Devoted to technical writing and technical writers

I first heard about E Ink a few weeks ago when NPR featured a story about it. It's a revolution in the technology of electronic readers, because it actually looks and feels like paper. Sony licensed this technology for their new product, The Reader.

In last week's Wall Street Journal, there's a story about it. Here's the relevant bit:

"From a hardware perspective, it's wonderful," Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director with JupiterResearch in New York, says of the Reader. "It's a question of whether the content restrictions are going to be so onerous and so difficult to use that consumers simply won't bother."

What is it with the executives who run Sony, and other companies with a similar mindset? Have they never heard of Apple's iPod and iTunes? Make it easy to get content (iTunes for $0.99) and people will buy the device. LOTS of people. Be overly restrictive about what you can download, and how long you can view it, and you might as well start looking for warehouse facilities for all the un-sold The Readers that you're going to have.

Come on, guys. This ain't rocket science. You've got a really cool product. Now make it easy to for the customer to get content, and you've got a guaranteed winner.