Just a few days after Spring Design mentioned that it was discontinuing the current generation of Alex dual-screened e-book reader, TechCrunch reports that Spring Design has settled its lawsuit with Barnes & Noble over the Nook’s design similarities to the Alex. And it sounds like B&N pretty much got its way. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Spring Design will grant B&N a “non-exclusive, paid-up royalty free license” for the entire portfolio of the company’s patents and patent applications. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The suit was dismissed with prejudice,...

Nathan at The eBook Reader Blog reports learning that manufacturer Spring Design is phasing out its dual-screened Alex e-book reader. Nathan had noticed that the e-book reader was listed as out of stock on the Spring Design website, and that its Twitter and Facebook accounts had not been updated since November. When he emailed the company, he received this response: Thank you for your interest in Alex. Spring Design is phasing out the current Alex Reader within the next 6 months. We have not announced the product change and introduce any new product yet. ...

We first covered the lawsuit by Spring Design, maker of the dual-screened Alex e-reader, against Barnes & Noble back in November, 2009. Spring Design claimed that it had designed the Alex in 2006 and worked with Barnes & Noble since early 2009, and that B&N took advantage of this cooperation to copy features of the Alex’s design (notably, the addition of a color LCD panel to a greyscale e-ink panel) in the Nook. Now Reuters reports that Barnes & Noble has failed to convince a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge cited a “significant factual dispute” over whether...

The always excellent Carly Z has a clever article on Gear Diary today: For this week’s “State of the eBook” I thought we should look at potential winners and losers in the ebook world. With competition and price wars getting fiercer, there’s a few major battles shaping up that may change the competitive landscape. One is (at this point) a slam dunk, while the others are subject to many variables. Without further ado, here are the matchups! Borders vs B&N B&N vs Amazon Amazon vs B&N and Spring Design Spring Design vs B&N Amazon, B&N, Spring Design and Borders vs the iPad If you want to see...

Amazon has been granted a 2006 patent on a device which has a dual screen LCD/electronic ink display. The relevant part of the patent is as follows: A handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; an electronic paper display disposed in the housing and having a first surface area; and a liquid crystal display (LCD) disposed in the housing proximate the electronic paper display, the LCD having a second surface area that is smaller than the first surface area of the electronic paper display. This certainly looks as if it would cover both the Nook and the Spring Design units. It...

The Reading Edge Podcast, by Len Edgerly, does a video of the Ale ereader. In the video the Nook is running the new 1.3 operating software: ...

From a Spring Design press release: Grammata,a Spanish company specializing in the design, content and sale of eReaders and Spring Design announced that Grammata will open an online ebookstore and sell the Alex eReader in Spain online and in retail stores starting July 2010 starting with 1000 titles. Grammata is currently consolidating digital books from various Spanish publishers and expects to offer 15,000 to 45,000 Spanish language eBooks for sale and selected copyright-free classics at no cost through its online store at www.grammata.es. ... Grammata will offer the Alex worldwide and hopes to address all Spanish speaking customers interested in getting Spanish...

According Spring Design the Alex is supposed to ship on April 14th, but the site still has it listed for pre-order. I didn't know who the backers of Spring Design were, but according to a Business Week article they are pretty high class. The article says they include co-founder Jack Yuan, who had co-founded SanDisk and Albert Teng, who was a general manager at Intel. The article also lists Google and Adobe as partners, but gives no details....

InformationWeek has a look at the current frontrunners in the e-book device market, listing statistics and giving a rundown of the pros and cons of each device. Covered devices include the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Plastic Logic Que, Skiff Reader, Sony Reader, Spring Design Alex, and Apple iPad. The article goes into a fair amount of detail about each device’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a great resource for people just considering getting into e-book devices....

The machine gets 3.5 out of 5 stars and the reviewer seems to like it a lot. One thing that interested me is that he says that Spring Design is working ewith 40 developers to create or modify apps for the device and a store should be available in June. He also includes a link to a Laptop Blog post on How to find Android Apps for your tablet, ereader or other large screen device. All in all the review finds the machine a good experience, but questions whether its high price is worth it. The Alex has...

According to CrunchGear, the Alex Reader is taking a different path than some of its competitors. Their goal is is to work with publishing houses and periodicals to create a branded webstore and an unique GIU for each device. That way a newspaper or publisher could offer "their own" device at a subsidized price. In addition they are looking at getting universities to develop university-branded Alexes. With all the "me too" readers out there now it's refreshing to see someone thinking in larger terms. It does mean, though, that I'll hold off buying one until I see...

Since the JooJoo has been delayed, some people who pre-ordered have requested refunds of their purchase. Gizmodo reports that one such customer went back and forth with Fusion Garage over several days, and after PayPal was unable to process the refund, finally Fusion Garage asked for the customer’s bank account information to refund it directly. The customer was understandably suspicious. (Fusion Garage’s response is also included.) Another delayed e-book device, the Spring Design Alex, began taking pre-orders yesterday for $399, according to CrunchGear. The Alex somewhat resembles the Nook in form factor, save that the LCD screen is...