The only E-Reader focused Magazine in the world www.goodereader.com | July 2010 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE

Apple i-Pad used to communicate with dolphins

Plus: a brief history of -- How ebooks have changed over the last few years

FisherPrice IXL E- Kindle 2 and Barnes Pandigital E-Reader Reader for Kids and Noble Nook off of the market Price Slash The Fisher-Price IXL E-Reader The E-Reader wars are heating The on again, off again e-reader is one of the first E-Readers for up with price slashes for the is finally recalled and off of the Kids! Make Art, Play Music and best e-readers! market Read Good E-Reader Magazine

Letter from Editor Dear valued subscriber

We want to extend our gratitude ogy is worth your time and what Adam, Google Slate and much for signing up for the Good E- is not! more! Reader Magazine! Every month We also review and talk about We are very excited to be offer- we publish the latest E-Reader the older e-readers as well, giving ing the only E-Reader Magazine and Slate news in an easy to di- you ideas on what stores sell the in the world! We provide exten- gest format. best books, what kind of support sive coverage on all facets of the If you love our E-Reader blog you can get with your existing e- E-Reader Industry. then you will fall head over heels reader and more! If you need anything at all, with our new Magazine! We cov- If you are thinking of buying a please feel free to drop us a line at er all of the popular news items new E-Reader or Slate PC device, [email protected] of the day! We cover such aspects our magazine is for you! We give as Pre-Releases, Industry news, you the skinny on the new devic- Sincerely Hardware Reviews, editorials and es such as the Microsoft Courier, Michael the inside scoop on what technol- Dell Slate, HP Slate, Notion Ink Good E-Reader Editor

Editorial Contributing Authors Michael Kazlew Living in Vancouver Canada, Michael has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last three years. His articles have been picked up by local news sources and networks such as the Huffington Post. Michael currently owns a Barnes and Noble Nook E-Reader and a Apple I-pad Contact: [email protected] Sovan Mandal Sovy has been a freelance writer for several years now and has done numerous articles for Goodereader.com. He considers himself a fulltime writer with a passion for articles on technology. He also has a fond interest in topics ranging from just about anything from science, short stories, and novels to works of fiction.He currently resides in Kolkata, India. Contact: [email protected] Kunal d’ more Kunal is currently pursuing his Masters in Computers and he has been working as a freelance writer since his college days. He is a tech savvy person and loves writing on latest technologies. Contact: [email protected] Nick Shuster Nick Shuster works in the media quite regularly. From film to on-the-street interviews, nick is quite involved in the who’s and what’s of the city. His interviews and many projects typically revolve around the latest technologies but can stretch as far as the latest theatrical releases, all the way to the do’s and don’ts of dating. Raised in Malibu CA, Nick now lives in Los Angeles CA. He found that being in L.A. gives him a lot to work with when it comes to being where the action is. Contact: [email protected]

Design

Diaconita Mihai Diaconita is the resident graphic designer who has put together this magazine layout. He currently resides in Romania. He is a professional web designer and graphic designer. His philosophy entails clean and unique designs.

Contact: [email protected] i-Pad used to communicate with dolphins

The Apple iPad has transcended species at the Dolphin swim facility in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico with a young Dolphin named Merlin. He has joined the growing ranks of Apple iPad aficionados in using it to communicate with his handler and trainers using the iPad.

Jack Kassewitz has developed new software for the iPad to use a new interface with symbols and language. Mer- lin uses the touch screen by a learned response to real world objects presented to him. Trainers use common objects like a Fish, An Apple, a ball or a cube and then show them the iPad and they tap their beak to hit the appropriate symbols. We think that once the dolphins get the hang of the touch screen, we can let them choose from a wide as- sortment of symbols to represent objects, actions and even emotions.” This is an easy task for a dolphin, but it is a necessary building block towards our goal of a complete language interface between humans and dolphins.” Jack Kassewitz also works on a project called Cymaglyph which analyzes the sound vibration made in the water when the dolphins speak to each other and maps it to an image form called “picture words”

Certain sounds made by dolphins have long been suspected to represent language but the complexity of the sounds has made their analysis difficult. Previous techniques, using the spectrograph, display cetacean (dolphins, whales and porpoises) sounds only as graphs of frequency and amplitude. The CymaScope captures actual sound vibrations imprinted in the dolphin’s natural environment—water, revealing the intricate visual details of dolphin sounds for the first time. Kassewitz has said, “There is strong evidence that dolphins are able to ‘see’ with sound, much like humans use ultrasound to see an unborn child in the mother’s womb. The CymaScope provides our first glimpse into what the dolphins might be ‘seeing’ with their sounds.”

They see this technique in conjunction to store the information in the iPad to provide a Rosetta Stone between the sound vibrations the dolphins the use to communicate with each other and the picture word association the trainers are using to do word association.

Their new dolphin application end result is to come up with a communicative method between people and dol- phins. You heard of people who speak Klingon to each other, can speaking Dolphin to each other be so far off? If the App is cheap, we say YES! You can learn more about Merlin and his iPad adventures with the Speak Dolphin by visiting:

http://speakdolphin.com/home.cfm

Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Introducing the IXL e reader for kids

E-Readers are the hot new gadget this year, aimed at adults of all ages! With the advent of the new Fisher Price E-Reader we wrote about a few months ago, things have been quiet on the E-Reader’s aimed specifically at children. This all changed at Computex this year, when two new E-Readers were announced, the PocketBook 901 http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/kindle-dx-has-a-new- challenger-in-the-pocketbook-301-ereader/ and the new Aiptek’s Storybook InColor. Story inColor is designed to help children improve their reading skills, with great audio play- back of books to teach children word association in MP3 format. The device has an 8-inch TFT LCD display with 800 x 600 resolutions. It comes bundled with 1GB of internal memory is big enough to store up to 45 books, but capacity can be increased via SD/SDHC/MMC and MS Pro card or USB drive. The device itself comes with 20 children’s ebooks built-in, which are all narrated. Books are available in many different languages from English, to Chinese.

One of the great new features of this device is that every twenty minutes it displays a picture remind- ing children to take a break from the device and rest their eyes. Speaking of pictures, this color e-reader has the ability to play photo slideshows in JPG format, and can even be used as a digital picture frame. This device is great for kids, but the battery life is rather lackluster with the 2600 mAh rechargeable battery, only giving the kids 2 hours of battery life before it needs to be recharged. Also the ebooks are all in proprietary format, which means you only can buy your books from the same company you bought the e-reader from. Aiptek’s Story Book inColor will retail for $199 each, where individual Books cost $3-4. For more information check out the ebookincolor for purchase and e-book information. http:// en.ebookincolor.com/default.php

2 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Games are on the way for Kindle According to a recent job posting on the Amazon Jobs Website and CareerBuilder.com, Amazon is look- ing to hire key personal for a “Stealth Project” to make video games. One of the first posts was for a Senior Product Manager of Digital Video Games, which would in theory then recommend key staff positions, such as various project leads.

It is our opinion that the 2, Kindle DX and the new the anticipated Kindle Slim due this September will have games available.

Many E-Readers right now have small games available for them now, both issued from the company, such as the Barnes and Noble Nook with their Sudoku and other games. Also independent Developers also make small games for Android driven E-Readers such as the Spring Design Alex.

Its proven that small casual games that are either made by the E-Reader company or small home brewed applications do indeed work via E-Ink, one has to wonder if Amazon will step up the game and offer devel- opers a custom SDK in order to make games for their Kindle line of E-Readers. This approach is something that the other E-Reader companies do not provide for the programing communities.

Amazon has issued a SDK for application development a few months ago, to select Beta Test Developers and have had job postings the last few months for Internet Web Browser development. Amazon has stated internally that they will likely see a new web browser debuted this September. Here is the full job listing from CareerBuilder.com RESPONSIBILITIES

Senior Product Manager, Digital Video Games We are looking for a smart, analytical, and enthusiastic Senior Product Manager to lead the development and launch of a highly visible strategic initiative in our digital video games business. This stealth project involves inventing and building a completely new type of technology for customers. The person in this role will own driving all aspects of the initiative, including detailed product definition, working with a dedicated technical team to get it built, coordinating with external partners, and then designing and executing the launch plan.

The successful candidate will have extensive experience working with software developers to define and build new technology. The Senior Product Manager must also have excellent verbal and written commu- nication skills; the ability to break down complex problems; and a strong will to get stuff done and deliver results. Keys to success also include a passion for building new technology, and a great sense of humour. The successful candidate will demonstrate:

- Wide range of skills from strategic thinking, to working with external partners, to managing large pro- jects through to completion. - Superior communication and analytical skills, including strong ability to identify and solve ambiguous problems. - High attention to detail and proven ability to manage multiple, competing priorities simultaneously. - Bachelor degree plus 4 to 8 years of relevant work experience; MBA a plus.

3 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Kobo demand outweighs supply

The Kobo E-Reader is quickly becoming THE item to pick up for father’s day, and many retailers in Canada and the USA are completely sold out. We called 3 different Chapters Indigo locations in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada today, and all of their Kobo E-Reader units are sold out, and they do not expect to have more until mid-June. The same story is sung across Canada in major cities such as Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Internationally the Kobo is basically sold out everywhere, and most stores do not take pre-orders, al- though you can order it from the Indigo website, but they take around two weeks in order to ship it. In New Zealand where the Kobo only recently launched on May 27, all units are sold out, and REDgroup is making customers wait over two weeks for their unit to arrive. Initially, the REDgroup website had all units to be shipped within 24 hours, but this has since been amended. With its 150.00 Price tag, the Kobo E-Reader is the perfect price for an entry level unit, since most other E-Readers cost well over 200.00, with competition being entrenched by the Barnes and Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle, and Sony E-Readers. The Kobo E-Reader is not without its problems, many people find its current reading list is hard to change without encumber some software, such as . Font issues also abound with books bought outside of the Kobo E-Reader Store.

4 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 1080p video decoding on the Orphan Mid APAD?

The Orphan X10 Mid APAD might find a foster home willing to adopt it with its 1080P HD video de- coding and Windows CE 6.0 operating system, but is it a buy or a pass? Firstly at $189.00 it certainly is affordable, and priced competitively with the upcoming Archos 7 Tablet and the Eken Tablet. The Choice of Windows CE 6.0 is strange, considering that operating system is all but dead, with the upcoming Windows 7 Mobile release. The Screen size is seven inches and LCD, with a resolution of 800x480, which may leave something to be desired for. The X10 MID Apad boasts Telechips 8901 720Mhz ARM 11 processor and has 256MB DDR2 RAM. The X10 Tablet PC also has Built-in 2GB NandFlash and TF Card (MicroSD) extension slot - insert up to 32GB cards. Dimensions: 187 x 115 x 15mm and lastly the x10 mid Apad weighs only 359 grams. Other features include USB OTG 2.0 & USB Host 1.1 and Built-in 1400mAh lithium battery for super- long standby. Built-1080P HD HDMI video output interface and Built-in Wi-Fi for free internet web browsing. Built-in web camera: 0.3 Megapixel, Click the Email logo to open the camera and talk on Skype, Gmail, MSN, AOL using webcam. Although this tablet plays Flash, and has 2 GB of RAM, where most entry level tablets only have 1. Our advice is to pass on this one. Its entry level price may be a draw to some people with $189.00, but is weak in the overall graphics department and with the operating system being Windows CE; it will not see much support in the future. If you are looking for an entry level tablet, we would advise to go with the Eken M001 for only $100.00 or wait for higher tier Tablets and Slates such as the Nvidia Slate, Google Slate, or Adobe Slate.

“Will someone adopt this orphan APAD?”

5 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 MSI Developing Slate PC

We reported a few months ago that MSI had begun development on two different Slate PCS and it looks like one of them will be out mid next month. MSI will debut the new Tablet PC at the Computex Trade show in June The MSI Slatebook will have a 10-inch touch screen display, Atom Zxx series processor , built-in 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. The Operat- ing system will be windows 7 based, so finally a Slate PC will run a full windows OS. Estimates have the Slatebook priced modestly at $500. It also has 2 USB ports, a webcam and a 12 hour battery life. MSI is also developing a follow up to the Slatebook which would have the new Nvidia Tegra 2-based chips. The company mentioned that they will evaluate the success of the Slatebook before releasing any follow up tablets. MSI had said that they were working on a E-Reader device, but that project seems to be shelved right now. Some rumours do persist that the Slatebook will be using the same screen as their E-Reader was going to have, with the new Pixel Qi hybrid display technology. Although the Electronic Reader market is pretty saturated with all of the new comers in the market, MSI will debut the first Full on Slate sporting the Windows 7 operating system, something many other companies at- tempted to do, such as HP and Microsoft and ended up abandoning Win- dows as a core operating system. If MSI can possibly get their Slatebook on the market by July, they will have a few month advantage on most other Slates set to go sale this summer.

6 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Microsoft made a keynote announcement at the start at Computex which got lost in the shuffle of all the mighty Slate and Tablet PC’s we saw over the last few days. They announced a new operating system that is more multi-media and wireless based called Windows Embedded Compact 7. It is an operating system seemingly tailored towards mobile devices such as Slate and Tablet systems, to use in lieu of Windows 7 as the only operating system of choice for developers who do not want an Android based system. It is a lighter version of Windows 7 and stripped down to be ideal with touch screen and smaller mobility devices that do not need the horse power of a true Windows 7 OS. A press release we looked at had the following; “The Windows platform creates tangible opportunities for our hardware partners to diversify their product portfolios and deliver rich computing experiences across a broad range of devices,” says Steve Guggen- heimer, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s OEM division, “The Windows Embedded Compact 7 (3) toolkit will allow for richer customer experiences on a variety of specialized devices. We look forward to continued collaboration with our hardware partners to bring the very best experiences to customers world- wide.” Also found on the same press release are some features the new OS Supports Dual Core CPU Support (SMP, ARMv6) WIFI Positioning System Bluetooth 3.0 + HS Microsoft Embedded OS for Cellcore DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) slate and tablet PC’s DRM technology Media Transfer Protocol IE8 Rendering Rich Media Plug-Ins NDIS 6.1 support UX C ++ XAML API using technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight for attrac- tive and functional user interfaces Advance touch and gesture Input One of the heavy features about this new OS is aimed at consumers, who want a more wireless and mul- timedia experience, offering the ability to share and manage content across networked devices. In other words, it allows entertainment devices connected to the Internet around your home to share content on the fly. Think about that next time the latest viral video shows up on your favourite streaming website and you want to share it with the family. You all will be pleased to know that Windows Embedded Compact 7 will also come with a powerful up- date to Microsoft Internet Explorer, including support for Adobe Flash 10.1, a very basic media player with tons of codecs, easy library management, and seamless integration with Windows 7-based PCs. The Future of Microsoft’s role as an OEM and Operating system provider may be their entrant point on the emerging Slate PC market. Android is the current OS of choice and 75% of the new Slates showed off here at Computex are all running Google. The Odd men out are a few smaller tablets running Windows 7, and the HP Hurricane running WEB OS. Microsoft currently does not have any plans to develop a Slate or Tablet PC, and with the axing of the Courier Device, it looks like the only way they will capitalize on this boom period of Slate PCS will be to provide the Operating System. 7 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 < Nintendo 3DS possible eReader Application

So we all know, or at least SHOULD know that Nintendo had announced its new up and coming handheld console... the Nintendo 3DS at its E3 Press Conference. THE best feature HANDS DOWN, would have to be the full 3d effect... without the glasses which is a much better alternative from using those AWESOME looking glasses...

3.5-inch widescreen on top with full 3d effect, and touch screen on the bottom, what’s not to love? However, the bottom screen is only for touch, as Nintendo found that the cloudiness of fingerprint marks and scratch marks and such on the screen ruined the 3D effect easily.

Now...the new 2GigaByte Nintendo 3DS cartridges are pretty much the exact same shape as the standard Nintendo DS cart, but with a small tab added in the corner.

But what we really wanted to talk about is its potential ereader capability.

CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, has given SOME indication that the 3DS might be able to use an e-reader application that works with the handheld’s built-in Wi-Fi capabilities. By using the wireless, the device may soon be able to obtain novels, magazine and newspaper articles, and many more forms of electronic written content, automatically.

Iwata also stated that the 3DS’ wireless connection could stay active even when the handheld is off. This opens many possibilities to obtain game data, information, wireless messaging between other 3ds users and much more even when the 3ds is not in use. And when the user turns the handheld back on, there is everything stored for them.

Wireless device, game player, music player, video player, no-glasses-required 3D capabilities and now EREADER, it seems to be that the Nintendo 3DS’ capabilities are limitless. It is still a while before it gets released so who knows what other kind of trinkets and gadgets will be added. One thing we’re not sure of is if or how the 3d capabilities could be used to read written material but with Nin- tendo, we can only imagine.

“The latest speculation is built over these existing speculations that will allow us- ers to download news and other ebooks to their local storage to use the Nintendo 3DS game console as an eReader as well.”

Nintendo 8 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 LG UX10 Shown off at Computex

The LG Booth at this year’s Computex Computer trade show was locked down tight! People who wanted some hands on time with the device were limited to just two or three minutes before they gave you the boot. LG is making waves into the Slate and Tablet market with an early pro- totype called the LG UX10 Tablet. It featured a 10.1 inch screen, an Intel Atom Z530 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing webcam, an SD card slot, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, a 7200mAh battery and a micro-HDMI output. It also had HD Audio built in and weighed only 850 G, it was equipped with a multi capacitive touch screen, but it was not working when we took a look at it. Although the Microsoft booth representatives did not give a definitive price or release date, due to the prototype we saw, it looked like it could be viable around the end of the year, or early 2011. Our experience, is when they limit your hands on time with gadgets, they are often prone to crash or otherwise give people negative things to say, such as Acers habitual crashing of the their new Tablet they showed off at the press release party yesterday.

9 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Nook and Kindle 2 Price Slash

Just as Barnes and Noble today are offering a new WI-FI only version of the Nook for 149.99, and today is now offering their original Nook from $249.00 to $199.00. Amazon struck back today and of- fered yet another price reduction on its Kindle 2 E-Reader to $189.00 Amazons price reductions marks the 3rd time within one calender year that Amazon has reduced the price on the Kindle 2. When the Kindle 2 orgignally launched in Feb 2009 it had the price of $349. In July 2009 they again reduced the price to 299.99 and in October when they launched the Kindle 2 World Edition they dropped the price yet again to $259.00. Amazons slashing of the price on the Kindle 2 to $189.00 and the Nook price reduction to $199.00 is making E-Readers more accessible to the masses! With the success of the Kobo E-Reader with an entry level of $150.00, many people opted to the Kobo, because all of the other good e-readers cost in the upper 250.00’s With many more solid e-readers being available for under $200.00 they are more accessible to people on a budget now then ever before. We see the price reductions as a WIN for the customer who wants more variety of an e-reader for less then $200.00

10 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Small History of eBooks

When you used to think of an , you envisioned an eBook as an electronic version of a printed book available to view on a PC, Smart-Phone, E-Reader and other platforms. While that still remains true, you have a new breed of writers that are exclusively writing ebooks instead of tradition print media. For one big reason they do this, is writing an ebook costs nothing but time, and any copy of the book you sell you get a small profit, others choose to give the books away for free for promotion of a business or service. Other Ebook authors such as Rhiannon Frater develop online blogs that compile books from entries and then form ebooks from them building a community of steady readers coming to the site every day to read on. The Resurgence of Ebooks has only been very prevalent for the last five years, due to the success of E-Readers from being a fringe gadget, to a main stream success. We have compiled a Brief History of eBooks so people have a further understanding of the history. 1998: The first eBook readers appear in the market: The Softbook and Gemstar’s Rocket eBook Reader (pic). 2000: Stephen King’s horror novel, Ride the Bullet, is released only as an eBook (at first). 2003: EBooks stumble as demand remains poor and paper books remain a steadfast favourite; Gem- star closes its doors in July, Barnes & Noble stops selling eBooks at its online store. Critics say the eBooks trend will not last. 2004: Sony releases the Librié, the first eBook reader to utilise eInk (electronic ink) technology. Gone is the annoying glare from backlit screens in earlier eBook readers or on PDAs that strain the eyes. Now, words on the screen have almost the same clarity as words printed on paper. 2007: Online book retailer Amazon.com releases the Kindle, made exclusively for the American mar- ket. The first lot of Kindles sells out in five and a half hours. 2008: Books on Board (booksonboard.com) starts selling eBooks for iPhones, the first online eBook store to do so. August 2009: Sony links with libraries via the Overdrive digital network to enable people to borrow eBooks from libraries. Among the countries that have eBook borrowing are the United States and Sin- gapore (no, Malaysia doesn’t have it). October 2009: Amazon.com releases Kindle 2, and ships it to more than 100 countries (no, Malaysia is not among them). In this month also, Barnes & Noble releases its own eBook reader, Nook. November 2009: Students of the private Canadian secondary school, Blyth Academy, are supplied with Sony Readers loaded with their textbooks. It is the first school in the world to do this. December 2009: Five major publishers, Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp and Time Inc, an- nounce that they will join forces to develop a format and an online store to beat Amazon.com’ s stran- glehold on the eBook market. And on Christmas day, eBooks outsell physical books on Amazon.com for the first time ever.

11 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 January 2010 – At the Consumers elec- tronic show, many new e-readers from Asus, Sony, , Samsung and more, drive a frenzy of attention to e-read- ers and ebooks. April 2010 – The Apple iPad debuts, and the iBookstore sells half a million ebooks in less than a month. BENQ and True Digi- tal Form a partnership in Asia, and create a new Bookstore, creating a true Ebook conglomerate arises in the east. May 2010 – Penguin Publishing and Amazon have a falling out, and Penguin has pulled all Ebooks from the Amazon Book Store and has decided to setup shop with Apple. Google Editions is slated for an August release that offers publishers and authors a platform to sell books directly from their website, having Google host the Book, Checkout process and more, seeking to change the current Ebook distribution methodology.

New Technology

At the recent Society for Information Display or SID in Seattle last week there were a number of E- Ink prototypes available on the main exhibit hall. There were some great new E-INK screens that pro- vided better quality E-Ink with better contrast and display. E-Ink is getting better and better with each technological iteration. While other companies are bypassing E-Ink all together in favour of Color and Video with reflective displays such as Qualcomm’s Mirsol. Also, Texas Instruments is pioneering new E-Ink display that will save battery life. There are also new developments in Color E-Ink that allow the playback of Flash Technology with crisper and stronger colors. Although these new E-Ink screens do not do FULL color, they present enough to be a departure from standard E-Ink screens found in the Kindle, or Kobo E-Reader. The Screens are able to synthesize color by applying a filter on top of a regular black and white E Ink panel, which itself has blacker blacks and whiter whites than before. Earlier versions or prototypes trying to do color with E-Ink appeared washed out because too much light was lost on its journey into and out of the capsules and through the filter. But the next generation of color displays have a better color gamut. They’re built with a higher-resolution black and white screen that contains new materials. We can look forward to by the end of the year many new innovations in Color and Touch screen E- Reader technologies by companies such as Freescale, Qualcomm, Touchco and Texas Instruments who seem to be pioneering a new breed of E-Ink screens that are thinner, and provide more resolution.

12 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Toshiba Libretto W100 dual- screened tablet to debut in August

After its first round knockout experience with the JournE Touch, Toshiba is once again trying to return into the competitive ring and this time its banking on a heavy weight contender to turn around its for- tunes in the highly competitive tablet PC segment. We did carry a report of the coming of a dual screen tablet from Toshiba, and now, here is the news in its more definitive form. The Libretto W100 is also just in time to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary of the first modern laptop from Toshiba. The W100 also marks the coming back of the Libretto brand after a hiatus of almost 5 years and is a heavier version than its earlier contenders but has the familiar clam shell design which is what Toshiba expects would attract customers to it. The design also somewhat replicates the Microsoft Courier or the MSI eReader in its looks though everyone for sure would wish the W100 does not replicate the fate of any of these models.

The Libretto W100 comes with two 7 inch LED Backlit WSVGA Multi-Touch display having a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Powering the Libretto W100 will be the 1.2 GHZ Intel Pentium U5400 processor. It also has 2 GB of DDR3 on board memory along with 62GB solid state hard drive and will run the Windows 7 Home Premium.The entire unit measure a quite compact 202 × 123 × 25.4 mm and sports a black brushed aluminum finish that exudes style from every angle. It has the looks of a cute little laptop though at 1.8 pounds, it won’t be a pain to lug it around.The weight though will go up a bit more for the enhanced battery pack.

The W100 also incorporates built in accelerometer for both the screens that will change screen orienta- tions quickly and automatically. Also, both the screens can work independently of each other, thereby providing the users with the flexibility of using it the way they would like to.The libretto W100 also packs in a range of software that is designed to further enhance the touchscreen abilities of the Windows 7 OS. These includes an eReader app called and Bulletin Board which is a Toshiba program that aims to act as a one-stop portal that will provide access to a calender, the documents and pictures that have been in use along with other frequently-used applications. Apart from these, the W100 will also come installed with the Reel time and PC Health Monitor programs.

Connectivity options with the W100 includes 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR though strangely, there is no mention of either mobile broadband or any 3G connectivity.Then there’s also a MicroSD card slot, USB 2.0 port, along with a small 1.0 megapixel HD Webcam with Toshiba Face Recognition. A 8 cell battery will be providing the juice which is in the rage of around 5 hours (less than 4 hours with a 6 cell battery pack).

The other notable feature of the Libretto W100 is the half a dozen different versions of virtual key- boards that it includes, with all of them being receptive to haptic response. So what you get is a: a simplified QWERTY keyboard that has less number of button though the buttons are bigger in size; two split-thumb keyboards that can be used with both hands; an alphanumeric keypad as is present in cell phones; and a numbers-only option. However, real time tests prove the W100 still has some issues that can nullify all the good things the W100 promises to be. Its software is still buggy while the entire tablet tend to get quite warm. Then the fan made its presence known by the noise that it made. But the W100 still is an impressive device and scores with its screen display and flexibility. The screen is also quite responsive.

Toshiba has said it will make the W100 available from August though in limited numbers. Also at $1099, it will be more than double the price of the cheapest iPad and significantly expensive than its top of the line version. But then, what you get with the Libretto W100 is a tablet PC that is nearer to the laptop and it has got two screens.

“This PC definitely plays well with others. Driven by Windows 7, it lets you easily share, stream and synchronize your files and multimedia through your home network or cloud. It also comes with a USB port and built-in memory reader so you can transfer stuff to and from external hard drives and other popular gear.” Plastic Logic Que Pre-orders Canceled and Refunded

The Plastic Logic Que E-Reader has been delayed twice this year, since it was initially debuted at the CES earlier this year. According to the CEO the E-Reader aimed at business travelers is delayed indefi- nitely, with all Pre-Orders canceled and refunded. Although the company is calling the canceling of all pre-orders a “delay” there is no official release date for this unit. It was initially planned for release June 24 2010, but that does not seem to be the case any- more. “Plastic Logic wants to make sure that the product they deliver is the right one for their target business customers in the rapidly changing marketplace,” a spokesperson for Plastic Logic as said “They are con- tinuing to refine the product, technology and features, and are anxious to get in the marketplace as soon as possible.” The Plastic Logic Que has a massive price, and is working on two different units; the prices are $649.99 and $799.00. Which might not be feasible in the current market climate? Only this week, Amazon, Barnes and Noble have both slashed the prices in their E-Readers for less than $200.00. Originally developed by scientists at Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory, the Plastic Logic uses flexible plastic technology that has been in development for 10 years now. The company plans to introduce two different models: one with a price tag of $649 and featuring Bluetooth, WI-FI capability and 4 GB memory and another priced at $799 having Wi-Fi, 3G wireless and 8GB memory. Both models don’t have memory card slots. QUE is slated to be sold through Barnes and Noble’s retail stores, and will have access to the E-Book Store. Plastic Logic claims that they will offer the most significant collection of business reading available on any eReader. A recent breakthrough is using Solid State Memory instead of a traditional internal hard-drive. SSDs are based on volatile memory such as DRAM and are characterized by ultrafast data access, generally less than 10 microseconds, and are used primarily to accelerate applications that would otherwise be held back by the latency of Flash SSDs or traditional HDDs. Positioned as a paperless briefcase, the Plastic Logic Que is one of the largest e-readers in the market. Less than 1/3″ thick, Que has a width of 8.5″ and a length of 11″ with a weight of 17.2 ounces. Screen measures 10.7″ diagonally, with a display resolution of 960 x 1280 at 150 ppi. Strangely, it supports only 8 levels of grey scale in comparison to many of the newer e-book readers that support 16. Although this delay and cancelling of orders may be the final nail in the coffin of the Plastic Logic Que, many users are venting tremendous frustrations. Many people are feeling ire in the fact that the technol- ogy is mostly sound. There is no official word on what aspects of the Que need refining or need to be revised. Although the company is not giving any indication on when this would ship, they need to get a move on soon. It will be interesting to see if Plastic Logic will in fact ship the color version of the Que they announced earlier in the year, will ship in 2011. Pandigital E-Reader is off the market, for now

The Pandigital Android driven e-reader, is officially off the market for a period of a few months! Pandigital is certainly going through some growing pains, we reported last month that users were having a tone of problems with WI-FI, internet connectivity and all sorts of UI errors. The company did a recall of the items, although you had to hunt around for the particular details. Pandigital then said, a firmware fix would be issued, and it was for a while, but it did little to address the on-going problems. Yesterday, June 24 2010, Pandigital announced a halt on sales of their Novel E-Reader. They will try and fix some of the on-going firmware problems. The company did mention that in August at the latest the device will again be available. Rumor has it, Pandigi- tal is scraping the current device, and going with a new version that is black, has more RAM, and more functionally, this model is currently being reviewed by the FCC.

The Pandigital Novel Costs only $199 and features a 7-inch TFT LCD color multi-touchscreen dis- play. It measures 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches and weighs 454g (16oz). The Operating system runs Google Android and has an ARM 11 Mobile Processor. The Resolution of the device is 800 x 600 and allows great renders of your full color book shelf. Finally, the unit features WI-FI, a mini USB port, 1 GB of internal memory, which is expandable to 32 GB. It reads many popular E-Book formats such as PDF, EPUB, HTML and TXT. The Google Android operating system allows this e-reader to surf the internet with a dedicated web browser, check email, listen to music and have access to many different applications available for download. This device not only allows the user to connect up to the Barnes and Noble E-Book store, which cur- rently has over a million E-Books. It also has the ability to use B&N Lendme technology, which allows users to share electronic books with each other for 14 days. The User Interface is both intuitive and customisable. It has great responsive touch screen technology. Although the Pandigital first cut its teeth doing digital photo frames, its transition to quasi tablet driven e-reader should be a case study for other people trying to get involved into this increasing com- petitive niche. They tried to rush out a device too quickly to get market share, only to alienate existing customers and turn future customers off with their inability to provide firmware updates, and depend- ing on KOHL to handle the recall of the device.

13 Good e-Reader MAGAZINE July 2010 Next issues cover stories Google Editions

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