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$249 Ditto Book E Ink reader aimed at niche markets but also available to consumers
July 7, 2009 | 11:11 am
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By David Rothman
The newest E Ink e-reader is the Ditto Book, which can read nonDRMed PDF and TXT. It’s aimed at niche markets, although consumers can buy directly for $249.
Contrary to an erroneous report in Publishers Weekly, the Ditto Book cannot read ePub.
A Ditto Book business developer named Hentry Jebasingam tells me the company is aiming for ePub by the end of the year or early next. HTML and other formats will also be coming. According to Jebasingam the goal is to read many formats.
Other info:
–Six-inch black-and-white screen, four-level gray scale, 600-by-800 pixels.
–“Zooming feature allows better readability.”
–Up to 4GB of expandable storage. 2GB is included.
–Embedded Linux OS.
–USB connection.
–No wireless for now, alas, unlike the $359 Amazon Kindle. WiFi may be added in the future.
–MP3.
Ditto Book, a branch of, Macrotron Systems, a manufacturer of peripherals, is targeting corporations, nonprofits and other markets—this could be one way for publishers to distribute whole collections. Minimum order for customization is 250 units, with logos and customized colors and perhaps customized screen messages among the options. Consumers, however, as noted, can place orders for single units (for delivery later this summer).
(Revised at about 1:50 p.m.)
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Comments:
The Ditto Book seems to have the same feature list as the Foxit eSlick. If it is based on the eSlick, it is for DRM-free PDFs only.
In the universe of ebooks there are so few available on EPUB, as opposed to other formats, that EPUB is pretty much irrelevant at the current state of the market. I can’t get excited about it.
Alan and Paul…
A. Just off the line with the company. No, the Ditto Book can’t read DRMed PDF, and for now it can’t read ePub of any kind. That’s on the way, however.
P. Heck, Sony is pushing ePub in the U.K., and it’s also winning followers in Germany. The Sony Reader can read nonDRMed ePub, not just the Adobe DRMed variety.
Meanwhile eReader software will soon be able to read ePub, and as I recall, eReader will be adding its own DRM wrapper to ePub, so it can offer bestsellers in that format from publishers who are still insisting on DRM (I’ll blame writers as well).
Remember, eReader is a branch of Barnes and Noble these days. Meanwhile ePub is a standard exchange format for publishers and distributors.
Bottom line: ePub is anytihng but irrelevant. If you want to own your e-books for real, the best format is nonDRMed ePub.
Thanks,
David
P.S. (added later): ePub is also the native format of Stanza, with well over a million downloads to iPhones and iPod Tounches. Amazon owns Stanza now. But I wonder if the user base won’t revolt if ePub is taken away. Besides, ePub could be baked too heavily into Stanza. Not sure if Amazon wants to kill it off there. But won’t have an easy time doing so.