Following up on last month’s news of a forthcoming touchscreen, wireless-enabled e-reader from iRex Technologies, Gizmodo has a hands-on review of the device. As previously speculated, the device will connect to Barnes & Nobles e-book store, further cementing B&N’s plans to remain device independent and service the widest set of e-book customers possible. This point isn’t lost on Gizmodo’s John Herrman, who notes:
At launch, it’ll connect with the Barnes and Noble ebook store as well as ebook libraries for awesome free borrowing, a la Sony, and a few other sources, but it’s open to anyone who cares to support iRex’s generously wide format choices. That’s what ebook readers were always meant to be: Devices that just read books, wherever you want to get them.
In what might appear to be a story from the past, Google is partnering with On Demand Books, the makers of the Espresso Book Machine. The Espresso Book Machine does what it says on the tin: it makes books. Feed it a digital file, and in less than five minutes, you can have a “library quality” (I’m somewhat dubious of this claim) book, complete with real dead-tree pages. On Demand Books has now obtained the rights to print books from Google Books’ archive of public domain titles. See for yourself:
While you can’t argue with the ability to print rare, out-of-print books anytime you like, it seems like a move in the wrong direction. And at $100K for the Espresso Book Machine, it’s unclear who will be in a position to purchase the device – after all, any sizeable book seller is already scheming to either build an e-reader of their own, or partner with a device manufacturer.
Am I missing something? Who is the real target market for this device?
Forrester has published a new report titled “The eReader Price Squeeze” examining consumers’ willingness to pay for an e-reader. The results aren’t pretty:
It would appear that an global economic collapse has been enough to quell consumer’s normal gadget-hungry ways.
What we found was that the price points for how most consumers value eReaders is shockingly low–for most segments, between $50 and $99. (Currently, eReaders in the US are priced between $199 for the Sony Pocket Reader and $489 for the Kindle DX.)
Despite the price decreases for devices from Sony, and the addition of new lower-price competitors such as Cool-er, devices are still way too high. Does this mean we can expect to see more price decreases over the next couple of months as retailers prepare to battle for consumers’ Christmas dollars?
Following up on last month’s news of a forthcoming touchscreen, wireless-enabled e-reader from iRex Technologies, Gizmodo has a hands-on review of the device. As previously speculated, the device will connect to Barnes & Nobles e-book store, further cementing B&N’s plans to remain device independent and service the widest set of e-book customers possible. This point isn’t lost on Gizmodo’s John Herrman, who notes:
In what might appear to be a story from the past, Google is partnering with 
Interead, makers of the Cool-er e-reader device, is arriving a bit late to the Google Books party. The company is