Some points from reports on the new Sony readers

This is an update to the blog entry made last night.  Here are some points made by some of the other online reports on the new Sony models.

Businessweek offers three videos:
  1. a peek (literally) at the 7" Daily Edition in a PR interview
  2. A look at the $200 Pocket Edition
  3. A look at the $300 Touch Edition (stylus response on highlighting is slow)

USA Today's reporter, David Lieberman, actually does note the difference in wireless:

" Users can't directly access websites, the way they can on the Kindle. Another difference: The Sony Reader won't translate text into speech. '

AP notes, at NPR, that re the ePub rights-protection [via Adobe Digital Edition, readable by e-reader with that rights-license]:

The only copy-protected books the Kindle can display are from Amazon's store, and the only devices the store supports are the Kindle, the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

  Sony, on the other hand, has committed to an open e-book standard, meaning its Readers can show copy-protected books from a variety of stores, and the books can be moved to and read on a variety of devices, including cell phones [that have a license for the Adobe Digital Edition rights-protection on those books].
...
  The bookseller will likely have to pay AT&T for the wireless access, out of money it charges for the books, similar to the way Amazon pays Sprint.  Sony's multi-store strategy makes that challenging.  The Daily Edition will initially have wireless access only to Sony's e-book store, [president of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division] Haber said.

Media Memo's Peter Kafka reports:

" Sony wouldn’t let reporters handle the Daily, and didn’t put it through its paces, either.  So hard to get a sense of much here... "

ITProPortal's Desire Athow reports:

' A spokesperson for Sony told Stuff.tv that a UK launch of the device [Daily Edition] is at least one year away. The company would need to sort out distribution rights and a revenue share scheme with one network and the various other partners. '

Wired's Priya Ganapati reports:

" Sony Reader customers can use the company’s Library Finder software and check out e-books with a valid library card. Users will have to download the books to a PC first and then transfer them to the Reader. The e-books will expire at the end of the 21-day lending period. "