The Pure may be the first Windows Mobile 6.5 device that brings mass appeal to what at best is a finicky touch screen market. To qualify that I will simply just say that I have been sorely disappointed with previous Windows Mobile touch screen devices on the market. To be fare I didn’t know I was disappointed until I picked up an iPhone last year; yes I was late to the iParty. Until then I was a blissfully happy schmuck with my HTC Fuze. What the iPhone had that made it superior was its capacitive touch screen; the HTC had a traditional resistive touch.

The Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition are available immediately, and the Reader Daily Edition will be available this December in time for the holidays at SonyStyle stores and SonyStyle.com.

The Reader Daily Edition gives consumers wireless access via AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband network to Sony’s eBook store from just about anywhere in the U.S.  Book lovers will be able to browse, purchase and download books as well as select newspapers and magazines when and where they want. There are no monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity and users still have the option to side load personal documents or content from other compatible sites via USB.

The Reader Pocket Edition sports a five-inch electronic paper display packaged in a stylish chassis and is available in a variety of colors, including navy blue, rose and silver. The Reader Pocket Edition fits into a purse or jacket pocket. The device can store about 350 standard eBooks and provides up to two weeks on a single battery charge.

The Reader Touch Edition features a menu-driven six-inch touch screen panel that enables navigation, page turning, highlighting and note taking with the swipe of a finger or by using the included stylus pen. Users can take handwritten notes with the stylus pen or type with the virtual keyboard. All notes can be exported and printed out for easy reference. The Reader Touch Edition includes an onboard Oxford American English Dictionary that allows you to look up a word by simply tapping on it. The Touch Edition also offers five adjustable font sizes, as well as expansion slots for both Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD card. It comes in red, black or silver and will retail for about $299.

Some of the early dedicated Media PCs came with remotes and some laptops still do, but since virtually every PC sold these days comes with a version of Vista that includes Media Center, there are way more media-capable PCs out there and not many remotes among them.

Adesso, who makes a variety of inexpensive but good quality input devices has stepped up to with the Vista Remote to provide an inexpensive solution.

The Ultra Portable Netbook SlipSuit from Mobile Edge stands out from the crowd.  First off, it is still a soft, durable, and water-resistant neoprene sleeve, but with a few nice extra like a zippered pouch on the outside for your mobile phone, MP3 player, or power supply.  The zippers, on the outside pouch and main compartment, are nylon and each zipper even has a nice rubber tabbed, corded zipper-pull which is easy and comfortable to use.

On the final day at GDC, the show continues with lots of activity in the Career Fair.  With the continuing bad economy and poor job outlook, there were many people visiting all the exhibiting companies with resumes and demo reels in hand.  While there were many companies looking for new talent, then number of openings appears to be small.

Many of the final lectures and sessions were very full as the conference attendees eagerly rush to take in a final chance to learn from the many experienced speakers before the close of the show.  As the show ended, hundreds gathered in the main lobby of the convention center reluctant to see this year’s GDC end.

Some things that caught our attention on Friday were:

The second day for the main part of the show opened today with the Career Fair and Expo Hall as well as more session for Art, Programming, Design, Production, etc.

Some things that caught our attention on Thursday were:

The main part of the show opened today with the Career Fair and Expo Hall as well as more session for Art, Programming, Design, Production, etc.
Also featured today was a Keynote Address from Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, who spoke about how Nintendo & Independent Developers can both be successful in the same market and how Nintendo’s Star Designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, approaches design and development.

Some things that caught our attention on Wednesday were:

We will be roaming the show to bring you tidbits of news that will affect the technology and games you will be playing soon.  Many of the news stories we will bring you will become product reviews in the futures as new products announced at GDC reach your local retail store.

The first two days of GDC are specialized summits including Outsourcing and Mobile.  These summits allow the attendees to get focused instruction on specific areas of the game industry.

Some things that caught our attention today were:

Quote:

Onyx has product listings on Alibaba. They have 10 different case designs ready to manufacture. They range from nice but bland to a couple very pretty ones.

I also just got an email from Onyx telling me that we had incorrect information yesterday. The default CPU speed is 532MHz, and the BOOX does support EPUB. (I don’t know about you, but this makes the device even more tempting.) There is also a Youtube video.

You gotta see the video. It shows how to use the touch screen to use the menu, write and erase notes, and swipe to turn the page. It also shows the web browser.

Join the discussion over at MobileRead: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40424