A "ebook reader" for anywhere, anytime

I was surprised to discover this item in the past few days, and 
learned that it managed to launch with very little fanfare.

The designers behind this appear to have done some very serious 
thinking about what is absolutely needed for a go-anywhere 
reader, and eliminated everything else.

Go read ... http://thewikireader.com/story.html

The WikiReader manages hit a lot of points that many device 
designers seem to miss...

- no wireless AT ALL. This saves space, power, complexity, and 
cost. The cost is particularly import when, as they note, 75% of 
the world is offline. Quite frankly, I find the raves over 
wireless to be contrary to what would make sense for a long-term 
reading device. I can get much of this reaction when I tell 
people that "I installed Wikipedia on my netbook".

- 2 AA batteries. You can always find those.

- LCD display. Yes, it's monochrome LCD. The old-fashioned and 
cheap way to get to low-power consumption.

- no onboard memory. It will always be cheaper for users to 
install the flash memory they need - no more, no less - than for 
the company to charge you last year's prices for a one-size fits 
all memory. It also allows the slightly more sophisticated user 
to keep a couple of memory cards on hand with a variety of 
content (eg; Wikipedia, classic fiction, recent news).

- open structures for data. Read that carefully. It should be 
fairly straightforward to install any text you can find into this 
device. Although the device appears to use proprietary formats, 
this is 'proprietary' in the sense of 'custom', not in the sense 
of 'locked down'. It looks like there are open entry points (that 
do not involve uploading your work a server) to allow you to 
bring content into the device. I've seen suggestions that the 
device itself is relatively open to mods and hacking.

- all of this allows them to hit a very sweet price point of $99. 
Note that this looks to be the mass-market, going-forward price - 
it's not a startup discount, nor a price based on future revenues 
from content. When you pay $99, you get a device and they get a 
profit. This goes back to the open device (above). When they get 
paid back just by selling you the device, then the company 
selling it doesn't worry if you mod it or hack it, since you 
aren't hitting their business model. Heck - really good hacks 
*improve* their business model, since they sell more devices.

These people have done the industrial design work that I wish 
more companies would actually do. I've seen the guts of this 
device, and it shows an incredible economy of scale. Heck, the 
battery clips are mounted on the (only) circuit board. They even 
eliminated paint from the manufacturing process.

The only limitation appears to be the screen size, which is 
certainly partly cost, but is also aimed at making the device 
super portable. The resolution appears to be reasonable given the 
device size.

Finally, from my point of view, they beat the Kindle to market.

My take? This device has more potential to drive ebooks than any 
device I've seen to date. Although the initial launch emphasizes 
Wikipedia as content, it will be interesting to see if 
alternative content can generate even more buzz. They already 
offer a Wikipedia subscription (they mail you the microSD card), 
so they have everything in place to start selling other content 
offerings.


: chris smith ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
: nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit - cicero :


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