Sony to announce US e-book reader
Hallelujah! Sony has done seen the light! According to BusinessWeek, the consumer electronics giant is set to announce a Librie-like E-ink e-book reader for the US that both--are you ready for this--uses SD cards for data storage and displays native PDF files (along with a proprietary Sony format--baby steps, you know?). It seems that the lackluster success of the Librie overseas, combined with an upcoming wave of e-book readers as competition, convinced Sony that more openness was key to the success of this device. Industry heavyweights Simon & Schuster, Random House, and HarperCollins are already signed up to provide content, with the latter two promising to digitize their entire back catalogs for inclusion on Sony's Connect music-and-now-book service, for a combined total of up to 50,000 titles. Sony certainly has an advantage here by being first out of the gate with a relatively large content offering and purported 15-book battery life, but products from iRex, Jinke, and more flexible devices from other manufacturers may prove more popular if they can provide consumers with similar content but better hardware.
[Via MobileRead]
