Stacking Fault

Sony Libre, Redux

So last year I fell head over heels in love with the Sony Libre. An eBook reader with eInk's low-power, high-contrast display technology. But the Libre's fatal flaw was it's reliance on DRM protected content. Simply put, there was no "official" way to get the thing to display anything but a handful of texts available from the Sony eBook store.

This is so wrong. I just can't tell you how hard it was to see such a beautiful display attached to a device for which I could not find a use.

So I'm happy to see that at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sony is showing off it's next generation eInk based eBook reader. This time it supposedly comes without the pesky DRM. Gizmodo has pictures the "Q Reader" (or maybe it's the "a Reader," I can't really tell) on their site at Live From CES: The Sony Reader. Reports indicate that the new device does have the option of downloading DRM protected titles from Sony's online Connect! service. But it also looks like you'll be able to load PDFs via Secure Digital, Memory Stick or USB.

However, if my experience with the Sony Clie and the DCR-PC5 is any indication, you'll likely need to reformat the memory sticks and SD cards using a proprietary application that runs on a single version of Windows and distributed only with three specific models of VAIOs.

This is the type of device I would love to see, and I'm sure that Sony can bring some serious production and logistics muscle to bear on making this reader a success. But I'm a tiny bit turned off by the lack of a keyboard (I would love to be able to search my eBooks) and given Sony's history, I fear the only text input option will be via VAIO.

Oh Well. Eventually someone will make a device like this that Mac users could use.

posted by Matthew S. Hamrick @ 1:44 AM