Electronics & Computers Deals here!April 29, 2006 6:05 AM PDT
One day soon, straphangers may turn pages with a button
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Trials of e-paper devices competing to become the iPod of the newspaper business have already begun.
The New York Times
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And now everyone is getting hung up on the "it isn't color" and "it isn't flexible" issues! Who cares! Most of us have MOUNTAINS of black-and-white real paper we would love to convert to one letter-sized reader device.
As long as I can read MY OWN content, WITHOUT converting it into some DRM "locked down" format that can never "leave" the device, I couldn't care less that color isn't ready yet! But I won't spend a dime on a Sony Libre type device that only reads their propietary encryption format, if it's not able to read open formats (.pdf, .htm, .txt, .rtf) it's going to flop in the market like the Libre did.
Hopefully the new Sony reader won't suffer from that "roach motel" problem: you can "check your content in, but you can't check it out."
My question at this point is just when we will actually be able to buy ANY of these things!
'80s, and it's not a bad idea, but the economics of the devices
still seem very questionable. $300 or $400 for the new Sony e-
book devices that can't surf the Web, has to be linked to a PC to
download material and doesn't really have
tremendous advantages over vastly cheaper paperback books or
print magazines? At that price level, a screamingly obvious flop.
The only way for this idea to ever get off the ground is for the
devices to be distributed free, or at least rather cheaply, by
content producers who will then have to earn back their
investment by charging for the content (and probably also
supplemented by paid advertisements). Even then, I worry that a
lot of consumers won't see much advantage to the devices
unless they have some Web surfing, messaging, GPS or other
interactive functionality built in.