By Daimaou - G-A.G
Sharp is also working on e-Books tech
Sure, today’s conference is slightly, well, definitively disappointing for the geek in us, and when we received an invitation from Sharp to talk about e-Books we were expecting to see Sharp’s answer to Apple, with an iPad killer, nope nothing of such today, so move along boys, since Sharp new big e-Book thingy is their latest e-Book platform and e-Book format called here XMDF or ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format. Sure XMDF is not something that Sharp came with all alone and but let’s say that Sharp is here developing its own format based on XMDF. Sharp in fact start to work actively on this technology since 2009, and today’s press conference is the result of this work.
Already used in over 70 Million terminals, mainly on mobile phones, XMDF became Japanese favorite technology for publish e-Books, and today’s Sharp Next Gen XMDF promise much more than what we are use to see here.
Simply put, the point here is to be capable to offer e-Books, every kind of e-Books like simple stuff you can find on a Kindle to a fully featured book experience with Video or Audio, style effects and so on not only to phones, iPad like devices, but also to a wider range of products including TVs, Set Top Box, Gaming devices either mobile or not. So basically you cloud read your regular Newspaper that will not only embedded text or picture, but also On Demand video or audio files, as well as live TV. This technology is of course not only available for e-Book like “books” but can also be applied and added to website to further enhanced user experience.
Also this technology is also a major step forward to publisher, since Sharp worked hard to simplified the distribution and collection of data.
Now the good news is that Sharp will actively work on the US market with for example Verizon who will later proposer not only Sharp e-Book platform but also Sharp e-Book readers, than can be see here as prototypes. Sharp is planning later this year another press conference focusing on these 2 new e-Book readers with a 5.5″ model and 10.8″… So stay tune!
Sharp’s next-generation XMDF is an advanced version of the current XMDF format. The current XMDF format has been commercialized in 2001 and is used in e-book contents including Japanese novels and manga comics. The next-generation XMDF enables easy viewing of digital contents including video and audio, and allows automatic adjustment of the layout to match and meet publishers’ needs. With this digital platform, Sharp plans to enhance users’ e-book lifestyle with more sophisticated user interface technology, and at the same time will contribute to expand the e-book market. XMDF allows users to browse the same content on multiple terminals including smart phones, PCs and TVs and also streamlines publisher’s e-book contents production.
Sharp intends to innovate e-book lifestyles and to contribute in the creation of a new market for e-books.
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"the point here is to be capable to offer e-Books, every kind of e-Books like simple stuff you can find on a Kindle to a fully featured book experience with Video or Audio, style effects and so on not only to phones, iPad like devices, but also to a wider range of products including TVs, Set Top Box, Gaming devices either mobile or not."
Wouldn't HTML 5 do it? Do we need *another* file format, just to do the very same thing? Hum... oh, wait! That one will come out and play... DRM! No?
Why is everyont STILL farting around with the dinky little formats? If you want to Replace the printed book, then you have to have a size that CAN..... Like letter size screen(or the european/asian equivalent) and two page wide as if you're seeing BOTH right and left pages. Make it FULL color so all the color intensive books (i.e. art books, how to's, DIY, encyclopedia type) can be published in the format. The Video and audio inclusions are a great start, but how many folks want to see a video on their phone (really??) even if it's "cool" to see it on the phone, ventually you'll want to see it in a comfortable format size. SPECIALLY if a video demo's something, or detail is needed.
So, 8.5 x 11 or bigger
TWO page clamshell
Full color
video and audio that doesn't "buffer" and skip
Wifi or better
web browser.
Make it a true Portable library, not just the "I can get by with this" reader.