E Ink Working On Color And Capacitive Touch Displays

According to Digitimes, E Ink Holdings, the company behind the popular E-Ink displays, is busy working on color E-Ink displays, and the device vendors are already sampling the fruits of their labor at the moment. Hanvon has already provided some good news by promising to offer color E-ink readers by the end of the year, one with a capacitive display, and other which will use a digitizer for input. The newer display panels also offer better response times and reflectivity, which has us dreaming about color eBook readers from companies such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

E-ink ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook offer, in the opinion of many, the best digital book-reading experience available. The battery life is astounding (the new Kindle gets up to a month of battery life. An entire month!), they can be used outside without glare, and they quite simply look more like printed, physical ink and paper than any other display ever created. You can lose yourself in e-ink, which is about the best compliment I can give to a digital reader.
On the other hand, LCD devices in a similar package, including tablets like Apple's iPad, offer a passable reading experience on top of a whole host of features e-ink will never, ever be able to handle. Ebook readers are better for books; tablets are better for everything else. So tablets and ebook readers exist in an odd sort of stalemate right now: neither can quite replace the other.

OverDrive Unveils Project Gutenberg Ebook Downloads

LibraryJournal.com reports that the Boston Public Library (BPL), has added some 15,000 public-domain, DRM-free ebooks from Project Gutenberg thru' it's partner, OverDrive.

The new public beta site allows any user to download PG ebooks, but such users are not required to sign in as BPL patrons, and downloads do not count against patron checkout limits or have time limits for use. Indeed, the ebooks aren't really loaned at all—users effectively own the ebooks they download.

The ebooks are not included in the regular library catalog, but on a separate Overdrive-powered site. Selections include popular pre-1923 classics, such as the works of Jane Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as such obscure fare as 1906's Are You a Bromide? by Gelett Burgess.

New Amazon Kindle DX: Sharper screen, sharper price

Shipping as of July 7th, the price for a new Kindle DX will fall by nearly $100, to $379 from $489. It also now comes in a hep new color (do college kids still say “hep”?), graphite (which looks more like charcoal to me), but for US models only and is touting better screen contrast.

Of course, the recent 2.5 upgrade made file management a little easier, but there seems to be no progress on the features that the DX’s target audience, academia, was most interested in, like annotating and a touch screen.

"With 50 percent better contrast and darker fonts, you'll find it easier than ever to read wherever you happen to be, whether it's outside in bright sunlight or under the low light of your living room", said Steve Kessel, senior vice president, Amazon Kindle.

Kobo eBook app made iOS 4 compliant

After inspiring the Kobo eReader and originally geared toward the iPad, Kobo has now brought its eReading app up to iOS 4 compatibility. The app, which opens up access to numerous eBooks in the Kobo library uses Kobo-optimized formatting, offers alternate appearances for bookmarks and an 'I'm Reading' feature for quickly switching between active books. It can sync across multiple platforms.

EB710 eBook reader looks very cool ‎

NSEC has released details of a new color eBook reader, the NSEC EB710. It looks like the NSEC EB710 will feature a seven inch TFT color display with a resolution of 800 x 480.

Other specifications include the ability to play MP3 and other music files as well as display photos in various formats, it also looks like it will support the majority of document formats.

Microsoft axes Courier tablet project

Microsoft has halted development of a dual-screen tablet device that was touted as a potential rival to the iPad.

The Microsoft Courier had a folding book design, with two 7" touchscreens that could accept both multitouch finger inputs or text written with the supplied stylus.

The device was reportedly at the "late concept" stage, and the company had even produced demonstration videos showing how the device's interface might work.

However, according to gadget site Gizmodo, Microsoft executives have pulled the plug on the product's development. In a statement sent to the site, Microsoft said: "At any given time, we're looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It's in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time."

Huge Indy Publisher Signs Ebook Deal For iPad

A major independent publisher, Perseus Books Group, has signed a deal with Apple to provide ebooks for the iPad. According to the NYT, the deal is similar to that which Apple has made with other major publishers:

Perseus will set consumer prices and Apple will serve as an agent, taking a 30 percent commission on each sale. E-book versions of most newly released adult general fiction and nonfiction will cost $US12.99 to $US14.99. All publishers whose books are distributed by Perseus will be allowed to opt in to the deal.