At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, wasn’t the eBook something we were supposed to see about six years ago? Really, back when we all started using dial-up modems to connect to the Internet to access the World Wide Web, weren’t the dropping costs and rising resolutions of LCDs supposed to make these disposable, cheap, common-place toys?
Whatever. They’re here, now. Earlier, we told you about Sony’s new eBook reader thing, with compatable service. Now Panasonic is thowing down a similar device, the Word Gear (we like things that are “gear”). The big difference between Sony’s eBook and Panasonic’s is that the Pany is full color at $10 less, at launch ($350 for the Sony, $340 for the Word Gear). If this were Street Fighter II, we’d yell, “Ready, Fight!” But it’s not, so we’ll see if people will even buy these things.
Oh, and the Pany has SD expansion, so with, like, those new 100GB SD cards coming in a few years, you can tote around your own Library of Alexandria, and if those damn Roman’s don’t get to it first.
Panasonic’s Word Gear color e-book reader [engadget]