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Electronic Paper's Past and Future
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:20 PM
from the updating-in-your-pocket dept.
from the updating-in-your-pocket dept.
Iddo Genuth sends us to TFOT for his extended series of interviews around the question of how electronic paper will change our lives in the next few years. The article leads off with the "father of e-paper," Nick Sheridon, who came up with the idea almost 35 years ago at Xerox PARC, and goes on to explore how e-paper may evolve past its current incarnations in the likes of the Sony Reader.
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Apple: Kindle Versus The iPhone 376 comments
Bernie Campbell writes "Forbes takes a look at the recently announced Kindle ebook from Amazon, and considers the possibility that Apple may have beaten them to the punch. 'Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has a not-so-secret weapon when it comes time to load up the iPhone with content: Google ... Google's Book Search project has already pumped much of the world's printed matter into Google's servers. Downloads of classic titles, such as Bleak House, can already be had for free. Mix Apple's iTunes content distribution smarts with Google's vast storehouse of content, and you'll have an instant competitor to Kindle -- one with a touch interface and the ability to play movies and music, too.'
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E-Readers (Score:2)
Re:E-Readers (Score:5, Insightful)
I owned a Newton Messagepad back in the day. I've read fiction, non-fiction, short stories, novels, news articles and heaps of other stuff on everything from a PDA to one a laptop connected to Second Life. The only place ebooks have a decent chance of success is to replace the two tons of textbooks most schools require their students to carry. Otherwise it's hard to beat the convenience of Dead Tree Format.
Parent
Re:E-Readers (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:E-Readers (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends on the subject. One of the most irritating things about being a law student is that by and large your books go out of date really fast. Almost every book from my undergraduate degree, which I only completed earlier this year, is now in a different edition. E-books would be really useful from our perspective. Not to mention the fact that libraries can only stock a limited number of journals and case-books.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If I had the choice, I would go e-book all the way.
Re:E-Readers (Score:4, Insightful)
I regularly read newspapers that are days old and never minded their lack of "freshness".
Apart from a few very specific things (maybe stock markets or the weather), freshness has no impact on the interest or validity of news.
Parent
Other devices might be better (Score:4, Informative)
Bookeen is coming out with their own device any day now that's really similar to the Sony reader but will use different file formats. They all read RTF, TXT, etc... but if you want to buy a new book, it's likely to have DRM in the file. The DRM file format that the Sony uses is different from the DRM files that the Bookeen and Amazon Kindle will use.
The Iliad is bigger and can render letter size PDF files without the hassle of the smaller devices. It has wifi and a writable screen that you can take notes with... but it's supposed to be slower and more than twice as much money.
I want one really bad, but I'm waiting to see what Bookeen and Amazon finally release before I throw down my cash. Sure they're all kind of expensive, but you can load up with free classic books from Project Gutenberg and you'll save money in the long run (if you read a lot and are too lazy/busy to make trips to the library).
http://www.mobileread.com/ [mobileread.com]
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/ [engadget.com]
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/kindle-edition-books-appear-on-amazon-reader-launch-imminent/ [engadget.com]
http://www.bookeen.com/ [bookeen.com]
http://www.irextechnologies.com/ [irextechnologies.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you believe there is some other interest group that would favor e-books over paper, I can't find one. Every "normal" book reader would pick a paper book without thinking. That's what libraries have, right? Only a geek would choose an obsc
Re:E-Readers (Score:5, Informative)
They're actually quite nice.
The e-paper screen is *beautiful*. The only thing you'll miss is a book light. It's very nice and contrasty (but more like black on a dull grey background), and the text isn't buried under glass, but appears on the surface, like real paper. It's a nice matte surface, so glare is a non-issue, and is extremely readable in all lighting conditions except pitch black (like a regular book).
The bad thing - if you want to use its internal memory, you need to use Sony's software (a poor imitation of iTunes). But luckily, it accepts Memory Stick and SD cards. Just plop in it text files, RTF, or PDF files onto your SD card and away you go (making this the OS agnostic way of using it - just need a card reader and external card). The other issue is ghosting - when the screen updates, the parts that were black don't return all the way to background color, but leaves an imprint. Not to worry - another refresh will fix it. Might be slightly irritating if the book lines alternate.
The other bad thing is when it needs to refresh the area - what happens is it inverts the entire screen, then writes the new image to it (in an effort to alleviate the ghosting).
But the screen is really nice, you can easily forget about such issues. Just remember the flashlight if reading beneath the covers.
Parent
Re:E-Readers (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
it's really one word, (Score:2, Funny)
Two words: porn.
One Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Well, (Score:5, Funny)
Q: When do you predict we will see the real e-paper revolution?
A: It has already started but will become a real mass market in about 2012.
So that 's what the Mayans were worried about!
I don't know... (Score:5, Interesting)
I came to this realization when I looked at the new 505 revision of the Sony Reader's marketing, and it occurred to me that I'd rather get an iPod touch. Recharging every few days instead of every few months is a sacrifice I'd be willing to make for real web content and video (while Sony could probably put some sort of basic very-static web browser on it's reader despite the display's low refresh rate if they wanted to support HTML, video and quick interactivity are going to be out of the question until there are fairly major changes in the display technology). And, as more and more content moves online, from static paper to dynamic computer screens, moving content is only getting more prevalent (rollovers, pull-down menus, AJAX widgets of all sorts, and even content in flash and other plug-ins)...
I kind of suspect that e-paper has missed the window where it could have widely succeeded with a refresh rate measured in seconds rather than milliseconds. Stable-image type displays may have to get their refresh rates down into the low-double-digit milliseconds (and coincidentally gain high bit depth color and decent contrast) before they can take on to the mainstream.
Re:I don't know... (Score:5, Informative)
The Sony screen is 6.9" x 3.9", whereas the iPod Touch's is like 3.5" x 2.2" -- not even close. Add to that it is usable in full, direct sunlight and has an almost 180 degree viewing angle and much higher contrast ratio and for READING, not browsing, ePaper blows the iPod (and iPhone) out of the water.
Screw web content. Believe it or not there are people with attention spans not defined by MTV. Try a few of these [literature.org] on the iPod Touch and then the Sony, then get back to me.
Totally different targets.
Parent
Re:I don't know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
It's called e-paper for a reason. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am an avid ebook reader using Palms for the purpose for years, but as soon as I can get an e-paper reader without stupid limitations at a reasonable price (which for me is anything south of 250eur), I'll go that route. I mean, that would be the best of both world: paper book with the ability to (non-destructivelly) bookmark, annotate, search, copy text at will.
Robert
Parent
Re:I don't know... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two significant advantages to epaper that LCDs and OLED's simply cannot match.
One, epaper is a reflective technology, rather than emmissive, so the brighter the area in which one views it the better (just like a book).
Two, epaper draws no power whatsoever to maintain a static display, none, zero, zilch. It only requires power to update the display. Once changed to what is desired, the power source could be disconnected entirely and the last image stored on the display would remain. No powered display technology can top that.
Refresh rate is not a huge issue for epaper, as long as it is geared towards displaying content that is relatively static.
So the biggest problems with the technology are just poor resolution and the price for color displays. Even more unfortunately, these areas do not seem to be improving at a promising rate.
Parent
We've heard this before and it means.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a tree hugger as trees are just crops that take monger to harvest, but the point is clear.
"epaper" == "Polavision" (Score:4, Interesting)
Fast-forward several years. "Browsing devices" are the "VHS moviecams" to epaper's version of Polavision. Before anyone starts ranting against web-browsers, let me point out...
- the ORIGINAL web, as developed at CERN, was text-only with browsers like lynx
- you can read files on your local drive with Firefox or IE or Lynx
Note that I said "browsing devices", not PDAs, or micro-laptops. I think that cellphones with browsers are going to be far more of an epaper-killer than laptops...- there are a lot more people already lugging around cellphones/smartphones than will ever buy single-purpose "ebook readers"
- many cellphones/smartphones already have browsers built-in
Which do you think the average person WHO IS ALREADY LUGGING AROUND A CELLPHONE/SMARTPHONE more likely to do for casual reading...- buy yet another $200 device that they have to lug around, or
- use the cellphone/smartphone THEY'VE ALREADY PAID FOR AND THEY'RE ALREADY LUGGING AROUND to accomplish the same task
In a world where cellphones/smartphones/PDAs do not exist, a $200 stand-alone "ebook-reader" might have a market. In today's world, fuggedaboutit. Most people will end up sticking a USB stick into a cellphone/smartphone/PDA and reading text directly with their browser. Verizon subscribers, however, will find that their cellphones are crippled, and they have to upload the file to their account, and Verizon will charge them by the kbyte for the uploads.Sony PRS-505 ebook reader at Borders (Score:4, Insightful)
The local Borders store set up a display w/ one of these yesterday and I spent a while playing with it. Initial impressions:
- nice size, _very_ thin
- crisp, sharp greyscale display --- very readable
- uses GPL software (there's a list of utilities in the user manual as well as notes on where to d/l the source for the software)
- decent interface w/ sensible buttons and okay layout
- supports pdf, txt, rtf, bmp, jpeg, gif and png files as well as the proprietar? BBeB books (.lrf and
- plays mp3s
- switches from portrait to landscape and back quite easily
- nice magnification mode
On the downside:
- ~2--3 seconds to switch from one page to another sometimes one gets a distracting flashing
- sometimes one gets ``ghosting'' if the new page has a lot of white space where text or image was before
- the text H&J when displaying text files and
- the font used for displaying rtfs uses oblique, not italic for emphasis
- sidebars of some of the text font characters, ``i'' most egregiously is not good resulting in poorly spaced text
- urls in
- while one can play an mp3 while reading, controlling the mp3 functions require going all the way back to the main menu --- would've been better to've over-ridden the number buttons for use as audio controls while an mp3 is playing.
One can't help but wonder if the status bar at the bottom can be turned off --- it displays a persistent page number --- perhaps people will format
More information on the reader at:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16184 [sonystyle.com]
Apparently this is an updated model and the text updating used to be even slower.
Borders didn't seem to have a mechanism for selling BBeB books in their stores though which is strange since they can be stored on memory cards (Sony proprietary sticks and SD memory cards).
William
(who found it inspiring enough to want to put some more effort into getting his Fujitsu Stylistic to boot off of a compact flash card in a CF-IDE adapter, since he uses that to read a _lot_ of ebooks and the hard drive noise is distracting (and to make them, see http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html [aol.com] which includes my version of _The Book of Tea_ which is in the TeX Showcase))