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.
"Good Enough": those two words terrorize every technology companies in the world. It usually means falling margins, but also the possible mass adoption of a class of products. Copia (a DMC Worldwide company) is readying a $99 5" eReader that will compete with the Kindle, Nook and other (bigger, in size) electronic readers. With this pricing, they've reached a new (low) level in the eReader price war. In addition of the hardware itself, Copia is trying to differentiate itself via its platform, which relies heavily on a social aspect: users can access their Twitter and Facebook feeds, and also share their thoughts on those social networks, without having to use the websites. In short, we've pretty much reached the point where the technology behind eReader (display, processors, OS) is "good enough", so expect equipment makers to fight on prices (devices+books), platform and possibly on differentiators like social networking (but that's easy to do/reproduce). The iPad pretty much puts a ceiling on eReaders prices and we're currently looking for a bottom. Expect the average price to continue falling. Head to Copia, or read more eBook stories.
