iRex have declined to explain the exact nature of the delay, which leaves us unclear as to whether it’s a hardware problem, a content delivery issue or something else. The ebook reader was to bring together the combined efforts of the Verizon 3G network, Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore, Newspaper Direct and LibreDigital, and – perhaps most valuable of all – prized shelf-space in Best Buy.
For that, iRex were suggesting a price tag of $399.99, though with preorders not yet being taken and no listings – apart from one very short lived product page on the Best Buy site – it’s hard to tell whether they’ve stuck to that price. That product page, incidentally, suggested the DR800SG would in fact drop for $449, significantly higher than the $259 price of the Kindle or the nook.
While that would probably be enough for avid meeting attendees, Livescribe are looking to extend the usefulness of the Echo by including an app store. Accessed via the Livescribe Desktop app, with software synchronized over to the Echo via microUSB connection, it turns the Smartpen into a translation tool, a musical instrument or anything else developers can come up with via the free SDK. Unsurprisingly it’s the language apps that are most obviously useful; a dictionary app, for instance, shows definitions of your handwritten word on the OLED screen, while various translation apps can automatically convert your handwritten notes into other languages. Of course, developers are also coming up with more unusual software, so you can sketch out strings or staves and play your notepad as a guitar or piano, convert currency or even play games like Sudoku.
