News

Google launches first e-reader

12.07.11 | Bookseller Staff

Google has teamed up with iriver to launch the first e-reader to be integrated with the Google e-books platform.

The iriver Story HD will go on sale at Target on Sunday (17th July) priced $139.99, the same r.r.p. as the Kindle.

The device will have wi-fi and a six-inch e-Ink screen with a QWERTY keyboard. It will allow "over-the-air access to hundreds of thousands of Google e-books for sale and more than 3 million for free," with users able to store e-books in the cloud, according to Pratip Banerji, Google Books product manager.

On the Google Books blog, Banjeri wrote: "We built the Google e-books platform to be open to all publishers, retailers and manufacturers. Manufacturers like iriver can use Google Books APIs and services to connect their devices to the full Google e-books catalogue for out-of-the-box access to a complete e-bookstore.

"You can also store your personal e-books library in the cloud—picking up where you left off in any e-book you're reading as you move from laptop to smartphone to e-reader to tablet."

Google E-books launched in December 2010.

 

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By NBarreto

It isn't actually a Google branded ereader. It is build by iriver and carries no Google branding at all. What it does is use the Google Books API to allow users to purchase books from Google Books directly from the device. The headline is rather misleading as it stands.

The article in the link makes that pretty clear - this is just the first device to use this API. They want many other manufacturers to use it too.

On the subject of the device itself, I think it looks hideous. And it doesn't have any buttons for turning the page on the sides - only a four-direction button in the middle. Seems like it would be a pain to use...

Tue, 12/07/2011 - 09:54
By mark

I think the iriver doesn't look hideous, maybe just not as reader-friendly as the Kindle. Anyway, I think if this team-up ever goes south, only iriver will suffer. Amazon with its Kindle seems to be a clear winner at this point in time, regardless of Google's cloud power. Google, in keeping its platform open, might be the only one to benefit here, and I hope I'm mistaken in thinking that.

Tue, 12/07/2011 - 15:01
By jcwill

I commend Google on keeping the platform open. More choices is always a good thing. The market (readers) will make the final decision but at least they won't get left with a lot of unreadable spaghetti code instead of the books they paid for if the experiment does not work out!

Tue, 12/07/2011 - 16:32
By University Press Publisher

This is a positive development for academic readers. Amazon's commercial agreements with publishers are more suitable for low cost trade books rather than more specialised scholarly works and so they have relatively poor coverage of academic publishers compared to Google. I expect with this development and the cloud based model Google will take the lead quite quickly in academic book sales.

Wed, 13/07/2011 - 10:02
By inflatu

Google introduces Currents: magazine-like news reader for Android and iOS Video | Way to view Websites in a bombastic Way

Read The full Article and Watch VIDEO : inflatu

Thu, 08/12/2011 - 23:18

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