Hasta La Gadget!

Color e-ink displays are starting to become less of a curiosity and more of a reality, but if the rumor from DigiTimes proves true it’s going to be another year or so before we start seeing them en masse. PVI, makers of displays for the Kindle and Sony Reader, has apparently indicated that its attempts at creating a color display have been more or less unsatisfactory and it’s going to take until 2010 at least to get its hues sorted out. That’s the bad news. There is some good news, though, indicating that Sony’s working on its own 8.5 x 11-inch reader utilizing the same screen as the Kindle DX. Since the last rumors about that display was pretty-much on the mark, we wouldn’t be surprised if this one proved true as well — and we can’t wait to see what Sony charges for it.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Displays

PVI’s color e-ink delayed until 2010, big-screen Sony Reader coming? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 May 2009 09:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Multi-card readers? Sure, they’re usually kind of a snooze… but this one’s pretty cute. The so-called Magic Cube All-in-One reader — which looks not a little like a Rubik’s cube — is a 56-in-one jack of all trades (microSD, SDHC, SD, xD, you name it) which tranfers up to 480Mb per second, and comes with a USB to mini USB cable. You can own this puppy (for Windows and Linux) for $9.99.

Magic Cube all-in-one card reader rotates, impresses originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon wasn’t just teasing you whiners who blabbed on about how you’d rather just read ebooks on your iPhone: The iPhone and iPod Touch app has arrived.

The free program brings several of the Kindle’s functions to the iPod and iPhone’s much smaller, non-E-Ink screen, including the same electronic books, magazines and newspapers that Kindle owners can buy, and the ability to change text size, add bookmarks, note and highlight stuff. From what we can see at first glance of the app itself, there’s no dictionary or search.

If you already have both a Kindle and an iPhone, Amazon’s program syncs the two so that you can keep your bookmarks on both devices. Immediately after loading up the app, this worked exactly as billed, and the page we’re on in the Kindle 2 showed on the iPhone.

While my first thought was “Jesus (not Diaz), Amazon’s bent on cannibalizing itself,” I guess the move kind of makes sense. People who want E-Ink will still buy the Kindle 2 (reviewed here), but perhaps this will steer people away from the other multitudinous, less complete iTunes ebook options. [iTunes Link to Amazon Kindle App]

Endless Ideas’ original BeBook wasn’t exactly the same smash hit as, say, Amazon’s Kindle, but the company’s hoping to refocus some of the spotlight back on itself next week in Germany. According to a succulent teaser page on the company’s website, it has proudly announced that the next-gen e-reader will be on display at CeBIT, bringing with it WiFi and 3G capabilities, touchscreen navigation and wireless RSS support. Sadly, we’re not giving any pictorial clues, but we are told to expect “a complete redesign.” Consider our interest piqued.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Endless Ideas launching next-gen WiFi BeBook at CeBIT originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobileread just got a bunch of official-looking Kindle 2 photos, which show it in various states being held and read, plus info that it’s being released for $359 on February 24.

From the photos, it looks definitely a LOT thinner than the first, and maybe even a bit smaller too. Unless that man has gigantic hands, the Kindle goes from the tip of his middle finger to slightly below his wrist—not too shabby.

The photos may look fantastic and the news, by association, may seem official, but we don’t know with 100% certainty that this is the actual price and actual release date until we hear from Amazon.

[Mobile Read via Engadget]