Media monsters float co-op ebook 'storefront'
The Tech
The technology for something shown by sports illustrated isn't here by a long run.
Firstly you need to use a normal TFT-screen with an active backlight to do something like that, it doesn't only use large amount of energy but also is harder to read, don't give a book/paper like experience. Plus the hardware too pull it off would cost a huge mount compared to just subscribe to the magazine in paper form. It would never be something successful, the hardware much be as powerful as your full size laptop any way. Why not use that if you want the web-experience? Why buy several ~600 dollar devices? Isn't enough with cell phone, laptop and maybe a desktop or HTPC computer? Todays ebook readers are essentially the same parts as a cell phone plus a chip to use the EPD display. I.e. an ARM-processor like straight from a cell phone, a baseband/modem with an embedded ARM, a stripped down operating system and a li-ion/polymer battery. Why buy an ebook reader today then? Because it isn't the same as all the rest of the devices! It doesn't cost 600 dollars! It doesn't have a bright backlit display. If you take that away there will be zero mainstream interest. Who would want a reading device that dies after less then two hours of use?
Hell even today the low power devices becomes useless because of the high requirement for flash-content. Even though many low power devices have hardware H264 bitstream decoding and more Adobe don't utilize it. Why would an iTablet or something that sport illustrated - illustrated be any differently? Such devices much be able to use the normal internet-websites too. Hell even an Mac Pro has troubles with Adobe Flash. Even though you could write all the software to do all that, on low power hardware, if you can't even use it to view normal flash videos it feels awful and useless. Apple couldn't marry all this tech, and fiction, neither can any one else. And just look at Nokia N900, the surfpad or MID became a cell phone when technology allowed. Why wouldn't such a proposed product either move to be a full powered notebook or a normal netbook, instead of an e-reader? There's no middle ground here. A video playing device that don't fit in your pocket will want to become as much "real" computer as possible. A device that fits in your pocket will want to become a cell phone. A real ebook-reader will want the be like real paper, thus will have problem with videos and high resolution images. Batteries, hardware and screen tech limits.
