The Sony Reader Handheld Device
Digital Books with E Ink, You're not Just Reading Science Fiction
Sony Reader is a portable handheld device that gives the user access to up to 80 full- sized novels within its built in memory. Digital reading devices and PDA books aren’t new; in fact they’ve failed to capture the imagination of mainstream consumers. Sony hopes revolutionary changes implemented in the Reader will make it the centerpiece of Sony’s own online book market called The CONNECT. Can The CONNECT become the iTunes of the literary world?
The Sony Reader story begins with a prologue of E Ink technology, which gives the Reader its unique edge over other digital-reading devices. Reading on a conventional digital device means staring into a backlight LCD display and enduring flicker which causes eyestrain. It may work for a quick email, but almost nobody curls up with a good book on a PDA.
E Ink is a revolutionary new display technology developed by a US firm called E Ink. The electromagnetic ink is made of millions of microcapsules each about the diameter of a human hair. The capsule is filled with positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. A transparent electrode along the top of the E Paper (the area the user views E Ink) can precisely control magnetic fields over each capsule. Each microcapsule is actually smaller than a pixel on a conventional display. The result is an incredibly high contrast display with no backlighting, no flicker, and no refresh rate.
The Sony Reader is 6.9" by 4.9" and is only half an inch thick: it’s smaller than most paperbacks and weights only 9 ounces. The screen has a 6" viewing area and text can be enlarged up to 200% for easy viewing Rechargeable batteries will provide enough power for approximately 7,500 page turns.
Storage and Books
The reader can store up to 80 full-length novels. An optional MemoryStick (Sony’s proprietary non-volatile storage of course) socket can increase the storage of your Reader exponentially. If you happen to own a Sony Digital Camera you can actually share storage between the two devices. You’re limited only to the amount of memory you can provide. Reader will let you view a variety of printed word type files including PDF and other text documents. You can store blogs and online news papers on the Reader. You can even view Jpegs and listen to audio clips through the device.
It seems every innovative product these days comes with a special marketplace to support it. The Sony Reader is no exception. Sony has developed The CONNECT client software, an online service that makes thousands of eBooks available to your Sony Reader. Groovy little extras on The CONNECT include first chapters of any book to help you decide if you want to read further as well as author bios, book reviews, and more features to come as The CONNECT is developed. This could be Sony’s literary response to Apple’s iTunes.