Ben Foss, Director of Access Technology at Intel’s Digital Health group said the device is also intended to assist those with severe Dyslexia, an impairment he himself grew up with. “We want people to experience the independence of being able to read on their own in a public place or anywhere they want to.”

Prototypes of the paper-back sized device were tested with more than 400 visually impaired users, including some who were completely blind. The reader can adjust the speed of reading, and its 2GB of storage can hold about 500,000 pages of text; roughly 600 pages of scanned books.

At $US1500, it’s not cheap. But compared to even more expensive Braille readers, it has a shot as a specialty device. [Intel via VentureBeat]

To be clear, this is the same device we saw before—a smallish (19.6 x 12.4 x 1.3cm, it turns out) e-reader with two screens, a 6-inch E ink display up top for displaying book text, and a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD down below for navigation.

Connectivity comes by way of free AT&T 3G as well as 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, while storage duties fall to the 2GB of internal memory, as well as a microSD expansion slot. Barnes & Noble claims charge time of 3.5 hours—by microUSB, thankfully—which’ll let you read for “up to ten days,” which is a curiously indirect way of describing battery life, and doesn’t really say much about what “reading” means. With constant LCD use? Occasional? None? Audio playback seems limited to MP3s, with a 3.5mm headphones jack taking care of output. Say what you will about the design, but you can’t fault B&N on ports.

Naturally, the main content source is the B&N ebook store, which has a reasonable—though not spectacular—selection of magazines and newspapers too. What the Nook has that other B&N-compatible readers don’t, though, is sharing. As with Amazon’s Kindle iPhone app, the Barnes & Noble’s reader can be synced with the company’s various mobile apps. Even better is the user to user sharing, which sounds an awful lot like the Zune’s old “Squirting” feature, which let people sharing DRM-wrapped songs for a limited time. That said, the sharing terms are pretty generous:

Share favorite eBooks with your friends, family, or book club. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend’s reader, cell phone, or computer.

Avid readers can easily plow through all kinds of books in 14 days, so this is a pretty sweet deal.

And in a deprecating nod to the Kindle’s notorious durability issues, Barnes & Noble is pushing extended warranties right out of the gate: a $70 protection plan stretches the stock warranty to two years, and throws in accidental damage coverage, meaning you don’t have to worry too much about pulling a Matt, which given that this thing has two freakin’ screens, is a very real worry.

So let’s just get this out of the way. “Hi, I’m Kate, and this is my Nook!” Ha. Ok!

Disregarding my inner 12-year-old for a second, the above video does give a better sense of how the reader’s control scheme works than words ever good, but I’ll give it a go anyway: the only hardware buttons you’ll really use are the right and left page switchers. The rest, from book library navigation to settings menus to book sharing, is managed through a separate menu system on the much more responsive (though from the looks of it, kinda jerky) colour LCD. One one hand it’s a clever workaround for E Ink’s horrendously slow refresh rate; on the other, it’s kind of hilarious. I mean, really? [B&N]

Preorders are live on B&N’s site, and units should hit mailboxes on November 30th.

UPDATE: Err, looks like B&N’s web guys jumped the gun a little bit, and they’ve pulled the site. But ha, not soon enough. Eyes, feast:

It’s an ugly little mutant, like a Courier screwed an EeePC and Kindle. The e-Ink screen’s 9.7 inches—same as the Kindle DX—and readers ePub and PDF files. It’ll let you take notes with stylus, or tap them out on a keyboard. On the Android side, which will apparently let you run full Android apps, you’ve got a 10.1-inch, 1024×600 screen, which you can use to look at images from books (in full color?). Like any good anything that does everything, it also records video and audio. For wireless, it’s got Wi-Fi and optional 3G, along with Bluetooth for external keyboards.

Admittedly, I kind of like the idea of a reader I can use to browse the internet too, but I just can’t do it on something this hideous. And, I really can’t abide stupid capitalisation patterns, like eDGe. It’s $US500, if you can. [Entourage via Cnet]]

Asus pretty much kick-started the whole netbook craze, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can shake up eBook readers, too. A second display could be used for a virtual keyboard and Web browsing, allowing the device to even compete with netbooks. The company says it’s also thinking about built-in speakers, and a Webcam/microphone for cheap Skype calls.

Budget and premium versions are likely, and it’s expected the pricier option would feature 3G. Right now, the two cheapest readers are the 6-inch Amazon Kindle 2 ($US300) and Cool-er eBook Reader ($US250). The Times says Asus is aiming closer to around $US160. Previous Eee PCs have been cheaper than the competition, so you just never know… [The Times]

Reader Shinobiwan wrote in with an e-mail received from “order-update@amazon.com”:

Hello,

On July 23, 2009, Jeff Bezos, our Founder and CEO, made the following apology to our customers:

“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com”

As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made. You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $US30.

Please email Kindle customer support at kindle-response@amazon.com to indicate your preference. If you prefer to receive a check, please also provide your mailing address.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Kindle Team

Is this little love note enough to make us forgive Amazon for practically stealing books from users? Not really, but we say take the $US30 check with grace and buy a used copy of the book for $US3. [Thanks, Shinobiwan!]

The analysis compared carbon emissions from the production of electronic books to that of traditional book publishing. Despite the manufacturing and mining process required for the Kindles being taken into account, they still came out as the more eco-friendly contender since the Kindle doesn’t exactly compare to a single book as Emma Rich, who conducted the analysis, explains:

The roughly 168 kg of CO2 produced throughout the Kindle’s lifecycle is a clear winner against the potential savings: 1,074 kg of CO2 if replacing three books a month for four years; and up to 26,098 kg of CO2 when used to the fullest capacity of the Kindle DX. Less-frequent readers attracted by decreasing prices still can break even at 22.5 books over the life of the device,

We found the “fullest capacity” of the Kindle a bit amusing. Sure, the study compares the number of books you can have on a Kindle at a given moment, but what about the infinite number of deletions, downloads and books stored on your computer for syncing?

Either way, the gist of this is that if you only read 22.5 books or less every four years, then you don’t have to feel guilty about mucking up the environment by not using an electronic reader. The rest of us though are going green and ordering a Kindle. Well, at least I am. [CNET]

The Price: $US250

The Verdict: Cheap in every sense of the word, but usable. The Cool-er has the same 6-inch screen as the Kindle 2, but renders text with a proprietary computer-screen-esque font face instead of the more “print”-like Kindle 2 typeface. It is, of course, size-adjustable. You can also flip it 90 degrees to read in landscape mode.

As if it wasn’t obvious enough from its appearance, the Cool-er is designed to be the iPod of eBook readers. It succeeds in looking like an iPod and being available in a lot of colours, but fails in usability and design. The only thing going for it is that it works as an eBook reader if reading is the most important part of the package (which it is, to many people). Also, it’s quite a bit lighter than the Kindle 2, so you can easily hold it with one hand while you’re brushing your teeth, lying in bed, or using the bathroom.

The problem comes from the interface—it feels very much like a Chinese knockoff. The giant iPod design, with the D-Pad scrollwheel acting as both a menu selector and a page turner, isn’t the best way to read a book. Meaning, you can only turn pages with either your right or left hand (if it’s in landscape mode), making reading slightly more awkward. The onscreen UI is also indicative of it being made by a smaller company; it works, but you have to conform to the interface rather than the other way around.

Being able to play audiobooks in MP3 format off the SD card is better than straining to understand text-to-speech with the Kindle 2’s robotic voice. And listening to music while reading is good, but you have no playback controls unless you get out of your book and into the file. It’s really mostly intended for audiobooks, I believe. And it’s more half-baked than anything.

You load eBooks onto the player via mini USB or onto the SD card, but it’s not quite compatible with Macs. Transferring files via OS X will get you four blank folders (the metadata files that Macs deposit on external drives) that you can’t seem to ever get rid of. Also, the battery meter is somewhat finicky and fluctuates up or down depending on its mood. There’s also no great auto-sleep mode like the Kindle has.

Where They Get You: The books. The Host, by tween vampire novelist Stephenie Meyer, costs $US20.79 on coolerbooks.com, but only $US9.99 for Amazon’s Kindle. Other, older and less popular novels, are more on par between the two stores. You do get 25% off of the list price if you own a Cool-er reader.

The coolerbooks selection is also smaller than Amazon’s, housing none of Ian Fleming’s Bond books, one of which I’ve found used in the photos anyway. (Amazon has them all for $US9.99 each.)

Good For Piracy: But the upside is that the Cool-er supports native PDF format documents, like the Kindle DX, so you can load on downloaded and torrented eBooks with ease. But if you really wanted to pirate books onto the Kindle 2, it’s just a matter of using calibre to transcode the books into a compatible format beforehand, so it’s not that huge of a benefit.

Versus Other Players: It’s not as capable as say, a Kindle 2 or the touch-capable Sony PRS-700 reader, and it’s not as cheap as this lousy Ectaco jetBook reader at $US170, so it’s kinda just right there in the middle.

If it were $US199, we’d recommend this to people who just want to read, and don’t care about all that extra stuff like touchscreen or downloading books directly to the device before your plane takes off. But it’s $US250, which is only $US50 cheaper than the Sony. If that $US50 is very important to you, go with the Cool-er, otherwise we’d recommend either the Sony or the Kindle 2.

I really, really wish this reader were $US199, because it’s not a bad reader, it’s just not as good as what’s out there now. [Cooler]

$50 to $100 cheaper than more popular eBook readers

UI is only so-so, and page controls are slightly awkward

Feels plasticky, lighter build means easier reading

Not as polished as Kindle 2 or Sony’s PRS-700, which may be worth the extra $US50 to $US100

Maybe the idea is slightly anachronistic, but the experience was solid. Version 2.0 is built on Adobe AIR, which makes it truly multi-platform—although that brings it own set of issues, like resource intensity and non-native app behaviour. And I would really like it to use multitouch trackpad gestures, like for moving between articles. But, the navigation and UI are a lot cleaner than before—a sidebar on the left replaces the older top-centric navigation, and it has some neat (if laggy) UI tricks, like splitting articles into windows a la mobile Safari.

While $US3.45 a week ($US15/month) is cheaper than an actual paper, the Reader is still a pricier wrapper for Times content than Firefox ($US0). But maybe that’s a small price to pay for something that’s much closer to the future of newspapers than the Kindle—and certainly paper. Unless you think the newspaper’s future is simply bankrupt. [TimesReader 2.0]

First, they believe Sony will release a larger format eReader to compete with the Kindle DX by the end of the year. Second, and what’s honestly the bigger piece of news, is that PVI’s colour e-paper will not be ready until 2010 (previously, 2009 was the target).

Clearly, making colour e-paper is a tough proposition. But I’m with Rothman on this one—I really expected the electrophoretic display industry to advance faster than it has. Of course, that’s easy to say from the cheap seats. [DigiTimes via mobileread via SlashGear]

* The photo is not of a display but of far more awesome rainbow jello.

The display technology Pixel Qi has been promising is revolutionary: A high-res colour LCD and low-power, reflective reader mode better than E-ink. For dirt cheap. And it’s coming next month.

If you recall, PixelQi’s founder, Mary Lou Jepsen, is the brains behind the OLPC’s breakthrough reflective screen, and an evangelist for the idea that the future of the computer is in displays. When we talked to her about the problems with e-readers, she predicted that LCD would overtake electrophoretic display technology—aka E-ink—by 2010.

The idea isn’t crazy if Pixel Qi’s displays match the hype: One screen that delivers a high-res, colour LCD for normal computer stuff; an e-paper mode that’s even more readable than e-ink; and a super low-power black-and-white mode. And is cheap to make and advance, since it’s fabricated in standard LCD factories. It makes the possibility of a single tablet computer that really can do everything that much more possible.

And we’ll get to see the first one, 3Qi, next month. Sure, it’s just a stupid screen, but I’m excited. [Cnet via Engadget]