Getting creative to kill Kindle
Amazon may be in for even more Kindle-killing competition, as both Creative and Marvell announced that they too will be jumping on the e-book reader bandwagon.
The news comes just a fortnight after US book dealer Barnes and Noble announced its "Nook" book reader and days after tire-maker (yes, you read that right) Bridgesone's bizarre announcement it also planned to re-invent the wheel by putting out its own e-reading machine.
Creative's news emerged from a company summit in Singapore, where the firm's vice president of strategic business, Willie Png, belittled the Kindle as "just another electronic device which displays books in text."
According to Png, Creative's offering - currently dubbed "MediaBook" - will be chapters ahead of Amazon's offering, as it will offer "videos, pictures, text, and services in one device that supports a media-rich experience."
To prove the product wasn't just a pipe dream, the MediaBook was put on display for all to see, with reports from Singapore indicating the device has the standard bells and whistles like a touch screen, text-to-speech functionality, Internet connectivity and a handy SD card slot to boost capacity for bookworms. It will also purportedly run on Creative's Zii System-on-Chip (SoC) technology.
The firm is said to be in talks with around 10 international and local Singaporean publishers to provide content for the MediaBook, but as of yet there has been no word on any availability or pricing.
