Sony rumoured to be launching English e-book device

30 December 2005 16:22 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Following last years debut of its e-Book reader, the Libre in Japan, rumours on the Internet suggest that Sony will be launching a new version for English speaking markets at CES in Las Vegas.

Expected to be one of the buzz words for 2006, E ink works by charging thousands of capsules to display certain information. Charged capsules turn black while uncharged ones turn white. After the initial charge the capsules are locked into place and give a flicker-free and crisp image equal to that of a newspaper.

Because of the lack of power needed after the first charge, the battery consumption is very low.

Due to cumbersome Digital Rights Management (DRM) Sony's Libre device has so far failed to take off in Japan, however all that is rumoured to change when Sony launches its new e-Book with .PDF support next week.

The move means that anybody will be able to create and access .PDF files on the new reader to read on the go.

Tied-in into the launch is the news that Sony is also expected to offer an e-Books download store similar to Apple's iTunes and music tracks.

Pocket-lint will be attending the show in America from the 5-8 January 2006 with news updates from the show across the 4 days.

Full tags

Gadgets, ebooks, Sony, CES2006