Welcome to the Good E-Reader Week in Review, where we break down the most news-worthy events in the E-Reader and Slate PC World. Lots of exciting news has happened this week! From the Adobe Slate PC Announced and demonstrated to the Apple iPad now on pre-order for the UK and 7 other countries. Click on the Title of the News item to read the full article, or to listen to this week in review, check out our Podcast.
eBook Best seller List for April 2010
Lots of great books came out in April, by well known bestselling authors. We had a solid new book by Linda Howard and of course the new Oprah biography. In the world of Fiction we had the 9th Judgement by James Patterson, and what best seller list would be complete without Jodi Picoult and Stephanie Meyer.
May is upon us and a wide array of books are available now, such as Rick Riordans latest the Red Pyramid, and the new Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris. Later on in the Month you could expect the latest by Lee Child, Stieg Larson and John Grisham.
Microsoft Working on a Post-Courier Device
We were all saddened last week when Microsoft cancelled their Courier project, which has been drooled at, as a unique alternative to the iPad. The Courier was to have dual screens, and a Stylus interface.
Bill Gates last week, on Fox Business News announced that Microsoft was in the process of developing a new Slate devices, which seem to be the Courier 2.0. Former Microsoft Boss Bill Gates, in an interview with Fox Business network has said ” Microsoft is at work on a number of different tablet projects, with a focus on stylus-based input” He also added that ” the company’s death in the tablet PC space were, at best, premature.”
Adobe Tablet and Slate PC Shown at the Web 2.0 Conference
According to the latest Good E-Reader News, Adobe has put up on display a prototype Tablet PC running Android operating system that is compliant with Flash and Adobe Air at the ongoing Web 2.0 Expo that is being held in San Francisco. And as per reports coming in, the resource-heavy Flash worked in the most perfect manner. No core details were released, but we do have a video on this.
RIM working on the BlackPad
RIM at one of their annual conference has the large crowd hushed as they watched the video for the new Operating System RIM is developing. The New OS dubbed 6 is said to carry heavy functionality for touch screen devices. Many people are expecting this update will carry over to their existing Storm line of Smartphone’s, but other industry experts are claiming it is the prince element of a new BlackPad Slate PC on the roadmap .
The RIM tablet features a 8.9 inch display, made by Hon Hai, possibly BlackBerry OS, multi-touch support and maybe an app store of its own. These are all speculations, but what we’re really interesting in is your opinion on this render.
HP Slate 2.0 Hurricane Slate PC running WebOS
HP was scheduled to come up with its Slate PC sometime around June. Now with the Hurricane coming into the picture, it seems HP might be using the hardware from the Slate project while picking up the Palm Web OS that it now has access to after buying out the company. As per reports from a company insider, the Hurricane would run the latest operating system that is doing duty on some of the most recent Palm Smartphone’s such as the Pre or the Pixi. The end result, there is going to be one more tablet to capture our imagination though this time, it’s one of the biggest players in the PC segment that is out to pamper us with a tablet PC. This alone can perhaps explain the lightening fast introduction of a tablet, which surely would have taken more time had it been built from scratch.
Samsung to debut the S-Pad Tablet PC
As per reports streaming in, Samsung is in the process of putting together a new Tablet PC the highlight of which will be a 7 inch screen. Named the S Pad, the tablet is likely to have at its core an Atom Z550 2GHz processor though there has been no official confirmation of this. However, what seems likely is that the S Pad will incorporate built in Wi-Fi and 3G features and will also provide for a desktop dock complete with QWERTY input facility.
It is interesting to note that Samsung already has a 7 inch tablet up its sleeve in the form of a streaming media device that was also used as a controller for their LED Couple HDTV. So with Samsung already having some experience in making 7 inch tablets, the S Pad can well be a device to look forward to.
Google Editions – A Deep Analysis of their game changing ebook service.
Simply Said, Google is facilitating the servers, checkout process and putting the power in the Publishers hands to sell ebooks directly from their own websites. Some of the largest Publishers are on board, such as Penguin, Simon and Shuster and more.
Chris Palma, Google’s manager for strategic partner development, said that the launch of Google Editions was set for “late June or July” during a round-table discussion on the company’s predictions for digital publishing held at Random House. Speculation has recently arisen that August or September might be a more realistic date, due to some legal concerns.
Google Editions seems an innovative cloud based way of allow books to be read on any platform.
Here and There
Penguin Publishing has had a tremendously rocky road in dealing with Amazon, so Penguin moved to the Apples iBook store and is cleaning up.
More Details have come up between the new Google Slate and comparisons to the Apple IPad.
Some new Slate PC’s have been announced this week, such as the ExoPC which seems more of a multi-media driven and a new Slate PC from Encipher. Encipher is a Nigerian based operation and is billing its new unit as a cloud PC, with the company offering many cloud based services. Another Slate PC getting some attention is the Aigo N700 Tablet. Loaded with many an innovative features the Aigo N700 might well turn out to be the tablet pc to watch out for. Going by the specifications of the much awaited N700, the tablet is going to run the Android 2.1 OS and will have a NVIDIA Tegra 2 graphics chipset. Processing power for the Aigo N700 comes from a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 and comes equipped with a 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM. Memory options include 4GB, 16GB and 32GB of flash storage.
“>Fujitsu is showing off some new E-Paper that they have developed, which looks really interesting, as it is full color.
This wraps it up for another edition of The Good E-Reader Week in Review of Slates and E-Readers. There was not much e-reader news this week, of note. If you would like to hear about the greatest news of the whole month. As well, as exclusive interviews from the CEOS of the companies who make Slate and E-Readers this is a must buy; the Good E-Reader Magazine. At $1.99 per issue, it is a steal.
Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.