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Handheld eBook Readers (weblinks)
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The Aluratec Libre: $120
The Aluratec Libre eBook reader from Borders Books costs $119.99 as of June 2010 making it the cheapest eReader currently on the market. Like the "Kobo", also available at Borders Books, it comes with 100 free "classic" (probably western culture) books. With an SD card, the device holds 40,000 books. The Libre has a USB port for up- and down-loading eBooks from other computers and from the Internet.
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The Apple iPad v1.0: $500+
The Apple iPad version 1.0, on sale since April 3, 2010, in the USA, offers the second eBook-reader-sized device with a color screen with which to read online newspapers, magazines, and eBooks. The first may have been Sony which offered a more expensive color-screen version of their eBook reader in 2009(?). Apple's one and two-finger by-touch on-screen web page and web site navigation of what is shown on that screen is still somewhat unique in the field of "user interfaces" for consumer-grade computing devices and smart phones. As of Spring 2010, other vendors of computer hardware with similar functions are "catching up" with similar improvements to their touch-screen user interfaces. However, the iPad v1.0 is offered in a "feature poor" condition, having no webcam, no USB ports with which to connect the user's existing USB-cabled peripheral devices, and having other deficiencies which Apple may assume that naive computer users of the iPad will not notice. Also the feature-reduced version of the otherwise excellent, fully object oriented, multi-tasking operating system, Mac OS X, that runs on the iPhone and the iPad does NOT allow the iPad to perform multi-tasking. This deficiency means the iPad user can "run" only ONE iPad software application at a time! So if you were on a Skype call with someone and you had to refer to the contents of a web browser page to continue the conversation, you would have to "close and exit" Skype, start the browser application, get the information you need from a web page, perhaps memorize it(!), close the browser application, start a text editor application, save the information you had just memorized, close the editor, restart Skype... I don't want to work on any computer-enabled device that way.
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Amazon.com's Kindle version 1
The Amazon.com "Kindle" as of 2009 was the rebirth of the eBook reader hand-held device as a tablet-type computer. As with 1-2 previous tablets, the Kindle allows some hand-writing as well as displayed-button presses by-hand on the touch screen. This was the first new device of this type since the Apple xxxx of 19xx, which was withdrawn as an Apple product in 19yy apparently because of the very high error rates of the hand-writing recognition software. The Kindle display is black-and-white. The Kindle 1.x holds several 100 novel-sized books in it's internal solid state storage. (EXACT NUMBER OF PAGES NEEDED.) Amazon deployed Kindle 1.0 with it's own proprietary "Whispernet" wireless connection to the Internet from which Kindle 1.0 users could download eBooks purchased online to their Kindle device. (NEED DETAILS OF WHISPERNET.)
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Amazon.com's Kindle version 2
As of June 21, 2010, Amazon has lowered the price of their Kindle eReader to $189, apparently so that it is $10 less than the Barnes and Noble "Nook" color eReader. At the end of 2009 Amazon.com released a newer Kindle eReader, the "Kindle 2.0". Like Amazon's Kindle 1.0 released in 2008(???), the Kindle 2 has a 6" (high) black and white screen, but better positioned (and I, the site PI, presume easier to use) physical buttons mounted on the case. It probably also has better "virutal buttons", i.e. the graphic buttons displayed on the display-screen's touch-pad user-interface. (NEED THE NUMBER OF BOOKS AND PAGES STORABLE ON KINDLE-2.) With the announcement of Kindle 2, Amazon declared it is consolidating it's (2 product) family of 6" Kindles. (NEED DESCRIPTION OF WHAT CONSOLIDATION MEANS TO AMAZON.) The new Kindle (Kindle 2.0) has 3G wireless connectivity to the Internet (a cell-phone-type connection) that works in the United States and also globally in over 100 countries. Amazon deployed Kindle 1.0 in 2008(?) with it's own proprietary "Whispernet" wireless connection to the Internet from which Kindle 1.0 users could download eBooks purchased online to their Kindle device. Deploying their proprietary, non-standard, not widely used "Whispernet" in a much larger wireless device market using WiFi (a/b/g and now n), 3G and now 4G standards, was a sign of very bad technical judgement, in this PI's opinion. With Kindle 2, Amazon declared that they will continue to fully support Whispernet for all U.S.-only Kindles (version 1). At their Amazon.com web site one can buy used and refurbished versions of the U.S.-only Kindle, version 1 and version 2.
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Amazon.com's Kindle version 3+
The newest line of Kindle eReaders as of July 2010, ranging in price from $139-$189.
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The Kobo eReader: $150
The Kobo eReader costs $149.99, presents black-and-white eBook pages, with 8 or more shades of grey, and as of June 2010 comes with 100 free eBooks. It weighs 221 gm.s. The device presents 5 different font sizes to the reader. The maximum capacity of the Kobo is 1000 books, each on average 1000 pages long, stored in 1GB of on-board RAM (1K bytes per page, on average). Add a 4GB SD card and store 4000 books. Â The Kobo eReader is associated with the "KoboBooks.com" commercial online eBook store which has a digital book distribution relationship with Borders Books (US, CA, AU), Angus & Richardson (AU), and Whitcoulls (NZ). The Kobo marketers claim the Kobo is 'device neutral', further claiming that "(when you are) finished reading on your (Kobo) eReader (you can use) a Kobo app(lication and bluetooth wifi on the Kobo to connect to) your smartÂphone, desktop, or tablet (computer), and your eBooks and even your bookmarks (in the eBooks will) follow you so you'll never lose your place."
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The "Nook" eReader v1.0
The "Nook" eReader, v1.0 from Barnes and Noble books publishers, costs $199 as of June 21, 2010. It was first released in April 2010 at a cost of $259. The Nook's screen is color and it has 3G Internet connectivity. See also online comparisons of the "Nook" vs. the Amazon "Kindle".
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Samsung eReader
Samsung announced it's new eReader device on Wednesday, 1/6/10. It will partner with Google -- which has 12 million eBooks digitized as of 12/09 and seeks to digitize 40 million in a few more years.
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Sony eReaders and eBooks
The Sony Corporation offers several hand-held eReader devices which enable the downloading of eBooks, storage of 10s or 100s of the digital books on the device, and the reading of any book on-demand by the device operator.
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The Times eReader 2.0
The New York Times has made available their own digital newspaper and eBook reader, the Times eReader which as of July 2010 is at version 2.0. The software used on the Times eReader 2.0 is "Adobe AIR". WARNING: this link goes to a promotion.
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The Nook Color eBook Reader
In November 2010, Barnes and Noble book publishers (USA) released to the public their "Nook Color" eBook reader.
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NYT: the iPad vs. other Tablets
The New York Times technology section of 11.01.10 compares the Apple iPad with the HP Slate, the Dell Streak, the Blackberry PlayBook, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Got $500 or more to spend?
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NYT: Rivals to iPad say 2011 is the Year
The New York Times of 11.01.10 reported actual sales in 2010 and expected sales in 2011 of new tablet computers that will compete on price and features with the Apple iPad. Those prices still do not come close to the ideal set by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project of $100.
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NYT: New eReaders (June 2011) Move the Plot Forward
The New York Times of 11.06.18 presented a somewhat derisive comparison of two new (as of June 2011) eBook Readers, the latest Nook from Barnes and Noble publishers, and the Kobo Touch Edition from Kobo. They are remarkably similar. The Amazon monochrome (black and white screen) Kindle eReader takes a drubbing (ridicule). This PI calls incremental, almost insignificant innovations like these in the consumer electronics market "feature creep", which is a consumer electronics version of the older tactic of "Planned Obsolescence". See "Feature Creep" and "Planned Obsolescence" in this web site's glossary.
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The Kindle Cloud Reader
If you have a tablet computer, and the tablet has a web browser, then since Fall 2011 you can use the Kindle Cloud (Internet) Reader to read the Kindle versions of books you bought from Amazon. The same books will be available on a hand-held Kindle eReader, if you have one, and on the Kindle for PC software, if you download and install that software. That could be called Distributed read-anywhere Reading. The technique, however, causes the Kindle book purchaser to become more deeply dependent on Kindle books, the Kindle device (or cloud) user-interface which severely limits what the book owner can do with the text they bought, and that in turn makes the proprietary (secret) Kindle eReader book format "more important" and more like a new "digital book standard."
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