Suggested retail price: $699
Available from: major electronics retailers, such as Best Buy and Circuit City. For more info: www.thomson-multimedia.com
Rocket eBook
The Rocket eBook is manufactured by NuvoMedia, a Mt. View, Calif.-based, wholly owned subsidiary of Gemstar-TV Guide International. The paperback-sized Rocket eBook holds about 3,200 pages at a time, while the Rocket eBook Pro holds about 15,200 pages. The device comes with a cradle that plugs into a serial port on the user's PC, from which e-titles can be downloaded, stored and read on the Rocket eBook. Digital rights management (DRM) solutions prevent the e-titles from being read on the user's host PC or Macinstosh, say officials. Device features include the ability to browse, search, annotate, highlight, bookmark, link and reference. There's voice-quality audio, and Rocketwriter allows users to create their own e-books. Each device comes pre-loaded with RocketEngine, an operating system designed for e-books. HTML, Word documents and ASCII text files can up uploaded to the Rocket eBook, but not PDF files. Specifications: