Last week Bookeen uploaded four videos on YouTube showing off their new Cybook Odyssey ebook reader. It is the first device to use a new high speed E Ink display technology called HSIS that was developed by Bookeen.

The first video I posted a couple of weeks ago showing the Cybook Odyssey in action didn’t demonstrate very much in regards to the speed of the device.

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Below is a video of Bookeen’s new Cybook Odyssey ebook reader that just went up for pre-order last week in Europe.

The Cybook Odyssey is the first ereader to use what Bookeen calls HSIS, or high speed ink system technology. That’s fancy talk for fast.

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Bookeen launched a new ereader this week called the Cybook Odyssey. It is the first ebook reader to use Bookeen’s new exclusive High Speed Ink System technology.

Bookeen is a France-based ebook reader company so naturally the Cybook Odyssey is available in Europe. It’s unclear if it will be heading west to North America anytime soon. The other Cybook ereaders sell in the US so it will probably make its way here eventually.

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Bookeen, a well-established European ereader company based in France, announced a new ebook reader this week, the Cybook Odyssey.

What makes the Cybook Odyssey unique is the fact that it is the first ereader equipped with Bookeen’s new High Speed Ink System technology, HSIS for short.

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Bookeen posted a YouTube video (below) on their blog today showing video playback on an E Ink Pearl display, the same type of screen the Kindle 3 and Sony Readers use.

Back at CES, Freescale demoed their latest ereader processor hooked up to a Pearl panel running at 8 frames per second.

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Bookeen’s latest ebook reader, the Cybook Orizon, is now available in the United States, Canada, Europe, and even Japan.

The Cybook Orizon is a 6-inch ebook reader with a SiPix touchscreen. The touchscreen was developed by Bookeen and looks to have some pretty cool features in the video. For one, you can pinch to increase and decrease font size.

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Just as Sony is in the midst of releasing their new Sony Readers with glare-free touchscreens, Bookeen is getting set to release a new ebook reader of their own that also has a glare-free touchscreen, the Cybook Orizon.

The Cybook Orizon is going to be a lot different than Sony’s ebook readers, however. Sony’s touchscreens use a Pearl display from E Ink, and utilize zForce touchscreen technology from a company called Neonode.

The Cybook’s screen comes a different company called SiPix. SiPix screens are similar to E Ink’s in that they are both based on the science of electrophoresis, but each uses different methods to achieve their displays. SiPix screens are newer and still a bit of a mystery, since no major ereader outside of Asia has used them yet.

As for the Cybook Orizon’s touchscreen, it incorporates “Caress touch ePaper” technology, according to what is effectively a press release on Bookeen’s Facebook page that reveals a lot of details about the new SiPix-equipped, multi-touch Cybook Orizon.

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Bookeen just posted some news and pictures of the Cybook Orizon over on their blog. There are two colors, one white and one black. And both appear to come with the case shown in the picture.

While most of the specs of the Cybook Orizon aren’t mentioned, there are some intriguing details. The Cybook Orizon has a touchscreen that is integrated into the screen itself, so there is no added layer. The screen supports 16 levels of greyscale and measures 6-inches diagonally with a resolution of 600 x 800 at 167 dpi.

The last bit of details are the dimensions. The Cybook Orizon measures 4.9” x 7.5” x 0.29” thick, and weighs 8.6 ounces. As for the rest of the device’s specs, we’ll have to wait and see.

It isn’t specifically mentioned on Bookeen’s blog post, but the Cybook Orizon is expected to use epaper displays from SiPix instead of the more common E Ink screens. SiPix is similar to E Ink, but the technology is slightly different. Other features not official include a micro SD card slot and built-in WiFi.

Here’s a look at the Cybook Orizon. This video is a few months old so the device is likely a prototype at this stage and my differ slightly from the actual model that is expected to release sometime in September.

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Yesterday Bookeen released new firmware updates for the Cybook Opus, which comes in several different colors now, and the Cybook Gen3.

As usual with Bookeen’s ereaders, there two versions of firmware available, one for Adobe DRM ebooks and one for Mobipocket DRM ebooks (Mobipocket doesn’t allow Adobe support in conjunction with Mobi on a single device).

The updates include some new features, bug fixes, and expanded language support. The updates can be downloaded from Bookeen’s website. The page requires an account and login to view, so for everyone else here’s the complete list of feature improvements and updates for the new software:

Latest features (common to versions 1.6 & 2.1)

Instant Reading
Cybook can be switched on/off in 1 second, keeping last read page open.
Note 1: works on all 400 MHz Cybooks (Gen3 v3, Gen3 – Gold Edition and all Opus’).
Note 2: in this mode, device is actually in deep-sleep mode (very low power consumption).

Shutdown
“Shutdown” option now available from “Advanced…” menu.
On 400 MHz Cybooks, one can press the power off button for 2 seconds.
On 200 MHz Cybooks, power off button behaves as usual.
Note: when shut down, Cybook will display a blank screen with a “switched-off” icon.

9 new user interface languages for a total of 23 languages
New: Danish, Croatian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Romanian, Turkish, Slovak, Chinese simplified & Chinese traditional.
User interface is now available in a total of 23 languages: Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Croatian, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Slovak, Slovenian, Chinese simplified & Chinese traditional.
Note: to be able to select a Chinese user interface, a Chinese font must be present in the “Fonts” directory.

Chinese/Japanese/Korean and other international content in “Library”
Support for Chinese, Japanese & Korean (CJK) file names and metadata.
Non Latin/Greek/Cyrillic text will automatically be rendered using another user supplied font (“Fonts” directory).
Note: works for all left-to-right languages.

Accelerometer shortcut (Cybook Opus)
Accelerometer can be enabled/disabled with “Menu” + “Enter” shortcut.

Side buttons (Cybook Opus)
Side buttons can be flipped (“Advanced…” menu), allowing one hand page turns with thumb on lower button (portrait modes only).

Improvement (Cybook Gen3 Gold Edition)
Lower power consumption in suspend modes.
Faster pagination mode.

USB activity (400MHz Cybooks only)
LED now blinks during USB transfers.

Bug fix (Cybook Opus)
Under some circumstances, accelerometer would stay in suspend mode and would not unlock until deactivated and reactivated.

Localization fixes
Corrections in Finnish & Spanish user interface.

Latest features (version 2.1 only)

Table of Contents (ePub/PDF/FB2)
Complete TOC now displayed, including potential multi-levels.

Improvement (TXT)
New heuristics to process text.
Specifically, Gutenberg Project texts will now be rendered better and faster.
Also, now accepts any text encoding.

Improvement (FB2)
Hyperlinks & metadata support.

Fix (bug in version 2.0)
ePub & PDF metadata handling corrected in “Library”.

Fix (bug in version 2.0)
Lower memory consumption with large font files.

Latest features (version 1.6 only)

Mobipocket dictionaries
Faster accesses in “Lookup” mode.
Note: dictionaries must be located at the root of folder “eBooks”.

Source: Bookeen’s Blog and Bookeen

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Here’s a look at the newest ebook reader from Bookeen, the Cybook Orizon. It has a 6-inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot, and a new type of epaper screen technology called SiPix, which I’ll be posting more about soon.

Unfortunately, I don’t speak Italian so the remainder of the device’s specs are a mystery at this point, and Bookeen doesn’t have the Cybook Orizon up on their website yet. Will update when more information presents itself.

Update: Bookeen posted on their blog on June 25th that the Cybook Orizon is expected to release in early September and that more details are coming soon.

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