10 ms·

As I've been reading the coverage of this product throughout the day, the price seems to be the biggest drawback everyone focuses on, and I agree that $1100 is

by mdip 13y ago

As I've been reading the coverage of this product throughout the day, the price seems to be the biggest drawback everyone focuses on, and I agree that $1100 is overpriced for what this product is offering. I got the sense from several articles that $1100 would be way overpriced for any e-reader. Because of the huge number of PDF files in larger paper sizes that I have, I'd happily pay $1500 for this if in addition to it's features it: 1. wasn't made by Sony, 2. was color (to about early 1990s Newspaper quality), 3. was unlocked (different OS could be installed, etc)

arjn 13y ago
I wonder if the $1100 price is for the dev kit and not an actual retail product.
- scholia 13y ago
  It's not a retail product, it's a professional product. Sony hasn't launched it in the US, it's being imported by Worldox, which is targeting lawyers etc. http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox I wonder if people would be better informed if there were more professional journalists and not as many crappy blogs...
  - bashcoder 13y ago
    This tech, and that business plan, is nothing new. Plastic Logic aimed squarely at the professional market with a flexible e-ink reader that debuted at CES 2009. [0] It hasn't worked out so well for them. I visited their booth in 2009, and they showed a large flexible screen housed in a rigid case. It was to be the advent of flexible e-ink, and the beginning of a new era. Eventually, their announced content partners fell through, and despite an initial splash it never really materialized. Plastic Logic did launch in the US, but shut down their US ops in 2012. [1] They are still a going concern, however, and still focusing on the business market. [0] http://www.slashgear.com/plastic-logic-que-wireless-ebook-reader-gets-ces-launch-1860791/ http://www.slashgear.com/plastic-logic-que-wireless-ebook-re... [1] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a08be60-9eba-11e1-9cc8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2xIqqDuRH http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a08be60-9eba-11e1-9cc8-00144...
    - jjsz 13y ago
      baschcoder, or scholia, do you guys know of a blog that follows the professional market?
      - bashcoder 13y ago
        Well, I think the crux of my criticism is that I'm not sure there actually is a real professional market for e-ink devices.
    - scholia 13y ago
      Yes, thanks, I know. I knew (had met with) Plastic Logic in the UK several years before I went to the Que launch at CES in 2010. It came out of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. The Sony screen is made by LG. It's a much bigger operation.
      - bashcoder 13y ago
        Very good - then don't you also share my skepticism about this as a viable product? The first meetings I had about Que was actually with Hearst, if I recall. The Plastic Logic play was backed by content providers seeking a new channel, including Barnes & Noble. The Sony play is backed by a hardware provider seeking a new channel. So producers have this need, but what about customers? I find myself having the same three doubts I had back in the day: 1) Nobody cares if a screen is flexible for these particular product applications (especially for the Que, which mounted flexible display tech in a rigid form). 2) It's a solution in search of a problem. Who is clamoring for this device at market scale? Even for a specific vertical? 3) Haven't we learned that these devices need the support of a broader ecosystem? That developers need to find opportunity in a platform for it to succeed, and that requires a certain critical mass? How is that going to happen serving a niche vertical market? Interested in your thoughts.
        scholia 13y ago
        The Que was aiming at a much wider market, and when the iPad was announced, they folded. Sony is aiming at a much smaller professional market, and it has a chance where people don't use Latin alphabets, including Japan. I don't know enough about the US legal scene to know whether it will find a market there, but Worldox thinks it's worth a go....
anigbrowl 13y ago
It's a premium price that's partly for early adopters to show off, but when you can read and write Japanese on it (as shown in the product video) the deal is basically made. Lawyers will flock to this in droves, not least because it will be a deductible business expense. The color will be irrelevant to them and the Sony brand will actually be an asset, because they're less concerned about Sony's cool factor than the fact they're in no danger of going out of business. I know, it's not the most hacker-friendly analysis, but this really is something innovative and will help teh technology towards becoming ubiquitous.
- Crito 13y ago
  Is flexibility a particularly useful feature for lawyers? I've always kind of thought that flexibility was one of the shortcomings of paper in most situations involving writing, hence clipboards.
  - scholia 13y ago
    The E-ink screen is flexible. The Sony DPTS1 Digital Paper reader is not flexible: the screen is held in a plastic frame.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Flexibility is a feature. What requires clipboards is a lack of strength. Flexibility is what allows paper to bend and not break when you overcome its strength by flapping it around. Flexibility ought to allow for lighter devices, as they won't need to be built as strongly to avoid breaking.
- dfc 13y ago
  > when you can read and write Japanese on it the deal is basically made Why is this the deal maker? I do not read/write japanese so maybe I am missing something obvious.[^1] Is writing/reading japanese with pen/pencil and paper difficult? Is there something that differentiates Japanese reading/writing from Korean? Have there been other tablets that worked with western scripts but not Japanese? [^1]: I am assuming we are not talking about handwriting recognition.
SixSigma 13y ago
What's your particular Sony beef? I've found their products rock solid, on the whole. Rootkit and Sony Network otoh are the negatives I can think of. I'm typing this on the Xperia Z, I've got a S1 tablet, an Prs -101 e-reader, two mp3 players - and I'd recommend every single one. My video edit suite was all Sony gear (camera, firmware deck, amp & speakers), never a problem - not so with the Sanyo, Panasonic or Philips stuff I've seen. $1100 is a crazy price for this, then again I'd probably fall for it once in hand.
- lugg 13y ago
  Careful opinions follow, Something to do with suing users who use their owned hardware in a way Sony disagrees with. Suck fony and all that. Honestly since the geohots case I've pretty much laughed and ridiculed sales people in stores who reccomend Sony products. None of them get it and they all think I'm a little bit crazy but sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in. Openness and being able to mod or hack my hardware shouldn't come with the chance of being sued. Its absurd and detrimental to society at large that they can get away with it. Won't be buying. The over pricing I can deal with. Sony. Not so much.
  - SixSigma 13y ago
    "Break law, face consequences" is a fairly common occurrence across the world.
- anonbanker 13y ago
  I was a named party in Sony vs. Bleem!, LLC. I don't support people that sue me or my friends.
JensRantil 13y ago
Why don't you want it from Sony?
- mdip 13y ago
  tl;dr DRM, Sony Rootkit debacle, Vegas Video (and the other audio ap that they purchased from Sonic Forge) activation scheme. Trust. 1. The CD they produced with a rootkit that I had write a script to facilitate it's removal from several hundred PCs on a network with unique government contractual security requirements. 2. My Sony 1080p HD TV that I have to unplug the HDMI cable any time I want to watch streaming video on my Sony Blu-Ray player. 3. Vegas Video, which was far too expensive of a piece of software to (A) treat me like a criminal for having made the mistake of actually paying for it and (B) spending two weeks pleading my case after I upgraded my PC for the third time and the software insisted that I pay for it again. As a rule, I avoid products who's DRM schemes I am forced to use. You can't always avoid it, but my PDF collection is unencrypted and, though I assume that Sony isn't going to suddenly add DRM to those files, I can only go by their history and the fact that there's not really any evidence that they've learned their lesson, only that they got caught and like most companies, prefer to avoid the negative press. Even Microsoft has toned down the implementation of their activation schemes. Remember when a PC would deactivate resulting in a 3 hour usage limit and the disabling of Aero? I have a PC that hasn't been able to talk to the licensing server for a year and all I see is a subtle Genuine Windows message in the lower right hand corner, a nag when I start Office and a message in the title bar. It's a little annoying since these are legal enterprise licenses on a tablet that I just haven't used VPN on in a very long time, but the software still works properly. This kind of product requires me to grant Sony a certain amount of trust. Sony flushed trust down the toilet with Vegas Video and two Sony products failing to negotiate a proper HDCP handshake without physically unplugging cables. That would have been enough, but I don't even have a metaphor to describe what they did when they chose to take a medium with no DRM scheme and hack a user's PC into inserting one much like ransomware does with people's word docs. I'd have no room to complain if I plugged that device in and it b0rked my PDF collection because based on history, what else should I expect? *EDIT: Grammar

by mdip 13y ago

arjn 13y ago

I wonder if the $1100 price is for the dev kit and not an actual retail product.

scholia 13y ago
It's not a retail product, it's a professional product. Sony hasn't launched it in the US, it's being imported by Worldox, which is targeting lawyers etc. http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox I wonder if people would be better informed if there were more professional journalists and not as many crappy blogs...
- bashcoder 13y ago
  This tech, and that business plan, is nothing new. Plastic Logic aimed squarely at the professional market with a flexible e-ink reader that debuted at CES 2009. [0] It hasn't worked out so well for them. I visited their booth in 2009, and they showed a large flexible screen housed in a rigid case. It was to be the advent of flexible e-ink, and the beginning of a new era. Eventually, their announced content partners fell through, and despite an initial splash it never really materialized. Plastic Logic did launch in the US, but shut down their US ops in 2012. [1] They are still a going concern, however, and still focusing on the business market. [0] http://www.slashgear.com/plastic-logic-que-wireless-ebook-reader-gets-ces-launch-1860791/ http://www.slashgear.com/plastic-logic-que-wireless-ebook-re... [1] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a08be60-9eba-11e1-9cc8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2xIqqDuRH http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a08be60-9eba-11e1-9cc8-00144...
  - jjsz 13y ago
    baschcoder, or scholia, do you guys know of a blog that follows the professional market?
    - bashcoder 13y ago
      Well, I think the crux of my criticism is that I'm not sure there actually is a real professional market for e-ink devices.
  - scholia 13y ago
    Yes, thanks, I know. I knew (had met with) Plastic Logic in the UK several years before I went to the Que launch at CES in 2010. It came out of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. The Sony screen is made by LG. It's a much bigger operation.
    - bashcoder 13y ago
      Very good - then don't you also share my skepticism about this as a viable product? The first meetings I had about Que was actually with Hearst, if I recall. The Plastic Logic play was backed by content providers seeking a new channel, including Barnes & Noble. The Sony play is backed by a hardware provider seeking a new channel. So producers have this need, but what about customers? I find myself having the same three doubts I had back in the day: 1) Nobody cares if a screen is flexible for these particular product applications (especially for the Que, which mounted flexible display tech in a rigid form). 2) It's a solution in search of a problem. Who is clamoring for this device at market scale? Even for a specific vertical? 3) Haven't we learned that these devices need the support of a broader ecosystem? That developers need to find opportunity in a platform for it to succeed, and that requires a certain critical mass? How is that going to happen serving a niche vertical market? Interested in your thoughts.
      - scholia 13y ago
        The Que was aiming at a much wider market, and when the iPad was announced, they folded. Sony is aiming at a much smaller professional market, and it has a chance where people don't use Latin alphabets, including Japan. I don't know enough about the US legal scene to know whether it will find a market there, but Worldox thinks it's worth a go....

anigbrowl 13y ago

It's a premium price that's partly for early adopters to show off, but when you can read and write Japanese on it (as shown in the product video) the deal is basically made. Lawyers will flock to this in droves, not least because it will be a deductible business expense. The color will be irrelevant to them and the Sony brand will actually be an asset, because they're less concerned about Sony's cool factor than the fact they're in no danger of going out of business. I know, it's not the most hacker-friendly analysis, but this really is something innovative and will help teh technology towards becoming ubiquitous.

Crito 13y ago
Is flexibility a particularly useful feature for lawyers? I've always kind of thought that flexibility was one of the shortcomings of paper in most situations involving writing, hence clipboards.
- scholia 13y ago
  The E-ink screen is flexible. The Sony DPTS1 Digital Paper reader is not flexible: the screen is held in a plastic frame.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Flexibility is a feature. What requires clipboards is a lack of strength. Flexibility is what allows paper to bend and not break when you overcome its strength by flapping it around. Flexibility ought to allow for lighter devices, as they won't need to be built as strongly to avoid breaking.
dfc 13y ago
> when you can read and write Japanese on it the deal is basically made Why is this the deal maker? I do not read/write japanese so maybe I am missing something obvious.[^1] Is writing/reading japanese with pen/pencil and paper difficult? Is there something that differentiates Japanese reading/writing from Korean? Have there been other tablets that worked with western scripts but not Japanese? [^1]: I am assuming we are not talking about handwriting recognition.

SixSigma 13y ago

What's your particular Sony beef? I've found their products rock solid, on the whole. Rootkit and Sony Network otoh are the negatives I can think of. I'm typing this on the Xperia Z, I've got a S1 tablet, an Prs -101 e-reader, two mp3 players - and I'd recommend every single one. My video edit suite was all Sony gear (camera, firmware deck, amp & speakers), never a problem - not so with the Sanyo, Panasonic or Philips stuff I've seen. $1100 is a crazy price for this, then again I'd probably fall for it once in hand.

lugg 13y ago
Careful opinions follow, Something to do with suing users who use their owned hardware in a way Sony disagrees with. Suck fony and all that. Honestly since the geohots case I've pretty much laughed and ridiculed sales people in stores who reccomend Sony products. None of them get it and they all think I'm a little bit crazy but sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in. Openness and being able to mod or hack my hardware shouldn't come with the chance of being sued. Its absurd and detrimental to society at large that they can get away with it. Won't be buying. The over pricing I can deal with. Sony. Not so much.
- SixSigma 13y ago
  "Break law, face consequences" is a fairly common occurrence across the world.
anonbanker 13y ago
I was a named party in Sony vs. Bleem!, LLC. I don't support people that sue me or my friends.

JensRantil 13y ago

Why don't you want it from Sony?

mdip 13y ago
tl;dr DRM, Sony Rootkit debacle, Vegas Video (and the other audio ap that they purchased from Sonic Forge) activation scheme. Trust. 1. The CD they produced with a rootkit that I had write a script to facilitate it's removal from several hundred PCs on a network with unique government contractual security requirements. 2. My Sony 1080p HD TV that I have to unplug the HDMI cable any time I want to watch streaming video on my Sony Blu-Ray player. 3. Vegas Video, which was far too expensive of a piece of software to (A) treat me like a criminal for having made the mistake of actually paying for it and (B) spending two weeks pleading my case after I upgraded my PC for the third time and the software insisted that I pay for it again. As a rule, I avoid products who's DRM schemes I am forced to use. You can't always avoid it, but my PDF collection is unencrypted and, though I assume that Sony isn't going to suddenly add DRM to those files, I can only go by their history and the fact that there's not really any evidence that they've learned their lesson, only that they got caught and like most companies, prefer to avoid the negative press. Even Microsoft has toned down the implementation of their activation schemes. Remember when a PC would deactivate resulting in a 3 hour usage limit and the disabling of Aero? I have a PC that hasn't been able to talk to the licensing server for a year and all I see is a subtle Genuine Windows message in the lower right hand corner, a nag when I start Office and a message in the title bar. It's a little annoying since these are legal enterprise licenses on a tablet that I just haven't used VPN on in a very long time, but the software still works properly. This kind of product requires me to grant Sony a certain amount of trust. Sony flushed trust down the toilet with Vegas Video and two Sony products failing to negotiate a proper HDCP handshake without physically unplugging cables. That would have been enough, but I don't even have a metaphor to describe what they did when they chose to take a medium with no DRM scheme and hack a user's PC into inserting one much like ransomware does with people's word docs. I'd have no room to complain if I plugged that device in and it b0rked my PDF collection because based on history, what else should I expect? *EDIT: Grammar