The SoftBook, designed by IDEO and Lunar Design,[2] featured a brown leather cover which flipped back to give the device a more book-like feel, and was notable for its large 6 × 8 inch (15.2 × 20.3 cm) touchscreen display which allowed you to navigate the HTML-based pages as well as highlight and draw simple notes on the pages. It could store approximately 1,500 pages (expandable up to 100,000), and claimed that the rechargeable battery allowed up to 5 hours of reading time.
The SoftBook was the first device to comply with the Open eBook specification, which was "based primarily on technology developed by SoftBook Press".[4]
Specifications
Technical specifications printed on the back of the product box:
SoftBook Press, Inc. was founded by James Sachs and Tom Pomeroy in 1996,[5] and located at 1075 Curtis St., Menlo Park CA, 94025. Book conversion was managed by The Lowe-Martin Group of Ottawa ON.[6]