after the uncovering of the sony drm fiasco by the blogosphere over the past few months, i had decided that i was boycotting all sony products until a full and satisfactory apology was made by the company. this not a stance i normally take since for the most part it is largely ineffective (sbc/disney, for example) and since, in todays multinational multibranded world of huge companies, it is almost impossible to keep up with all the subsidiaries that a company like sony owns. in fact, after ranting about the debacle to my friends i actually bought one of the 'xcp' encoded cd's without realizing it, because i did not check the back cover and because the cd was not on any of the lists of 'infected' cd's i had seen. but i get old fashioned, country stubbornness from my maternal and paternal sides, so minor quibbles like those were not going to stand in my way.

but then, i see this from from gizmodo's coverage of ces(international consumer electronics show, one of the premier venues for unveiling new useless gadgets that i want need).
this is the new e-paper, e-book reader from sony. doesn't sound exciting, but let me explain. e-paper is essentially a piece of paper that can be written to electronically, as the name implies. the practical upshot of this is that since it is basically (but not really) just a piece of paper, there is no need for a backlight. no backlight means longer battery life and less strain on the eyes since you are not starting at what is essentially a lightbulb for hours. no memory specifications were listed in this article, but even assuming it will end up somewhere in the range of 256mb to 1gb, this means that you could drop a few hundred paperbacks(or whatever docs you want, as the device supports a wide range of formats) onto this thing and read several of them comfortably before charging the battery. all of this is neat and cool and groovy, but the kicker for me is this right here: rss support with images. as gizmodo puts it, say hello to the digital morning paper.

to my friends who are worried that i am going to rush out and drop 4-5 bills on one of these as soon as they come out, i can only say, 'relax'. for starters, i am never an early adopter(i'm always more of an early majority, same article). i didn't get my ipod until generation 3 had been out for a while and the itunes music store had added a sufficient amount of music. i think the same thing will happen here. while i think that cheap, readily available e-paper is one of the more exciting innovations i've seen in a while, i have no doubt that the technology has many kinks to be worked out and i want to wait for the major publishers to be fully invested and on board with the new model before i commit.

found via: gizmodo