Sony Librie EBR-1000EP
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- 6-inch diagonal display using E Ink's electronic paper technology
- Super Video Graphics Array (600 by 800 dots)
- 170 dots per inch
- 300 grams (10.6 oz) with case and batteries (190 grams / 6.7 oz without)
- 126 millimeters (5 in) by 190 millimeters (7.5 in) by 13 millimeters (0.5 in)
- Motorola Dragonball central processing unit
- Sony Linux OS
- 10MB storage
- Memory Stick slot (Memory Stick Pro compatible)
- USB 2.0 port
- Headphones jack
- Monaural speaker
The unit was designed to be about the same weight as the average book on the Japanese market. The E Ink technology is a monochrome (4 level greyscale) display device which changes reflectivity by moving microscopic black and white particles held within spherical microcapsules.
There is a tiny qwerty keyboard at the bottom of the display, permiting a limited form of marginalia, as well as a small roller wheel. Content will be available on a subscription basis only, and the price of the unit is comparable to that of some PDAs. Battery life is also comparable to that of many PDAs because while the electronic ink display does not require any power once it is set to show a specific page, the Motorola Dragonball CPU requires constant power, and read and write operations between the storage and the memory stick also require power.
The Librie can currently only display contents in the Broad Band eBook (BBeB) format. The primary BBeB content provider is Publishing Link, a joint venture between Sony and a number of large Japanese publishers and printers. Using the digital rights management functions of BBeB and the Librie, content from Publishing Link is set to expire and be unreadable after 60 days.
The Librie is currently only available in a Japanese-language version, and is only sold in Japan (since April 2004). The device and its file format are described in a Wiki (http://www.sven.de/librie/). Discussion takes place on the popular Yahoo! group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/librie/).
External link
- Sony LIBRIe home page (http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/LIBRIE/), in Japanesepl:LIBRIé