Wink e-book Reader on Croma Shelves by Sept. 1

At a press conference in Mumbai, Bangalore-based EC Media launched "Wink", which they proclaimed is "India's first e-book reader". Well, in the beginning of this year we'd heard of an Indian-origin e-book reader already, but oh well. Then, there's always the Amazon Kindle that supports delivery to a 100 countries (India included). But custom duties have to be bourne and books have to be purchased in dollars.

EC Media is trying to capture the Indian reader's grasp by selling a device that can be picked up from a local electronic store. They've partnered with Croma, a biggie Indian electronics chain, for this. They also have apparently solved another key piece of the puzzle -- the content. Their PR sheet claims to have more than 2,00,000 titles as well as newspapers, magazines and journals that you can buy in Indian rupees. Check their store to see if they have your favorites. Their repository will also have books written in Indian languages. To start with, they've populated it with Hindi, Marathi among a few other languages. They said soon they will get content from all Indian languages onto the Wink. Books will generally sell for 50 to 75 percent of the cost of a paperback. So for voracious readers, this device could spell a considerable saving in the long run.

Full report here techtree