SoftBank Utilizes E-Book Systems' Digital Flip Technology; SoftBank Launches a Multimedia Digital Picture Book Library Called Ohanashiehon Club

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 2004--SoftBank Media & Marketing Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Corp., recently launched a digital picture book library site, Ohanashiehon Club, using E-Book Systems Digital Flip(R) technology. SoftBank labels such flipbooks, "Hyper Picture Books" which is a combination of regular text, audio narration and graphics.

For a small monthly fee, subscribers can go to http://www.ohanashiehon.com to view the latest selection of flipbooks displayed in a pictorial bookshelf with audio narration. Currently there are 20 flipbooks with two new flipbooks being added per week. The target is to have 100 flipbook titles by the end of 2004. Twenty-Five well-known Japanese writers and 10 publishers are participating in this project.

The Ohanashiehon Club site is targeted at children aged 3 to 6 years old as well as their parents. Upcoming content will include news articles and general information.

The Digital Flip technology provided by E-Book Systems enables Ohanashiehon Club to display these interactive multimedia online books in the familiar page-flipping format, which allows visitors to view the digital picture book as if they were reading the hard copy. E-Book Systems has also encoded the digital content with an electronic signature and Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme to enable Ohanashiehon Club to sell their flipbooks online without fear of digital piracy. The participation of these well-known writers and publishers in this SoftBank project is a testimony of their confidence in E-Book Systems content protection scheme and technology.

About SoftBank Media and Marketing Corporation

As an integral part of SoftBank Corp.'s comprehensive Internet initiatives, which also include e-commerce and online financial services, SoftBank Media & Marketing Corp. (SBMM) is developing an array of online media and marketing services, including Cyber Communications, SoftBank Publishing, ZDNet Japan, Click2Learn Japan, and MPT Technologies.

About E-Book Systems

E-Book Systems (www.ebooksys.com) was founded in 1998 with a mission to bring the natural look and feel of the paper-based book into the domain of computers and the Internet. E-Book System's products make use of its patented Digital Flip(R) technology to deliver multimedia content such as digital photographs, text and music via a 3D Page-Flipping interface, which appears as a virtual book or album. With offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and Singapore, E-Book Systems products are distributed worldwide including the U.S., Europe and Japan. For more information, contact the E-Book Systems' by phone at [phone], via e-mail at [e-mail].