Sony announces PRS-505 ADE support

I have been following the development of the Sony PRS-505 with interest since the ADE integration was demoed at the Digital Book conference back in May. At the conference, Sony reps demonstrated the ability of the PRS-505 reader to import content (with all DRM support) directly from ADE via a new drop-down menu inside of Digital Editions. In my eyes, this feature placed the Sony PRS-505 ahead of the Amazon Kindle when evaluating e-book platforms for educational use. The Kindle can theoretically download ebooks over the internet via its built-in wireless, but its lack of .epub support and integration with ADE leave it unsuitable for serious consideration.

Nick Bogarty, Sr. Business Development Manager at Adobe, announced today via email that the ADE/PRS-505 integration and functionality demonstrated at DigitalBook are now publicly available. The body of his email is provided here:

As many of you already know, last Thursday, July 24th, SONY released a firmware updater to the PRS-505 Reader Digital Book which allows compatibility with Adobe Digital Editions.  SONY posted the firmware updater on their website allowing people who own a PRS-505 to upgrade their device for use with Digital Editions.

Getting The Upgrade

The updater is available here:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=PRS505

You need to upgrade your Sony EBook Library (EBL) first which should then automatically download and run the updater for your PRS-505. This ensures that you have the right drivers for Digital Editions and the Sony Reader to communicate with.  Once you have done this, Digital Editions will automatically recognize the Sony Reader and it will appear as a new bookshelf (or up to 3 if you have smart cards inserted) in your library. (If you don’t have Digital Editions, get it here http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions).

You will need to authorize your Sony Reader in order to use it with protected books that you have bought or borrowed online. Note that this also means that you will need to authorize Digital Editions if you have not already done so. Digital Editions will walk you through these steps with a wizard.  Once you have authorized your Reader, you can drag and drop books back and forth between Digital Editions on your PC and your SONY Reader.

EPUB, PDF reflow and Digital Editions

The upgrade allows for the SONY Reader to read EPUB files and also reflows standard PDF eBooks for better readability on the device.

If you are a publisher and are creating EPUB files for distribution, it is very important that you follow an EPUB Best Practices Guide to ensure that your EPUB files work correctly on the SONY Reader and future supported mobile devices with Digital Editions.  In particular, the EPUB Best Practices Guide specifically details important file size requirements that publishers must follow for make their EPUB files work with mobile devices.  The EPUB Best Practices Guide can be download (as an EPUB file) for free at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalpublishing/epubs/EPUBBestPractices-1_0_2.epub.

Protecting EPUB and PDF files to Digital Editions, SONY Reader and Future Supported Devices

PDF files which are currently protected by publishers, distributors and other operators of Adobe Content Server 3 are able to be transferred to the SONY Reader by Adobe Digital Editions users.  This means that customers of retailers and libraries who currently distribute Adobe PDF eBooks can move those eBooks to authorized SONY Readers with Adobe Digital Editions.  Adobe Content Server 3, however, is a discontinued and unsupported Adobe product.  A detailed timeline on the discontinuation of the supporting Content Server 3 DRM activation services will be released shortly by Adobe.  Also, Adobe Content Server 3 does not support EPUB.

The replacement products to Adobe Content Server 3 are the fully hosted ADEPT service (http://www.adobe.com/products/adept/) which protects PDF and EPUB files to Adobe Digital Editions.  In addition to the ADEPT service, Adobe will soon release a server product which will allow protection of PDF and EPUB content to Digital Editions from an operator’s existing server infrastructure.  Both products offer protection of files to the MAC and PC versions of Digital Editions, the SONY Reader and all future mobile devices supported by Adobe.  Once released, I will update you on the server product.

This is a very exciting development. As our school moves more and more of our digital content online via the RDWLP e-library platform, we can imagine one day requiring all students to have a device such as the PRS-505. As long as significant content is available via the library, we can move toward a learning environment where all learning material is available at the touch of our students’ e-book readers.