Netherlands-based tech company Polymer Vision recently unveiled a prototype for a new ebook called the Readius. It downloads and displays books and newspapers on a flexible, five-inch screen.
Consumers will be able to download books and newspapers onto it, while also being able to check their email, receive text-messages, make phone calls and keep a calendar.
All Media Play President Jeff Mullen told XBIZ he thought the invention was "very impressive," adding that it fit with what he called the current generation's interest in "take-out entertainment."
"If you can put it in your pocket easily, it's take-out entertainment," he said.
Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick had such an idea in mind while working on the Readius, which he hopes will be able to compete with devices like the Kindle and the mighty iPhone.
"The mobile industry is evolutionary," he said. "[Manufacturers] keep adding bits and pieces to make the Swiss Army knife of mobile phones. They compete over the number of megapixels of the camera, and [amount of] memory. But in reality, the form factor was stuck."
What's the "form factor"? Size and durability. McGoldrick said that the iPhone is about as big as consumers want a portable computer to be, which is why he and his team made the Readius flexible enough to fold up and fit into a pocket.
But even with more and more of the adult industry using the Internet and communications technologies to stay current, would a device as simple and bare-bones as a humble ebook find a market?
Possibly. Adult star Puma Swede told XBIZ she "lives online."
"That's all I do," she said. "If I'm not working, then it's text-messaging, AOL, MSN — it's stupid."
As for books and newspapers, Swede said she keeps up with her hometown papers and adult industry news online, but Mullen speculated that a durable ebook might help him on set.
"It would make getting scripts to my actors so much easier," he said. "When we're working on 'Not Bewitched XXX' and someone forgets the latest draft of the script, I'd love it if I could just send it to their pocket instantly."