A wave of ARM based eBook Readers appeared at CES 2010 (International Consumer Electronics Show) this month, ready to shape the portable reading market this year - providing more features, content and flexibility for the avid magazine reader and bookworm than ever before.

E-books make up a small section of book sales, but their popularity is growing rapidly. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas, 2.2 million eReaders were shipped to stores in 2009, nearly four times as many as the year before. This year, the Association expects 5 million will be shipped. This is the first year that CES has dedicated a section of the event to ebooks. The array of ARM powered e-book readers on show undoubtedly underlines that this is set to be a 'hot' market during 2010. IQ Online takes a look at some of the devices on show:

The ARM powered Amazon Kindle DX, boasting a  9.7” eink electronic paper display came with its strapline – “wireless reading just got bigger” has attracted much attention. 

The Kindle DX is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle’s 6 inch and at just a third of an inch thick is thinner than most magazines! It incorporates 3.3 GB of memory, and supports landscape reading simply by rotating the device. It has been designed to read content ranging from books,blogs magazines and newspapers to charts, maps and tables. It provides native support for pdfs using Adobe Reader Mobile technology and can store 3,500 books and documents. The Kindle online store stocks over 300,000 English language titles together with more than 100 newspapers and magazines.

Kindle DX utilizes the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot, explained Amazon.  Kindle DX users will be able to take their personal and professional documents with them around the globe. They can  also wirelessly receive personal and professional documents, saving on time seeking out a printer or fax machine. Kindle has built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary.

The Kindle DX will automatically Syncs with Kindle and Kindle-compatible devices - Amazon’s Whispersync technology automatically syncs customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle-compatible devices including Kindle for PC and Kindle for iPhone.

The Amazon Kindle DX is scheduled to ship this month.

Some companies are trying to distinguish themselves from the pack in this marketplace with dual screens. Spring Design, a Taiwanese start up, took the wraps off the ARM powered Alex, featuring Duet Navigator dual screen interaction technology, which it believes will enable readers to transcend the printed page to access an interactive multi-media reading experience.

Spring Design claims that the Alex is the only dual-screen Google-Android based eReader to fully integrate web browsing and reading. The Duet Navigator technology enables Alex users to search the Internet on the 3.5 inch color browser LCD screen while displaying books, magazines, newspapers and personal documents on its paper-like 6 inch EPD screen.

The Alex browser and virtual keyboard provides access to email and a calculator and will accommodate a growing number of programs from the Google Android community, Spring Design said. Alex supports WiFi, 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM network connections.

Spring Design designed the Alex as an open systems device with the ability to download any book or document that conforms to the Adobe ePUB/PDF/DRM standard or .txt or HTML format. Alex’s fully functional browser also enables users to surf the Internet to access text, music, video, and images to enrich their reading experience, or annotate text with comments, multimedia or user-selected hyperlinks to other web sites and resources found online or stored by the user on the Alex eReader removable microSD card.

Spring Design and Borders Group have announced an agreement in principle to feature the upcoming Borders eBook store powered by Kobo on the Alex eReader later this year.

The Spring Design Alex is scheduled to ship at the end of February 2010.

EnTourage Systems are also highlighting the advantage of a dual screen. It was demonstrating the ARM powered eDGe, a 9.7-inch touch-screen color display, wedded via a rotating hinge to a similar size black-and-white screen.

The eDGe claims to be the first dualbook, that combing the functionalities of an e-reader, tablet netbook, note pad and audio/video player and recorder into one WiFi-enabled device.

The left side  of the eDGe includes a 9.7” diagonal e-paper display, where users can read e-books in PDF and EPUB format, draw diagrams and take notes. The right side of the product is a 10.1” diagonal LCD screen for easy Web surfing, email and instant message composition and sending and video watching. This screen also includes a virtual keyboard.

EnTourage said the two screens have been designed to work together to make content more interactive, such as pulling up pages and images from the e-paper screen in color on the LCD, opening up video links from textbooks or dragging and dropping terms and names from the e-book into a Web browser.

enTourage Systems confirmed that is building its own e-book store, which has access to over 200,000 trade books and more than one million free public domain books digitized by Google, as well as a number of magazines, newspapers and periodicals. EnTourage has partnered with with McGraw Hill and John Wiley & Sons on student text books and with Oxford University Press for course work available for access by professors.

The enTourage eDGe includes a built-in noise-cancelling microphone and 1.3 Mega Pixel camera to easily capture audio and video content.

The EnTourage eDGe is slated to ship in February 2010.

At the top end of the price scale comes the ARM powered QUE from Plastic Logic, which the company said has been designed to give users “the benefits of paper without the drawbacks”.

Plastic Logic has been giving peek previews of an eReader since 2007, but at CES this year it was ready to take the final covers of its QUE, created with business professionals in mind and announce a new market category, the so called proReader.

The QUE incorporates an 8.5 x 11 inch shatterproof plastic touchscreen display and intuitive user interface. At one third of an inch thick the QUE is around the size of a pad of paper. The patented plastic display technology in QUE has been ten years in development. Combined with E Ink Vizplex technology, this produces a reading experience that looks and reads just like paper, even in direct sunlight, according to the company.
 
Designed through a collaboration between Plastic Logic and IDEO, the QUE design was inspired by black and white print whilst underlining the optical qualities of plastic. The QUE truVue standard, enabled by the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, provides the familiar look and feel of print publications, the company said.

QUE operates entirely by intuitive touch interface, using gestures such as a swipe movement to move from one page to another in a document. It also incorporates a virtual keyboard.

In addition to reading book, magazines and periodicals, QUE supports reading and annotating document formats business users require including PDF files and Microsoft Office, ePub documents. With the QUE software, users can transfer content from a PC, Mac computer or BlackBerry smartphone to the QUE device.

QUE users will be able to connect to content on-the-go via the QUE Store, and to search, purchase and download wirelessly via Wi-Fi and AT&T’s 3G network.

The QUE proReader is expected to start shipping in mid April 2010. QUE will be available through the Barnes & Noble stores and on its website. Plastic Logic will sell a 4GB model with Wi-Fi and an 11.6-inch display and a version with double the memory and 3G in addition to Wi-Fi. 

Finally we have the ARM powered Skiff Reader, from the Hearst Corporation stable, which was previewed by Skiff and Sprint at CES.
The Skiff, like the QUE has an intuitive touchscreen. The Skiff has a 11.5 inch screen, measured diagonally, and a resolution of 1200 x 1600 pixels (UXGA). 

Skiff said the Skiff Reader is the first consumer product to feature the next-generation of e-paper display – one based on a thin, flexible sheet of stainless-steel foil to make it highly durable.  Skiff has worked closely with LG Display to optimize and implement this non-glass display.

Skiff has signed a multi-year agreement with Sprint to provide 3G connectivity for Skiff’s e-reading devices in the United States. In addition to 3G, the Skiff Reader will also support wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi.

Skiff LLC announced plans for a consumer e-reading platform at the back end of 2009 that will deliver content experiences to dedicated e-readers, as well as multipurpose devices such as smartphones and netbooks. Skiff, formerly known as FirstPaper, specializes in the delivery and presentation of newspaper and magazine content, as opposed to other platforms that focus primarily on e-books and plain text. The Skiff service and digital store will feature a large selection of newspapers, magazines, books and other content from multiple publishers, optimized for wireless delivery to devices and delivery via the Web.

The first Skiff is expected to be delivered this year.

With companies setting up their stalls for the e-book revolution, the electronic book revolution looks like it is well underway and ARM is undoubtedly playing a major role in powering pioneering devices.