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Impressive Library of E-Readers Unveiled at CES: Plastic Logic, iRiver, Amazon Kindle DX
by Nicholas Kolakowski
Plastic Logic rolled out its Que e-reader, which the company is targeting at the business segment by highlighting its ability to download and display Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents on its 10.7-inch screen.
Plastic Logic will depend on AT&T’s 3G network, as well as Wi-Fi, to download content. A 4GB Que will store around 35,000 documents and retail for $649; an 8GB Que will store roughly 75,000 documents.
Plastic Logic claims that content from PCs, Macs or BlackBerry smartphones can be ported onto the Que.
Marvell Technology Group showed off its Armada 610 application processor, designed for use in e-readers and other portable-media devices. The Armada 610 is designed to use low power while providing integrated 1080p full HD encode and decode, among other features.
The success of larger players in the e-reader market, such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, led a number of smaller manufacturers to debut their own devices at CES.
The iRiver e-reader supports e-book files such as ePub, PDF and .txt, Office files including .xls, .ppt and .doc, and also music files (MP3, WMA, OGG), making it a music player in addition to a traditional e-reader.
The iRiver includes a full QWERTY keyboard, and a battery capable of 24 hours of music play, and a 6-inch e-ink display.
The wide variety of e-readers on display at CES has led some analysts and pundits to ask whether the market is on the verge of becoming over-saturated.
Despite the presence of so many startups, legacy companies such as Sony continue to produce new devices for their own e-reader lines.
Txtr GmBH is one of the startups displaying a compact e-reader at CES. Other companies have decided to take the oversized approach, producing more broadsheet-style e-readers.
The Irex Digital Reader 800SG, with an 8.1-inch touch screen and 3G wireless downloading capability, supports multiple file formats for its e-books and e-periodicals. Companies such as Amazon.com have locked down their proprietary devices and formats, while others see a path to victory in making their system open as possible.
Amazon.com is releasing a new version of its 9.7-inch-screen Kindle DX with global wireless capability, which allows e-books to be delivered wirelessly to the device in more than 100 countries.
Netronix’s 6-inch e-readers run on a Linux-based operating system and include a 3G connection, as well as optional Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Supported formats range from .PDF and ePub to MP3 and JPG files, increasing the device’s functionality beyond being a strict e-reader.
The Cool-er e-reader supports 14-plus file formats, is compatible with Windows PCs and Macs, supports Adobe Digital Editions (for managing e-book libraries and reading e-books), and lets users "lend" texts to their friends.
The EnTourage Edge features a dual-screen configuration. E-books can be read on the e-ink screen, while Web-surfing, e-library management and e-mail sending can be done on the other. An included stylus lets you make notations to texts.
The Onyx e-reader also lets users jot notes or underline with a stylus. It supports multiple languages, from Chinese and Arabic to Japanese and English.
The Blio e-reader application, developed by futurist Ray Kurzweil, preserves books’ typesetting, images and layout when displayed on a PC screen. Based on technology originally developed to help the blind, Blio includes a text-to-speech feature that reads the displayed words to users.
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E-readers were hot at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, with a number of companies big and small showing off new devices at the event. While e-readers may have begun life as simple screens on which to display text, a number of the devices on view at CES included broad new functionality that makes them more akin to netbooks or other ultra-portable computers. Among those functions: the ability to send and receive email, take notes with a touchscreen stylus, listen to MP3 files, and take notes with either a virtual or physical QWERTY keyboard.
E-readers were immensely popular at the show. However, their popularity has increased suspicion on the part of certain analysts and pundits that the still-nascent market is already becoming over-saturated. Whether or not all of the following e-readers will survive a market glut, their presence at CES demonstrated what’s possible in this rapidly expanding tech area.