01.10.06

Sony Reader

Posted in life, tech at 9:45 am by mridley

Apparently Sony announced a new version of their ebook product at CES last week. I saw the story pop up in the usual places (digg, slashdot). I’m pretty jazzed about this. From the articles it appears that it will indeed be on sale in the United States for between $300 and $400. I have gazed longingly at the Sony Librie but paying almost $500 to buy it through Dynamism only to get a device with a Japanese keyboard has been kind of a non-starter for me.

I hope the Sony Reader has the open PDF support that has been hacked into the Librie. I tend to read a lot of technical manuals and what-not that I download from vendor sites. But I hate reading long documents on the computer - way too hard on my eyes. So if they release an e-ink device in the US that allows me to load arbitrary PDF files then I will definitely snap one up and use it every day. I’d love to be able to take this to Starbucks.

My ultimate hope is that once a viable e-ink platform is out there (whether it’s a Sony device or not), online publishers will go to this model. It’s very frustrating in producing Showbiz News - Online that living in the DC area it’s basically impossible to get Hollywood trades. But if you subscribe to their online editions you can get current news from the web site. But I’d love to get Daily Variety in e-book form…of course that would be better served by a tabloid size e-book device. But…that’s OK…baby steps.

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