Sony Unveils a Prototype of Palm-Sized Electronic Book

Sony Corp., having reshaped life styles by bringing portability first to recorded music and then to video, has its sights set on another medium--text.

At an exhibit of future technologies last week in Tokyo, the Japanese consumer electronics firm unveiled a prototype “electronic book,” a palm-sized unit that stores volumes of text that can be read on a tiny liquid crystal display.

“We are looking at a part of the technology of tomorrow’s electronics,” said Junichi Saeki, a computer industry analyst at Dataquest Japan, a market research firm.

Sony officials will not say when the 550-gram (19.4-ounce) electronic book will be sold or how much it will cost.

Part of the problem, say industry analysts, is that it will take at least several years before technologies mature and standards are set with other firms developing similar technologies.

But when the technology is ready, perhaps in the mid-1990s, the electronic book could become commonplace.

Its attraction will be as a portable device that can electronically reference voluminous sources of information such as encyclopedia, Bibles or telephone directories.

With further advancements in technology, it will become fully multimedia, mixing text, video and CD audio.

“Sony has a good track record of taking something that would be on a coffee table or bookshelf and giving it wheels,” said Darrel Whitten, analyst at Prudential-Bache Securities in Tokyo. “They’re following that direction with a new application of the CD-ROM.”