Skip to main content

Kurzweil’s Blio Looks to Flip Out Ebooks

The ebook market is only a few years old, and is already showing signs of struggling with the same DRM and proprietary format issues that plagued the digital music industry for years. Just when the industry looked to be eyeing the open ePub format, here comes another contender: Blio, from long-time technology innovator Ray Kurzweil. But Blio will be more than an ebook format: it will be a platform available for a wide range of devices, and unlike almost everything else on the market, Blio books will match the on-paper look and feel of genuine books.

Blio Screenshot
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 7, Blio will be an ebook platform developed by Kurzweil’s kfnbReading Technology—the same folks who do the kfnbReader devices for the visually impaired. The Blio platform plans to support applications for everything from traditional PCs and notebook computers to the iPhone and the much-rumored emergence of portable tablet devices, and the applications will be available for free. Blio plans to help publishers embrace the platform by enabling them to offer books using just PDF scans of their physical tomes—and unlike titles for current E-Ink digital readers, Blio books will support full color and look like the physical books they represent. And, being from Kurzweil, the Blio platform will support strong text-to-speech functionality. At initial glance, Blio looks well-suited for titles that have, so far, suffered on text-centric E-Ink readers, such as books that rely on photographs and illustrations like travel titles, comics, and childrens’ books. However, where text-centric ebook formats can adapt their displays to fit a wide range of devices—especially small screens like mobile phones—it’s not clear how Blio’s representation of physical pages will play on small screens.

Recommended Videos

Reports have the Blio platform gearing up for a million-title launch—we expect a lot of those titles will be via Google Books and the public domain—although distributor Baker & Taylor seems to be on board to deliver current titles for the Blio platform as well. However, it remains to be seen whether publishers and consumers will embrace a new ebook platform.

Blio Screenshot (illustration)
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Geoff Duncan
Former Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
WWDC 2025: Apple announces iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26 and more
Major updates to iOS, macOS, watchOS, iPadOS, tvOS and visionOS
WWDC 2025 logo

Apple kicked off WWDC 2025 with its keynote presentation at its annual World Wide Developer's conference, and it was a bumper affair.

We were treated to a raft of updates across all of the firm's software platforms, as we were introduced to iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26, tvOS 26 and visionOS 26.

Read more
ChatGPT was down: how the June 10 OpenAI outage unfolded
AI assistant ChatGPT and image creator Sora were down as part of a major OpenAI outage
ChatGPT logo on a phone

The popular AI assistant ChatGPT, and image generator Sora, suffered significant downtime as part of a major OpenAI outage today, June 10.

Downdetector showed reports regarding a ChatGPT outage started shortly before 12am PDT overnight and into June 10. This wasn't the first time we've seen ChatGPT go down, with an outage also occurring back in December 2024.

Read more
For gamers on a budget — this Amazon Basics gaming monitor is on sale for $110
The Amazon Basics 27-inch Full HD gaming monitor on a white background.

If you're still using a basic display with your gaming PC, then you're not maximizing its capabilities. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on an upgrade though, as you can get the 27-inch Amazon Basics Full HD gaming monitor for only $110 right now. That's a $40 discount from Amazon on its original price of $150, but we're not sure for how much longer, so we highly recommend proceeding with your purchase as soon as possible on one of the most affordable monitor deals for gamers today.

Why you should buy the 27-inch Amazon Basics Full HD gaming monitor

Read more