Skip to main content

Functional Fiction...Book Readers

Many people are expecting book readers, ebooks, digital books to take off this year.

It's been happening in Japan for more than one year and some of the gadgets being seen in Las Vegas, like the Sony reader, demonstrate a growing awareness of the trend.

This isn't new; some PDA's have been supporting downloadable books for some time. The earliest evolution was the audio book be it a CD or tape for the car or the train commute and then later on MP3 files for your iPod or similar device.

In a recent Wall Street Journal Asian edition there was an article that highlighted a new comer to this arena in Playaway. The main difference is that the playaway device is pre-loaded and is a one book read. You cannot update the media, it literally is an electronic book in the same way that you can't change the print in your Tom Clancy paperback.

Playaway is aimed at people who want the convenience of electronic media but are too scared or simply don't want to know about downloads.

The biggest benefit in this technology to me is that you still get an element of the book experience. You have a spine and cover art that conveys the content, not simply some hardened plastic cover.

Some time ago I posted here about my vision of the evolution of the newspaper. I see that in his 2006 predictions in Bangkok Post's Database James Hein is also thinking about book readers.

Today the Playaway is little more than a familiarly book sized play back device (although I do like the variable playback speed feature) and I think that James' digital book idea will still be a black plastic box with the content on the reading surfaces.

In my mind I see a nice combination of some of the features of both concepts. Book type feel when you would like to read, playback when it's not convenient (driving, walking etc). In addition I would wrap my design in smart paper for additional user experience:
  • Spine for quick reference
  • Cover art to let everyone else know what you're reading
This is an important part of why people still buy books today. Imagine a device that could hold more than one book at a time. Your current fiction of choice, maybe a dictionary or some other frequently accessed reference manual. It would be useful to know how you left your device configured, spine and cover art is just about as quick a way as you're going to get and what's more it's more intuitive.

Enable the device to be WiFi connected (or GPRS) and you have upsell opportunities. Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide could provide you with City Centric downloads. You fly in on holiday or business turn on your device and receive the guide into your reader.

Where did I put that patent application ??
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thailand's long evolution to Long Term Evolution - the 4G Saga

While much of the world, including some countries that Thailand thinks of as less technologically advanced, are reaping the benefits of 4G; Thailand has yet to get beyond the dabbling stage and jump in with both feet. It seemed to take an eternity to get on to 3G and at least one operator has made the jump to 4G trials.  Now the local regulator has finally (re)set the date for the long awaited auction of the spectrum and details are set to be announced in February. Normally I would be a strong supporter of a free market and all that a regulated market should bring in the way of competition, and therefore when market forces kick in what that then means for consumers in terms of value for money.  However, in this case I am wondering if there is a different answer to the problem. Having watched the mast alliances in Europe and regulator interventions in New Zealand and Australia I think that the antiquated Build, Operate, Transfer (BOT) agreements that Thai mobile opera...
Post a Comment
Read more

Technology Applied - Compact Calendar

David Seah and his very well put together Printable CEO Series has shared his compact calendar for 2008. There are many country specific versions available from his site and his readers. I have modified the data for Thailand for 2008 . Take the time to have a look around his site, it's well worth the time.
2 comments
Read more

WhyMax? what is the business case and/or killer app...

The most hyped, most promising technology to really be tested gets another push from the Rupe. Rupert Murdoch is looking for life after (or during) satellite and he seems to think that TV over WiMax is it. It leads to an interesting discussion that is still ongoing, what is the business case for 802.16? Not surprisingly many people are still convinced that VoIP or VoWLAN will be the real use for the technology. This is because of the super-sized cell that potentially can be created, the super-hotspot could be a real challenger for GSM and CDMA due to the typical usage habits of the average subscriber. So with that said do we already have the killer application for WiMax. Skype was an early disruptor to voice reveune and it's portability across many platforms does it make the ideal choice for the VoIP application. Gizmo is also a strong candidate for me, it has already been trialled on GoogleNet in Mountain View by Team OM , and I like the fact that it does run on the Nokia 7...
Post a Comment
Read more