-Welcome back to the 2011 Consumer Electronic Show, I'm Natalie Morris giving you a first look of the KNO Tablet Reader, which is this massive thing right here.
The CEO of the company, Osman Rashid is here to tell us about it.
Thank you for coming.
-Thank you for having me.
-So, my first reaction to this was wow that's enormous, but if you're not a student, this is not for you.
This is made specifically for students, am I correct?
-Absolutely.
So, generally most 100 million students in the US who have large books that they have to deal with and this is design for them not for the everyday consumer.
-Okay.
So this is [unk] to carry around massive college textbooks.
You say the average college student is carrying around like 30 pounds.
This is I guess small camp change compared to that, right?
-Absolutely.
So this is a 5.5-pound device that can hold up to 10 semester's worth of content.
So this little thing can carry a lot of books and notes and comments
for a student.
-Okay.
So the interphase is very compelling.
This is something that run in Lennox and you've designed it so that students can not only see the full textbook, but also notate, take note, why don't you take us through that a little bit.
-Sure.
So the product was design with a basic notion that students need to read, write, collaborate, organize, and research knowledge.
So as you can see over here, that this is a normal test book, which is typically pretty big and for a student to really see the textbook and interact with it, write notes on it is a huge compelling
feature for them.
So we have designed the product to allow students to be able to open all the textbooks that they may need and use it as part of the product.
Now, you can also, if I just go over here, you can also-- then you begin to flip the pages in the book and then there is the entire notebook feature that comes a long with it that you can take handwritten notes on to your-- on to the device and the ability to write on the device, its very key for students.
They love the fact that they can take notes along in the book as well.
-Okay, but as a student, I know you want your notes whenever you want them.
You want them just to be handy, so you say they sink to the cloud to your KNO account, right?
-Absolutely.
So the device itself is being saved into the cloud and then you can go to Kno.com my account and you will be able to see all the notes that you have taken and all of the other contents that you have in the system as well.
-Okay.
Also, it's a very collaborative and I wanna say
holistic research experience, because over here on this tab, you have the ability to get to the web, so, lets say CNN or New York Times and it's just a regular browser as well, right?
-Yes, so it's based on web page browser.
So now you can see HTML file, you can see flash any other content out there, they are in a full screen basis.
-And tell me about this social feature here, Twitter and Facebook, why would you wanna collaborate that way?
-So, the Facebook and Twitter are really becoming part of the education process.
You have groups in school, in your class,
and to be able to interact with your friends in Facebook its now part of the daily life.
So, there is no reason not to have any of those features.
-And so, is it one of those things where I didn't make it to the class, I can get your notes on Facebook?
-Absolutely.
-Which is what students want, right?
Okay, and then the sharing feature, can you turn in your assignments that way?
Can you e.mail them?
-Absolutely so-- Not only can you use all the Google docs, the Microsoft life, but you can also collaborate with other-- react with them on the
one-to-one basis.
And there are quite a few services that are coming out in the product, which will allow you to collaborate in a significant fashion with other students.
-Okay lets give the specs, now, you have one with just a single screen and this is the 14-inch screen you say right?
And how much does that weigh and how much is the single screen cost?
-Alright.
So the single screen weighs 2.5 pounds and its 599 and the dual screen is--
-Okay, $899 for the dual screen and it weighs
5.5 pounds you say, right?
And it seems a little pricey, but you are saying that's competitive for the other eduction specific products on the market, right?
-Absolutely, I think if you take any-- take a look at any other product in this form it started at each more than $1500.
So, we've really priced it for students in mind and you know if you take a look at 15-inch laptop, this is our you know in a certain range and for people who preferred the single screen, they can get it in a 59--
We priced it-- then, because E textbooks are cheaper so this will pay for itself in 18 months anyway.
-Right.
And your argument here is you don't want an iPad, its not specifically design for coursework, this is specifically design for anyone who wants to do coursework or either EPAP or PDF text, right?
-Yes, our notion is that textbooks are large and you need to be able to see them.
Now, E textbooks have been available for 10 years and they have not taken off at all and the reason is
they have been available in the laptop where the screen size is too small and students have to scroll up and down and left and right, and if you do that for 6 or 7 hours a day, for 7 days a week, students typically don't do that for more than an hour.
So, need to a form faster which works for them with the right size screen and again the ability to write is critical for them.
Not just the ability to read.
-Okay, can we close it up and show what it looks like if you are to just throw it in your bag.
Here we go; it looks like it is a big laptop.
Very good, well thank you for showing us the KNO reader,
I'm Natalie Morris, you're watching our Consumer Electronic Show 2011 coverage live.
