Will two screens plus hyperlinks lead to multimedia glory?
More proof that Google's Android OS is good for more than handsets comes with Alex, a just-announced e-book reader from Spring Design.
It'll run Android and offer downloads and web browsing over Wi-Fi or 3G. The design is interesting too, with two screens - one monochrome e-paper for reading books, and another LCD screen for web surfing.
The idea appears to be that "hyperlinks" - aren't they just called links nowadays? - in e-books will spawn browser content in the secondary screen.
"This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text," says CEO Dr Priscilla Lu.
Spring Design says it's in talks with "major" content partners, and plans to launch Alex this year.
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Those talks may be crucial - the danger of going beyond pure e-book content with links is that publishers will have to reformat their e-books to support it.
At a time when there are several alternatives from much bigger firms - Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble to name but three - Spring Design will need a very good pitch to get publishers to invest in making e-books that make the most of its device.
