Ed Loves Bacon - Book lovers rejoice, Blio is on the way

Move over Kindle, sorry Nook but Blio may potentially make waves in the e-reader game.

Blio is the new FREE e-reader that has all the bells and whistles that may finally convince book lovers to finally put down the tactile paperbacks and read their next book from a computer or mobile device.  According to their website, Blio offers quite a few amenities that set it apart from its standalone appliance counterparts.



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  1. Full color display


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  1. Preserves the book’s printed format including fonts and images


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  1. Has a read aloud  text-to-voice feature


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  1. two-page/multi-page layout options


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  1. Supports interactive, multimedia components - books can embed videos, flash and scripted elements on the virtual pages.


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  1. Over 1 million free books available to download at launch


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  1. PC/IPhone/IPod Touch compatible







Sounds awesome, right. Well its definitely impressive, but it has a couple of drawbacks coming out the gate. Blio supports Iphones and Ipods but it does not have a version for Macs. There’s no mention of how much their books from the virtual book store will cost to download. There’s no indication that Blio has open PDF support, meaning you may not be able use this software to view PDF formatted e-books and documents outside of Blio’s library. Finally, with such features like color, book tools and possible embedded multimedia elements included in various books, file sizes and storage may become an issue.

Sony and Amazon both have desktop e-reader software available to read downloadable books from your computer however they do not have audio and video capabilities, or multi-page layout options. Stanza, another free e-reader application has similar features as the Sony and Amazon readers and do not offer multi-page or multimedia options.

Blio is rumored to be released sometime in February, 2010.






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