Bookeen is French company dealing with eBooks and Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...

.

History

In 2003 after the failure of Cytale (the first European company to make an eBook reader) two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bought the intellectual property of the Cytale reading device, the Cybook Gen1

Cybook Gen1

- Description :The Cybook Gen1 was originally made by the French company Cytale, which filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Two engineers of Cytale founded Bookeen and bought the rights to the Cybook. They completely remade the integrated OS and application, and then sold it as the Cybook Gen1.This...

. They founded the company, Bookeen, to produce dedicated eBook reading devices. Their first product was the Cybook Gen1.

The Cybook Gen1 was Bookeen's only product until 2006/2007, when they began exploring E-ink screens. At the time, E-Ink screens were a new technology and claimed to have a near paper-like appearance that did not cause eyestrain. In early 2007 Bookeen began selling the Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3 is a 6 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News, or listening to MP3 music or audio-books. It is produced by the French company Bookeen....

, their first eBook reader to use an E-Ink screen.

At the end of 2008, Bookeen started to claim future support for the ePub

EPUB

EPUB is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum...

 eBook format. The current firmware supportings it for all models; however, this firmware can not support the older Mobipocket format. Another firmware with support for Mobipocket is still made available so the user can select the desired format. In 2009 they also announced a new product the Cybook Opus

Cybook Opus

Cybook Opus is a 5 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News. It is produced by the French company Bookeen.-Description:The Cybook Opus is an ultra-light reading device based on E Ink screen technology....

 a smaller version of the Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3

Cybook Gen3 is a 6 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News, or listening to MP3 music or audio-books. It is produced by the French company Bookeen....

 but with some improvements: Better shape, Accelerometer, 1 GByte of user memory, and a 400Mhz CPU.

June 2010 Bookeen published a much improved firmware for Gen3 and Opus devices.

In August 2011, Bookeen launches its own e-book store

Digital library

A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...

 called BookeenStore.com with ePub and PDF format books, and a selection of free e-books with no DRM.

See also

• Cytale
• eBooks
• Cybook Gen1
  Cybook Gen1
  - Description :The Cybook Gen1 was originally made by the French company Cytale, which filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Two engineers of Cytale founded Bookeen and bought the rights to the Cybook. They completely remade the integrated OS and application, and then sold it as the Cybook Gen1.This...
  
  
• Cybook Gen3
  Cybook Gen3
  Cybook Gen3 is a 6 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News, or listening to MP3 music or audio-books. It is produced by the French company Bookeen....
  
  
• Cybook Opus
  Cybook Opus
  Cybook Opus is a 5 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News. It is produced by the French company Bookeen.-Description:The Cybook Opus is an ultra-light reading device based on E Ink screen technology....
  
  
• Cybook Orizon
• Comparison of e-book readers

External links

• Official Website
• Official Books store Website
• Interview in french of Laurent Picard and Michael Dahan