Hasta La Gadget!

Well what do you know, turns out the LB4400 was a harbinger of things to come. LG Display and iriver just announced a $5M joint venture to manufacture e-book readers. The new China-based company, L&I Electronic Technology (Dongguan) Ltd, sees iriver doing the platform development and product design (thank gawd) while LG provides the EPD displays. It’s interesting to note that the company will act as an OEM/ODM to anyone looking to slap their brand on an e-book reader… after iriver — the company’s first customer — takes the pick of the litter.

Continue reading LG Display and iriver enter joint venture to make e-book readers pretty, affordable

LG Display and iriver enter joint venture to make e-book readers pretty, affordable originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

It’s almost never a good idea to predict how the tech world will look in five years, even if you’re an executive at one of the world’s largest electronics companies. Maybe especially if you’re an executive at one of the world’s largest electronics companies.

Here’s a new quote from Steve Haber, the president of Sony’s digital reading business division:”Within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content. Three years ago, I said within ten years but I realised that was wrong–it’s within five.”

I suppose it’s telling that Haber moved the date up by a couple of years. Clearly he ‘s been emboldened by the success of the Kindle, iPad, and, of course, his own company’s slew of e-readers.

I’m not saying that Haber will necessarily be proven wrong: Look at how dominant electronic music distribution has become. But I wouldn’t be too surprised should he find himself adjusting his timeframe once again.

Kno promised to launch a double-screened Linux-based e-reader designed for students at D8, and the undercover startup didn’t disappoint — believe us when we say it came out in a big way. That’s big as in freaking big: the Kno reader features dual 14.1-inch capacitive IPS displays (1440 x 900 each), weighs 5.5 pounds, and offers six to eight hours of battery life, all in a package that’s so comically large we thought it was a joke when we first saw the press shots. Kno says it’ll offer both pen and touch support, and it’ll come with a stylus out of the box. Under the hood, it’s running a Tegra 2 chip with 16GB of storage, and the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance. Yes, it’s sort of like the Courier, but larger — much, much larger.

We had a chance to go hands-on with the device as well as speak to some members of the team developing the Kno, and while it’s clear that there are major bumps in the UI and user experience, it seems like the company is aware of them. What we saw today was clearly unfinished, with a lot of laggy, stuttery behavior in the interface, a crash or two, and some very inaccurate finger tracking, but Kno says it’s hard at work on eradicating those issues. Even with the UI fixes, it’s a hard sell at “under $1000,” but Kno is putting together partnerships with publishers to make that a little easier to swallow, as they say ultimately it will be less expensive than buying regular old text books. It’s an audacious idea, for sure… and we’re still completely confused by one of the company’s press pics featuring a bunch of dudes running around in their underwear, but we digress. Check out some shots from the demo, PR pics, and our hands-on with the device below.

Continue reading Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on

Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

My, how the tablets have turned. Despite valiant efforts, even Acer can’t resist the temptation of diving into the ever-expanding e-reader market, but rather than going head to head with Amazon’s Kindle, the company seems to be readying at least one unique creature for release into the mainstream. Thanks to a stop at Qualcomm’s lair here at Computex, we think we may have found the company’s numero dos. In just about every respect, the simply-titled eBook is nothing at all like the LumiRead; in fact, it looks (sort of) like an iPhone 4G after pulling a Mark McGwire. We weren’t told just how large the screen was, but as you can tell from the gallery below, it’s quite long. The device was reportedly made as a way to showcase Qualcomm’s aging MSM7227 processor, and while there’s obviously no way to know if this thing is / isn’t headed for the production line, it was running Android underneath. Unfortunately, responsiveness wasn’t this thing’s strong suit, and it was fairly obvious that the software wasn’t exactly fully baked (we surely hope not, anyway). That said, the form factor could certainly be honed into something practical, and we’re sure they could get the UI humming along a bit smoother if they really put their minds to it. For now, it’s the gallery below… or nothin’.

Acer eBook concept preview: Qualcomm MSM7227 and Android onboard originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Alright, stick with us here. For some reason, ASUS decided it best to name its freshest e-reader the Eee Tablet, while its downright magical tablet goes by Eee Pad. Got all that? Good. The Eee Tablet (again, not to be confused with the Eee Pad tablet) is half e-reader, half note taker, and it’s an interesting twist on a played product category. We took a few precious minutes to experiment with the device here on the Computex show floor, and overall, we like what we’re seeing. Gone is the painfully slow E-Ink page refresh that Kindle owners are so accustomed to, with this particular LCD proving deliciously quick at changing screens. The only hang-up comes when you attempt to flip through too many pages, too fast — we managed to harness a loading wheel on two occasions, both of which took around six or eight seconds to vanish and the next page to finally appear. We also confirmed that the screen only works with the included stylus, much like pen-enabled Wacom tablets. That said, the bundled stylus was perfectly weighted, and the Eee Tablet responded well to our doodling. Speaking of weight, the model shown here in Taipei was shockingly heavy (at least iPad-level heavy), while the 10-inch EP101TC was markedly less hefty. Enough chatter — have a look at our hands-on video just past the break.

Continue reading ASUS Eee Tablet preview

ASUS Eee Tablet preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments