[stcredzero]

The responsive color screen has a lot of potential. If one could have a "Cover Flow" style browsing mode, this would make the Nook a 10X better device for browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading. Others on HN have lamented the lack of "flippability" in other e-readers. This could be used to provide exactly that!

(The other thing: will B&N allow it to happen?)

[mattmcknight]

Do you mean having the nearby pages in your current book show at the bottom of the screen? That would be nice, since e-ink is a bit slow to refresh. I don't see much in point in the way it's pictured on the site though and in the video, shopping for books by flipping through book covers is highly inefficient! Overall, I lament the lack of a keyboard. Searching for books using the Kindle is probably better.

[swombat]

That's silly... it would use up lots of battery, defeating half the point of eInk.

[stcredzero]

When I'm using the thing for reference, having only 1/10th or even 1/20th of the battery power is just fine! When I'm at my desk programming, I can probably have the thing plugged in. Even if I'm being a musician and using it as a "starter" or a fake book, I can probably have it plugged in. In that context, 4 hours of battery is usually plenty, anyhow.

Also, in this "reference" mode, the system could turn off the 2nd display until it's actually touched.

The way this flip thing would work, is that you would fade from the "cover-flow" animation to a larger, scrollable image of the text. Flicking to the side would fade you back into the cover-flow animation. It would be better if the whole display were used, but the smaller horizontal slice of a page would work too.

[technomancy]

> this would make the Nook a 10X better device for browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading.

Sure, but it seems pretty useless for just plain regular reading.

[jfager]

Right, but so's the keyboard on the Kindle, which takes up about the same amount of space.