Rollable E Ink Displays Get Real 116
An anonymous reader writes "Two years ago Philips unveiled a prototype of a functional electronic-document reader, called the Readius, which could unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. Unfortunately, that was only a prototype. According to Cnet, however, Polymer Vision, which spun out from Philips in 2006, has redesigned the Readius and turned it into a real product that it is going to be available by the end of this year. There are some notable differences between this Readius and the prototype version, in particular, the ability to display 16 shades of grey instead of just 4 and the connectivity options. What doesn't make sense though, is given the energy efficiency and easy-to-read high contrast functionality of E Ink, why other than Motorola with its Motofone, has no other cell phone manufacturer incorporated E Ink technology into its handsets?"
Oh, it's coming (Score:3, Informative)
amazingly ink-like (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't very portable in the modern sense though. This unit was about 5.5" x 8", hardly pocket-size. I don't know how portable they will be able to get these - you can only roll it in one direction, so at best that one would have to be at least 5" in some direction. This screen was perfectly flat of course, and I wonder how much it would mess with your vision to read a page with a curl or warp to it? I know it bugs me to try to read a newspaper if it's not laying flat. I suppose this would be ideal for say, a long plane flight or while waiting for a connecting flight at a gate.
no color, updates slowly (Score:3, Informative)
What doesn't make sense though, is given the energy efficiency and easy-to-read high contrast functionality of E Ink, why other than Motorola with its Motofone, has no other cell phone manufacturer incorporated E Ink technology into its handsets?
It can't display video, or serve as the display for a camera phone. Seriously- the update cycle on eInk is up to half a second or more, something they don't like to talk about. That makes it a pain even for scrolling through your address book.
Related rant: All I want is a phone with a extendable antenna for good reception, a message indicator LIGHT (my SE phone has a message indicator on the screen, but the screen goes blank or to a clock. It even HAS a LED in the joystick, but it's not used for anything!), bluetooth, and a fully functioning address book (ie: I want to be able to see an address, not just a #, and I want the phone to support contact groups in iCal.)
Why won't anyone make it? If they do make it, why aren't they doing a better job of marketing it? I understand all the cameraphone crap is to get me to buy more services; I don't give a shit about video or MMS or cameraphones, and I'm unlikely to EVER buy those services- so just sell me a GOOD PHONE. And NO, I don't want a large phone, even if it does run Linux...
Re:What is the deal with e-Ink? (Score:2, Informative)
Irex Iliad:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad [irextechnologies.com]
Re:Why is't it used? here's why (Score:4, Informative)
Like a book, you mean?
The idea of e-ink isn't that it's b&w, but it's very low-power -- you only need to use electricity to update the screen, and after that whatever's "written" on the "page" is permanent until it's updated again. Very useful for e-book readers, not very useful for phones or much of anything else.
The problem with bringing this to market (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Audiobooks (Score:2, Informative)
I'm certain LibriVox [librivox.org] would be happy to record some more 'educational' books .. only they only have access to works in the public domain. Everyone else seems to want to be paid for their work. Because of this, most of their books are very old. Educational works that are old enough to be in the public domain will likely teach that the sun orbits the earth :)
If you have a source for public domain works that you'd like to hear as audio books, that's the place to submit them.
Cheers!
Rick Measham
(disclaimer: I'm a volunteer reader for LibriVox)