Hasta La Gadget!

We’re still patiently waiting for Sipix’s color e-paper to hit the commercial realm, but ’til then, we suppose we’ll pretend to be content with the monochrome variety. Bookeen, which obviously has a hard row to hoe in the slam-packed e-reader market, recently announced what appeared to be a relatively ho hum reader in the Orizon. Today, however, we’ve learned that it’ll ship with a multitouch 6-inch Sipix display (800 x 600 resolution), and it’ll be available for purchase this May in the United States and UK. For those who’ve forgotten, it will arrive with WiFi, 2GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, an accelerometer and support for PDF / ePUB formats. Still, if the rumored $250 price point sticks, we sort of doubt those to-be Kindle customers will turn their back on an always-on connection, but hey — if the hackers step it up, this whole multitouch thing could really be enticing.

Bookeen Orizon to ship this May with multitouch Sipix display originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking for a bit of light reading this weekend? Then look no further than the 400+ pages of the Economic Report of the President (the hotly anticipated sequel to the Economic Report of the President) which, for the first time, has been made available as a free e-book. That includes versions ready to be delivered to your Kindle or Nook (the former of which is already sitting at #46 on the bestseller list), and an ePub version for Sony readers and other devices. Will this be the final step that truly pushes e-books into the mainstream? Probably not. But if this rapid adoption of technology by the White House is any indication, we could well see weekly Presidential addresses in 3D next year.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

White House releases economic report as e-book originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The pair of Samsung-borne e-book readers we espied at CES just became a trio. E6 and E101, please give a round of applause your new on-screen brother, the E61 (pictured next to Kindle). What sets this guy apart from the rest is a physical QWERTY keyboard, but otherwise boasts a 6-inch, 600 x 800 resolution screen and all other amenities found in the E6, including a removable battery should you find yourself thousands of pages into a book and no charger in sight. PC Professionale was on hand to get hands on with the device, and we also spotted a touchscreen keyboard on the E101 — nothing to write about, but it’s good seeing just how we’ll be navigating the dictionary when needed. No word on its release date, so for now we’re gonna assume it falls under the same “early 2010” timeframe we heard with the other two.

Samsung E61 e-book reader outed, brings physical QWERTY keyboard to lineup originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ker-BOOM. That’s the thundering explosion of Amazon purchasing Touchco, a little company that makes incredibly cheap, infinitely multitouchable displays, and merging it into their Kindle division. Kindle Touch. It actually sounds kind of nice.

Touchco’s touchscreen tech is designed to be cheap—under $10 a square foot—using a resistive display tech called interpolating force-sensitive resistance. What makes it more special is that unlike most resistive touchscreens, it’s pressure sensitive, and can detect an infinite number of simultaneous touches. Plus, it’s totally transparent (old school resistive touchscreen layers dim brightness and dull colors) and designed to work with full color LCD screens. (Bits has more on Touchco.)

You know, the kind of gorgeous screen that’s perfect for magazines, textbooks, and interactive content. The stuff that E-Ink Kindles can’t do right now, but that a certain other reader announced last week can. So! A full color Kindle Touch. Just think about it.

Like we’ve been saying: The Great Publishing War is just getting started. [NYT]

You didn’t think the price hike would stop at Macmillan, did you? In today’s News Corp. earnings call, chairman Rupert Murdoch gave indication that his HarperCollins would also soon be changing its e-book prices with Amazon. As relayed by All Things D, the mogul has been unhappy with the $9.99 tier, that Apple’s iBookstore “does allow some flexibility and higher prices,” and here’s the kicker: “And now Amazon is willing to sit down with us again and renegotiate.” Nothing’s changed yet, but we gotta imagine it’s only a matter of time — not just with HarperCollins, but probably all “big six” publishers before too long.

Rupert Murdoch: Amazon now ‘willing to renegotiate’ e-book prices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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