TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Snappy!’ Category

By David Rothman

“All these anticipation and uncertainties about the iLiad, Sony Reader, Jinke’s v2, v8 … v##, Origamis sometimes makes me kinda hope in a wierd way that I was “living under a rock” (or like this) for these 3 yrs and then came out to find that E Ink e-books are free with local state library membership, e-books are $7.99 a piece and oh, origami, origami, the art of paper folding … that Origamis still referred to that art, while eOrigamis are $349 (the price of Nokia 770s) right now.” More here from Snappy in Asia.

By Snappy!

I badly want the Origami/UMPC to succeed.

Why? I love e-books, and the Origami can run many fine programs such as uBook and thus read popular formats like HTML.

So what can Microsoft do to improve the odds for its new baby? Three items top my wish list:

• A price of $499 or less, which some say the Origami may achieve in the next six months.
• Battery life of at least four hours in real life. Some at Microsoft–not everyone–have acknowledged the problem, and a longer life may be on the way.
• Keyboard keyboard keyboard. I’d like to see Microsoft unveil a good one for the Origami.

In mapping out the future of the Origami-class machines, Microsoft should consider the plight of the ultra Personal Computer, which OQO is retooling for special markets such as healthcare to avoid confronting the Origamis in the consumer market. Besides, the ultra Personal machines were just too expensive for personal use. (more…)

By Snappy!

Six or seven years ago, this would be totally untrue, as the HP Jornada 720 HandheldPC retailed for around US$999 back in the Fall of 1999. Today, the J720, as I call it in short, goes for below $200, averaging $140.

This is a depreciation of $859 over seven years or $122+ per year, ignoring inflation and all the economics and stuff. At this price, it became a good candidate as a poor man’s e-reader–in other words, an e-reader for me.

So how did the J720 become my e-reader? (more…)

By David Rothman

I perp the TeleBlog from a brick building on a grassy hillside in the state of Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

But as with Branko Collin, a native Netherlander based in Amsterdam, not that far from iRex headquarters, our regulars are everywhere. And today we welcome Snappy from Asia, a Chinese-speaking geek who wrote the informative Jornada 720 post above. Here’s Snappy’s self-bio:

I’m a tech geek who has been programming since the mid 80s. Upon graduating from college with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, I worked as a R&D software engineer in a multimedia tech firm before moving on to join a software firm as a consultant.

I am currently self-employed and doing cranial-programming as a hobby–no surgery involved. Someday maybe I’ll give the details. In my free time, I like to read books, e-books in particular, as they don’t take up any physical space and I cannot afford big bookshelves made of wood.

Materials I enjoy come from such sites as Access to Insight: Readings in Theravada Buddhism, TeleRead (Career Limiting Move if I don’t include this?), Engadget and HPC Factor.

Want to contribute to the main part of the TeleBlog? Get in touch, pass on writing samples or point to URLs, and we’ll see if it would be a good match. And no problem if you’ve never published anywhere. Among the best samples are well-done comments to the TeleBlog, which anyone can make.