OLED screens, Blu-ray players and brain control

15.04.2009

A couple of e-document readers are on their way from Japan's Brother and Fujitsu but both won't be challenging popular consumer products like Amazon's Kindle or the Sony Reader. The Brother SV-100B is designed for commercial and industrial users, has a 10-inch screen and comes with security features such as a four-digit PIN code to hamper unauthorized access and AES 128-bit encryption on stored data. Documents are stored in a proprietary format and can be transferred to the reader via SD memory card, Bluetooth or USB from a Windows PC application. Fujitsu's Flepia has been available before but only to corporate users. That changes with its availability through Fujitsu's Web site. Features include a color screen, which is still rare on e-document readers, built-in WiFi, Bluetooth and Windows CE. Both are likely to be niche products and are priced so with the Brother reader costing ¥140,000 (US$1,460) and the Fujitsu device at ¥99,750 (US$1,000).