BPN 1396 E-readers in the pipeline

In the past weeks e-readers have been at the center of attention. Amazon.com has gone international with the sales of its e-reader, at last. And Barnes & Noble has introduced its e-reader with two screens. But now announcements are coming from different nooks (!): tire manufacturer Bridgestone, hardware/software manufacturer Creative Labs and consumer electronics manufacturer LG. In the meantime, Apple is still quiet about its iBook or iTablet.

Yesterday at the first Grand Prix Formula 1 race in Abu Dabhi the name of Bridgestone as tire preferred manufacturer was all over the dazzling race circuit. But Bridgestone will stop with Formula 1 as it is changing its business direction. Part of this change was announced as Bridgestone is working on an e-reader with colour screen. The e-reader will have a 13,1 inch touch screen with 4096 colours grades and have a refreshing time of 0,8 seconds (as opposed to 15 seconds with E-Ink screens). Not only the screen, but also the substrate will be made of flexible material. There is no date of issue nor a set price or the names of any e-reader developers.

Also hopping on the bandwagon of e-readers is Creative Labs, the hardware/software manufacturer for music and graphics The company has shown a working model of its first e-book reader, tentatively named the MediaBook. The device reportedly has a touch screen, text-to-speech function, and an SD memory card slot. It will run on Creative's Zii System-On-Chip technology and will be Internet-enabled. It will run videos, pictures, text, and services in one device. Creative is talking to 10 international and local publishers to provide content for the MediaBook, with fiction, newspaper, magazines, education materials, and textbooks. No word on pricing and availability.

Another development has been shown by consumer electronics manufacturer LG. They have provided the e-reader with solar cells. Take your e-reader in the sun for four or five hours and you extend the battery life with one day. Again no word on pricing and availability.

And so far no word about the iBook or iTablet of Apple. It is said that Apple has an e-reader in the pipeline, but the crucial element of the e-reader is the colour screen. Given the announcement of Bridgestone the colour screen should not be too far off nor the iBook or the iTablet.

But with the appearance of colour screens and high refreshment rates, it also means that the function of the e-reader will be widened. A colour coffee table book can be published for the e-reader. But with the fast refreshing rate also colour video clips can be shown. And will a book than still be a book or a newspaper a newspaper.? Or will we just have an all in one tablet for games, movies, books and newspaper?

Blog Posting Number: 1396

Tags: e-books, e-readers

A game brought to the street

From October 4th, 2007 a real street game, the Monkey Murder Mystery, will start in four Dutch cities. The Monkey Murder Mystery is a local interactive reality game, which gets gamers away from their computer. The gamers will hunt or be hunted, not with a water or paint pistol, but with a camera equipped mobile.

Monkey Murder Mystery will start in four Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Groningen) and will last 9 weeks. The participants of the game will compete with each other in order to become the ultimate opponent of Monkey Murder. The eventual winner will receive a sum of 5.000 euro.

The game is a combination of reality and virtuality. The stress is on gaming outside the house away from the computer, hunting for an opponent in the same city and attempting to catch him with a snapshot and sending this shot. During the game the participants will have to fulfil assignments. For every right answer they receive leads, which bring them closer to the person to be excluded. The assignments will get more difficult and vary from finding a location on internet or in the city or solving a riddle. As soon as the participant has collected enough information to identify the target person, the shoot to kill element with the mobile is started. The gamer make a kill, when he/she films or photographs the target person. After nine weeks one person will remain in every city, who will receive 1.000 euro. In the final they will compete with each other. The winner of this final will receive 4.000 euro from Monkey Murder.

The whole game turns around completing assignments on behalf of Monkey Murder. This sly criminal is searching for his ultimate opponent. Monkey Murder has been born on June 17, 1966 in Leiden with the name Wilhelm Adriaan Schrooten. At birth Wilhelm appeared to have a congenial disease in his face, giving him a monkeylike appearance. Monkey gets on the wrong track and has had to fight opponents in his criminal career. In this way he got the name Monkey Murder. He wants to let the world know what he has done and wants to be respected in eternity. This is his reason for looking for a respected opponent. He is looking for the craftful and most skilful player.

The game is produced for Hi, the youth brand for mobile of KPN. LG Mobile is sponsoring the game. The cross medial bureau On conceptualised and produced the game. The participant will on average send 15 MMS and 35 SMS.

The game is not the first outside game in The Netherlands. Probably the crossmedia game Blackbeard Connection was the first one. Recently the mobile game Triangler received much attention.

Blog Posting Number: 869

Tags: games