India Has its Own eBook Reader

EC Media has launched "Wink", which they claim as "India's first e-book reader".

We have to recognise Indian is not only the powerhouse of digital publishing today and itself is starting to embrace its output. We may think of India as third world but in many ways it is now casting that aside and generating wealth which EC Media is trying to capture through the Wink which can be picked up from a local Croma, a major Indian electronics retail chain. They claim over 200,000 titles as well as newspapers, magazines and journals. The Wink is specially designed for the Indians as it can support content in more than 15 Indian languages and They claim that they will soon support all Indian languages on the Wink. Books will generally sell for 50 to 75% of the cost of a paperback.

The Wink XTS model will have a 6” eInk screen, 2GB memory and has an SD expansion card slot, a miniUSB port lie, has a QWERTY keyboard and supports MP3. The XTS model on display supports Wi-Fi and will cost some $230, while the X3G model supports Wi-Fi and 3G and will cost some $320.

The point is that both China, where most ebooks are made and India where the west does its digitisation, have the ability to do it themselves. Maybe we should look at the history other electronics and manufacturing industries, such as cars and where the power now lies. Books may not be different.