Sunday, 15 November 2009

EBOOK READERS - THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR SCHOOL READING...???

There was a great fanfare of expectation when the SONY E- BOOK READER was launched here in the UK in 2008.

As we are all involved in technology in education here at Cute Memory we were really interested in the impact this would have in changing the face of many of our traditional "dust gathering" school library shelves.

We are now pleased to report that this rather false dawn for the E READER has at last stepped up a promising gear  with the arrival of at least 3 more "next generation" heavyweight readers to the market. Lets have a sneaky look at them then:
  • The Amazon Kindle.
  • The Nook.
  • The Alex
We think that the ALEX could provide us with something very interesting:
The Alex is shortly to launched by SPRING DESIGN - There are very strong rumours that this will have at last a colour 3.5 inch LCD touchscreen.
Also,another fantastic feature is that your EBOOK TITLES can be downloaded wirelessly into your ALEX.
The power to surf the  web will also not be a problem with the ALEX, - as it will reportedly using the same operating software as presently used by smartphones.


One is also potentially very exciting and ambitious here with the ALEX is there use of a DUAL SCREEN.
It is widely rumoured that appropriate AUDIO SNIPPETS, VIDEO CLIPS, AND RELEVANT WEBLINKS will come up underneath the chosen text. This could be potentiall really exciting in providing an "entry" to much wider learning opportunities.


The company has been in discussions with content providers for the past two years, and claim deals will be announced soon. The Alex reader will appear before the end of the year. No pricing information has been provided.

However - there might be a sting in the tail - UK based tech company PLASTIC LOGIC have just anounced its QUE PROREADER which will be realeased early next year.
PLASTIC LOGIC are promising all of the above SPEC - but also it will feature a FULLY SHATTERPROOF SCREEN - IDEAL FOR THE ROUGH AND TUMBLE OF THE SCHOOL SETTING



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