-books and a 10.1-inch color LCD touchscreen on the right. The eDGe has a special hinge in the “spine” of the book that allows the reader to be used laying flat, held like a book or even standing free. It can even be configured as a laptop.

The enTourage folks aren’t skirting around the desire users have for using such a reader for web work, and as such have chosen Android. They are touting the ability of the eDGe to surf the web, work with email, play MP3s and even check Facebook. Connectivity is done over Wi-Fi or optional EVDO/HSPA 3G. That big, color touchscreen with resistive digitizer would be nice for web work, but is likely hard on battery life. The eDGe looks a lot like that mythical Courier device on which Microsoft is reportedly working.

The eDGe will ship in February 2010, but you can pre-order one now. If you can get past that $490 price tag, that is.

The introduction of the Nook electronic book reader by Barnes & Noble has created a huge stir. Details about the device and how it will be used by consumers are still rolling out. I attended a press event this morning hosted by William Lynch, President of Barnes & Noble. Here’s my take on the user experience based on that call.

• Users can purchase an e-book with two touches on the Nook.
• E-books can be loaned to other Nook owners, or those with any version of eReader software installed on a handset or computer. The loan period is 14 days, after which the e-book disappears on the lendee’s device. The original owner cannot access the e-book during the loan period.
• Publishers can restrict their books from being loaned.
• Bookmarks, annotations and “furthest read” positions are synced across all devices using eReader software.
• There is no text-to-speech option on the Nook by design.
• The Nook is built “somewhere in Asia.”
• The deals with iRex and Plastic Logic are for commerce and content provision only and do not affect the Nook.
• The Nook ships at launch with no web browser, nor any RSS capability. The company could add it later if customers desire.
• Barnes & Noble want to produce an SDK for the Android-based Nook.
• The color touchscreen is capacitive.
• E-books readable with any currently shipping eReader version should work on the Nook. The company is going to verify this works.
• Only the bn.com store will be accessible via the Nook. Legacy eReader and Fictionwise content must be manually copied over USB, although it should also work via memory card.
• E-books cannot be purchased outside the U. S. Technology is used to determine the actual location of the buyer to enforce this restriction.

Barnes & Noble is not resting on the announcement of the Nook reader, they are also announcing an alliance with Adobe to support standardized content protection. The alliance means that B&N will support ePUB and PDF standards using a protection scheme developed jointly with Adobe. Not only the new Nook will be able to handle these standard formats, all of B&N’s readers on phones will handle them. From the press release:

The collaboration makes Barnes & Noble the most portable and compatible eBookstore, and provides customers of nook, the new Barnes & Noble eBook reader and other compatible devices, as well as users of Barnes & Noble eReader software for iPhone, PCs, BlackBerry and other smartphones the ability to access digital content from thousands of content providers that is protected with Adobe technology. In addition, customers with devices that use the Adobe Reader Mobile software development kit (SDK) will soon be able to purchase and read content from BN.com, the world’s largest eBookstore.

B&N is holding true to what they told us in an interview a while back. They want their content on every platform, and it is beginning to look like they will soon reach that goal. Full press release after the jump.

Continue reading »

The much ballyhooed e-book reader from Barnes & Noble is now officially announced. The Nook is smaller and thinner than I originally thought and from the photos and promotional video is pretty darn nice. The 6-inch E-Ink screen is indeed augmented with a small color LCD touchscreen at the bottom. This screen is used to interact easily with the Nook, making it simpler to operate than other readers.

The Nook has free 3G via AT&T which is used to shop for and download books to the reader. The Nook can be synced with other Barnes & Noble readers and devices, making it as versatile as the Amazon Kindle. Nook owners can lend e-books to friends for 14 days by “squirting” them to the friend’s reader, cell phone or computer. B&N is also touting the availability of free content available while in B&N stores.

The Nook can be pre-ordered now, but a firm shipping date has not been specified by B&N. The Nook is $259 with free shipping.

Specs:

• Height: 7.7 inches
• Width: 4.9 inches
• Depth: 0.5 inches
• Weight: 11.2 ounces (317 grams)
• Wi-Fi
• 3G – AT&T
• 2GB internal storage, microSD slot
• MP3 player
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• internal mono speaker
• USB charging, 3.5 hour charge time
• Android OS

The indications of how big the e-book scene is becoming haven’t let up, with nearly every day a new announcement for something that is coming next year. Today is no different, although the announcement deals with the hardware behind the e-book reader. Freescale Semiconductor and E Ink Corp. are joining forces to produce an “e-book reader on a chip” for use in electronic readers. The System-on-a-Chip they intend to produce will marry Freescale’s i.MX processor with E Ink’s Vizplex display controller.

Freescale is already making the processors in many e-book readers, and E Ink produces the displays used in virtually all of them. This joint effort will open up the possibility for thinner and lighter readers, at a lower cost to produce.

“Our aim is to provide the world’s best digital reading experience.” said Sriram Peruvemba, vice president of Marketing for E Ink. “E Ink’s joint development work with Freescale will enable several new markets, including eNewspapers and eTextbooks.”

(press release)