We all love our gadgets, and now the competition for our e-reader dollars has upped another notch with Sony's new PRS-700, due in stores next month for about $400.

This new e-reader will feature a touchscreen, which is a big, consumer-friendly improvement over the Kindle, which uses confusingly-placed long buttons to scroll between pages and a strange keyboard -- I know, blasphemy coming from me considering I am a huge fan of the Kindle. But, having played around with one, it's definitely a GUI you have to get used to.

Also a strange feature to Sony's PRS is an LED backlight for the screen. What's odd is that the Kindle specifically didn't add a backlit screen based on market research that it would cause eye strain by reading off a computerized screen. Why Sony included this feature I don't know -- perhaps to allow a user to read in the dark, which is interesting -- but I still think Kindle may have the advantage if it is truly easier on the eye.

The touch-based screen may be its biggest advantage over the $380 Kindle, based on the boom of touchscreen interfaces made popular by the iPhone and a bunch of new smartphones currently hitting the market.

My money is still invested in the Kindle, I think. But it certainly speaks volumes of the e-reader market that we are even having the discussion. I'll always have my home hardcovers for display purposes and the occasional reading of my favorite screens, but as an environmentalist I'm psyched over the idea that people could buy their throw-away paperbacks/airport reading/trashy romance novels currently hiding with the dust bunnies under the bed on a device that saves paper. Definitely a cool development.

Have an e-reader and want to share your thoughts?

Labels: Amazon.com, e-reader, Kindle, Sony Bravia

Is there anything more beautiful than HDTV? The crisp colors and sharp picture clarity are so stunning that it actually makes me angry when shows are broadcast in normal digital formats. Even better than HDTV is my HDTV TiVo, but I digress...

Satellite company Dish Network, which has made some headlines lately after the FTC fined some of its telemarketing firms $95,000 for soliciting business off the FCC's do-not-call list, announced that is has successfully launched its EchoStar11 satellite and can now offer its customers the first 1080p HD signal.

What does that mean? Well, there are different HD display formats, and which one you see depends both on what your TV is capable of showing you and what signal you are being sent by your service provider. All HD signals are digital, and these digital signals come in various standards: 420p, 720p and 1080i are the most common. These standards refer to the resolution of the picture -- 720 has a better picture quality than 420 because it shows more pixels and has more lines of resolution. 1080 is, obviously, the highest resolution you can get right now.

The 'p' and 'i' following the number refer to 'progressive' and 'interlaced.' Interlaced is when the signal is scanned alternatively by your box -- with one image being replaced by the alternate image, but with both overlapping in the process -- and it is this feed that is most commonly used by channels looking to adopt HDTV, like CBS and NBC. The problems with it are that it takes up a huge amount of bandwidth to alternatively scan the signal and that the picture quality, while a very high resolution of HD, looks muddled and choppy when there is excessive movement. Anyone who has watched an HD broadcast of a football game knows what I'm talking about.

But the 'progressive' signal is different -- it reads the lines of pixels in sequential order (1,2,3,4...) and replaces them every 60th of a second so there is no interlacing of images at all. With a progressive signal, you are getting the clearest picture quality without the occasional muddling found with the interlaced method.

So, in all, the higher the resolution and whether the signal is read with an 'i' or a 'p' makes a big difference. 720p is a common HD signal, and most HDTV sets are also capable of 1080i. Sony makes a beautiful TV -- the Bravia, one of which sits in my living room -- that is set up to read the 1080p signal, most commonly seen in HD-DVD (may it rest in peace), Blu-Ray players and video game systems.

The tricky thing to remember is that if your TV doesn't have the capability of seeing something in the 1080i format, you won't be able to see it. And, if your TV is capable of seeing 1080p but the signal isn't being broadcast in that format, you won't be able to see it.

Anyway -- back to Dish Network. The company has had some hard times as customers have been switching to Comcast or opting for its big bad competitor DirectTV -- of which I am a customer. But, with this new satellite blasting down the 1080p signal to its loyalites, it has moved to the forefront of the market in terms of technology -- something any HDTV follower will view as a huge step up.

Labels: 1080i, 1080p, Blu-Ray, Dish Network, HD TV, HD-DVD, interlaced, progressive, Sony Bravia