Sharp is going to launch its brand new e-reader in Japan this fall with US retail availability to follow by the end of the year. Riveting stuff, isn't it? Well, the company's President Mikio Katayama does his best to spice things up by proposing this device will aim "to rival the iPad," and it may well sport a color LCD if earlier indications still hold true, but what's really got us hot under the collar is the potential for 3D down the line. Katayama claims to have witnessed great enthusiasm for 3D -- particularly when it comes to games -- and posits it as a likely future direction for this new ebook reader. Multifunctional devices are what people want, he says, and since Sharp already has a 3D smartphone in the pipeline and a glasses-free 3D tablet display in the lab, we can't see many technical hurdles to the realization of his vision. Let's just hope his depth perception is accurate when it comes to measuring the interest in three-dee.
Toshiba seems to be banking pretty heavily on the world of stereoscopic 3D, with a 3D upgrade kit being made available to its range of Blu-ray recorders, following in the footsteps of its Regza line of 3D HDTVs. All the new Blu-ray recorders will be armed with a hard drive within, where the flagship RD-X10 will feature 2TB of storage space while letting you play 3D movies out of the box. Arriving in Japan this September, it will retail for $2,500 after conversion. Apart from that, there will be also three more models which will take advantage of the aforementioned 3D upgrade kit, although there is still no word on pricing as at press time.
