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Monday, April 17, 2006

A New Gadget for a Patent Attorney?

Under normal circumstances I would be very reluctant to use this blog for advertising any sort of a new gadget. But in this case I am tempted to allow an exception.

I appreciate to scan file wrappers with a document scanner equipped with some ADF (Automated Document Feeder) and like to work henceforth with resulting .TIFF of .PDF image files on my computer. This works well if I am at my desk or, at least, carrying my notebook computer with me. It would be quite nice to have a lightweight eBook reader with which I can carry tons of scanned papers with me for convenient reading at any time whenever I want to do so. But up to now PDAs and eBook readers appear not to be so well-suited for such purposes.

In 2004, Sony had showed up with a cool gadget called

Sony Librie with electronic paper, i.e. some sort of passive but ultra-sharp display device. However, this product was a commercial disaster because of the software running on it provided a very rigid and mandatory DRM schema which rendered the attractive hardware rather useless for many legitimate purposes. Indeed, very few people really need such sort of closed proprietary device ignoring commonly accepted standards. Moreover, as far as I know, it was for sale only on the Japanese market anyway. It never reached Europe.

Now

Spiegel Online [In German, sorry] runs a story saying that

iRex Technologies have announced the

iLiad device:

"[...] Digital written content can now be read as easily and conveniently as the printed word on paper. The iRex Technologies E-reader provides true reading comfort, flexibility and versatility. It can be read outdoors, in sunshine or shadow. As well as reading you can also write comments, mark or underline sections, for a true two-way paper experience. And all of this at the lowest power consumption.

Digital written content is now readable on a truly portable, consumer friendly device. Designed for intuitive ease of use, the iRex Technologies E-reader, uses wireless Internet connectivity, PC connection or flash memory to deliver content. This means you can now always have ALL the reading material you want with you at all times. To read wherever you want to read it. Making the iRex Technologies E-reader suitable for multiple professional and leisure uses. Multi format support enables virtually any operating system to be used. [...]"

If it is really true what is said about that device the software running on it will be based on some sort of Linux, capable to deal with usual open or semi-open formats like PDF or MP3. The device exhibits, via USB, an interface like a memory stick and, hence, can easily be loaded with contents files originating from MS-Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux computers. I strongly hope that it will also be possible to read pulti-page .TIFF files on that device.

It is not yet available for sale but may be so in second half of April 2006, says the

iRex Website. The price is unknown. Let's wait and see.

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