NYCC Part 1 - The ADAM TABLET
LongBox, Inc. announced today their partnership with Notion Ink, the company behind the much-anticipated ADAM tablet. The partnership places the LongBox Digital Platform as the exclusive pre-installed service for purchasing, cataloguing and reading digital comics on all four of Notion Ink’s announced tablets, as well as any other tablets or portable devices utilizing Notion Ink’s Genesis system over the next two years.
“We’re incredibly excited about this”, said LongBox, Inc. CEO Rantz Hoseley. “Our goal from the very beginning has been to expand the market for comics and graphic novels beyond the current audience served by the print market, so OEM partnerships have been a key focus for the platform. Having a partnership with Notion Ink… ensuring that LongBox Digital will be part of the core entertainment system on all ADAM tablets side by side with their eBook, TV, music and film services… well, that really is a dream come true for us.”
Notion Ink’s ADAM tablet garnered the attention of the tech industry, and Hoseley himself, at CES with its Pixel Qi screen. The dual-mode technology makes it possible to read the screen like color ePaper in bright sunlight, or as a normal LCD screen in dim surroundings. The power of what was shown led Gizmodo to write, “The bullet is in the chamber, ePaper is dead.”
But it wasn’t just an impressive piece of hardware that interested Hoseley. “Reading up on Notion Ink, and its founder Rohan Shravan, it was very obvious that here was a like-minded group, who started Notion Ink and the ADAM tablet for the same reasons we were driven to create LongBox Digital. That they believed in the power of ideas, and the importance of narrative in people’s lives, Most importantly, that the emerging portable space is a juncture for us as humans to change how we interact with our stories, the storytellers, and the tales we tell as creators.” Hoseley does note, “It’s easy to talk big lofty ideas. To see a company deliver the goods, even when it isn’t easy to do so? Those are the kind of people you want to partner with, and Rohan and his team have been phenomenal in that regard.”
The announcement of the partnership comes as part of today’s ICV2 conference on Digital Comics in New York City, where Hoseley is a panelist, and as part of the events at the New York Comic Con held October 8th-10th. “We’re releasing v1.1 of the Mac and PC client app this weekend, with a number of enhancements and new features. v1.2 will be released around the coming holiday season to coincide with the release of the ADAM tablet.” Hoseley is careful to clarify that, “Yes, a generic Android version of LongBox Digital, as well as a iOS version for iPhone and iPad will be released shortly after the launch of the ADAM tablet. We’re confident that the experience of LongBox on the ADAM is a superior one, but we also strongly believe that you cannot dictate to people how, or on what device, they consume their entertainment media.”
To commemorate the announcement, LongBox is giving away 5 ComicBlocks to all registered users. ComicBlocks are the exchange currency within the LBX Platform, with a rate of 1 ComicBlock equal to $1.00 USD. To redeem your free ComicBlocks, enter the code NYCC-2010-LBX1 in your LongBox Checkout Cart. The ComicBlocks are valid towards any purchase on the LBX Platform, with a 1 ComicBlock average price for single issue comics. A significant number of new titles and publishers will be added over the month of October, leading up to some exclusive content announcements October 30th at the Long Beach Comic Con.
LongBox, Inc. was founded in 2008 by CEO Rantz Hoseley to provide a comprehensive, device and hardware-independent platform for the distribution, cataloguing and consumption of digital comics and illustrated narratives. The LongBox Digital Platform gained early notice for its ambitious scope, and launched on Mac and PC platforms in July 2010. LongBox, Inc. is a privately held company based in Irvine, CA. For information on the LongBox Digital Platform, please visit www.longboxdigital.com
