is Coming to Korea - Korea IT Times

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Cover Story e-Book Revolution Apple, Iriver, Samsung, Barnes and Noble All in Competition The digital trend has changed our life style. Now we listen to digital music on a small portable device and watch movies using DVD, Blu-ray Disk, or sometimes files downloaded from bittorrent. The digital movement has finally come to printed media. Some people still prefer an old style book reading because the feeling of turning pages cannot be replaced with e-book readers. However, the technology has brought many advantages to e- books over paperbacks. Thousands of books can be stored in one device that is usually thinner and lighter than most textbooks. It is cheaper to produce, easy to distribute, and more convenient for sharing content with friends and colleges. Most of all, e-books are environmental-friendly. The digital content can be distributed over various networks without cutting down millions of trees. Books will not go away any time soon, but the digital movement will only gain momentum. More and more people are changing to digital media and various electronic products are created to improve our reading habit. Amazon - Kindle Since Amazon, the online shopping mall giant, released its first e-book reader, Kindle, in 2007, it changed the e-book industry. Amazon Kindle used the electronic paper display which closely resembles prints on a paper. The device has great readability without causing eye strain and has a long battery life which has made it a popular choice for e-book readers. After the great success of Kindle, Amazon launched two new e-book readers last year - Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. Kindle 2 has a 6-inch display with 16-level gray scale in a thickness of 9.1mm. The device can store up to 1,500 books in a 2GB internal memory and the battery lasts approximately for 50 hours. Three months after releasing Kindle 2, Amazon released a bigger model, Kindle DX. It has a 9.7-inch display with 4GB storage which can hold approximately 3,000 books. The strength of Kindle is not just in hardware, but in content. Currently, over 400,000 books are available to download 16 KOREA IT TIMES | February 2010 for Kindle devices. E-books can be downloaded over AT&T's 3G wireless network. Amazon is trying to pursue its success in the U.S. to the global market. Amazon released international versions of Kindle in over 100 countries. The combination of hardware and large content has made the Kindle a leader in the e-book industry. Barnes and Noble - Nook The biggest off-line book store chain in the U.S. could not just sit and watch the e- book trend go by. Barnes and Noble have challenged Amazon Kindle with its new e- book reader named Nook. On Nov. 2009, Barnes & Noble launched the 6-inch e- book reader with dual screens, a 6-inch e- ink main display and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen LCD on the bottom as the input device. Nook users can see the book cover on the bottom screen and choose to read a book on the main screen. The device does not have a physical keyboard, but a virtual keyboard on the LCD screen that makes it easy to search and type. The Nook storage consists of 2GB internal memory and a microSD slot which can be expanded up to 16 GB which translate to approximately 17,500 books and magazines. Unlike Kindle, Nook has a unique sharing feature. Most purchased e-books can be shared with friends or families, who have Nook or Barnes and Noble e-book application, for up to two weeks at a time. Nook is based on Google's Android platform and more applications are expected for the device.
Amazon Kindle Samsung - E6/E101 Samsung has been quiet on e-book devices, but it is time for Samsung to jump on the e-book reader bandwagon. Korea's biggest electronic company has introduced two e-books at CES 2010 - E6 and E101, which have a 6-inch and 10-inch e-ink displays, respectively. It has a sliding keyboard with a stylus pen. Since the device does not use a backlight, it can last up to two weeks with a 4-hour charge. It supports 802.11 b/g wireless and Bluetooth, but no 3G support. Samsung partnered with Google to provide public domain books and the content can be shared with other e-book reading devices. The interesting feature is the touch screen that can be used to write notes. Iriver - Story Iriver is known for its portable audio and video electronic devices, but since the portable device market is oversaturated, the company stepped into the e-book reader territory. Iriver's e-book reader, Story, has a 6-inch e-ink display support various file formats including PDF, ePUB, TXT, PDF, DOC, PPL, XLS, HWP, ZIP (JPEG, BMP, PNG), and it also supports (MP3, WMA, OGG) with voice recording feature. Iriver made a partnership with Kyobo a Korean book store, to provide content in Korea. Samsung's E6 and E101 Apple - iPad The recent announcement of Apple's iPad made great buzz around the tech industry. iPad is not a traditional e-book reader that uses e-ink technology, but it is a tablet device with iBook application that can be used to read e-book content along with numerous other features. Apple also announced the iBookstore to sell ePub content by signing with several publishers. Although iPad does not have a hundred hour long battery life or super readability outside like other e-book readers, it has many advantages over them. iPad uses a IPS LCD screen for its vibrant color display which is great for books and magazines with lots of pictures and photos. Also, the movie or interactive function can be added to the content. The touch screen is quicker and more responsive. Itune is what made iPod a great music player and App store is what made iPhone a great smartphone. The iBookstore will make iPad a great device for avid e-book readers and it may raise the bar for the new e-book industry. There are a lot of e-book readers available on the market. Although many of them share common features, each device has its own unique functions with some strengths and weaknesses. The combination of innovative hardware with good content will lead the e-book market. This year may well be the turning point for the e-book industry with so many products and content development. Newspapers, magazines, and books will be delivered to your e-book reader instead of your front door. Chun Go-eun /clairbear@koreaittimes.com Song Kyu-yeol / song@koreaittimes.com www.koreaittimes.com 17
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