The Foldable Readius Ereader Is Dead

Nate the greatest writes "One of the stranger ereader/smartphone hybrid devices ever to grace the pages of a tech blog is now officially never dead. Polymer Vision, creator of the Readius ereader, has been shut down by its parent company. This company launched in 2004 with the goal of bring an ereader with a foldable 5" E-ink screen to market. They shipped an initial production run of about 100 thousand units before going bankrupt in 2009. Wistron bought the company out of receivership and has been paying to develop the screen tech. PV has made a number of prototypes over the past few years, but they never made it out of the lab. The closest we came to ever seeing one was a render of a smartphone design which could expand to the size of a tablet."

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well according to Netcraft, Slashdot "is now officially never dead" just like this eReader. Of course, the eReader "launched in 2004 with the goal of bring an ereader with a foldable 5" E-ink screen to market". I guess the submitter (or worse the editor) doesn't know the word "bringing". But who cares, since they are never dead... Yeah, the summary is a turd.

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[Anonymous Coward]

the summary is a turd.

But hey, at least it's not a giant douche!

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[mug funky]

well get modding then, idiot!

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[Anonymous Coward]

You won't get any sensible discussion here.

Around 2007, Microsoft realised tech sites like Slashdot had a significant involvement in the very public rejection of Vista as a replacement for XP. They hired several reputation management companies, including Waggener Edstrom and Burson Marsteller to manage their online presence before the W7 release.

One of the results of that was that the reputation mangers ran hundreds of sock-puppets in blogs and news aggregators, like Slashdot and Reddit. They swamped the di

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[Taco Cowboy]

The result was that almost anyone with a real interest in tech abandoned the site. There are still a few of the old die-hards here, but it's mostly marketers and sock-puppets now.

Sad, but very, very true !

I too, am about to abandon this site.

Slashdot has become more and more irrelevant.

I came to Slashdot because I got to learn so many NEW and USEFUL stuffs.

No more.

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[serviscope_minor]

I came to Slashdot because I got to learn so many NEW and USEFUL stuffs.

The stuff on slashdot is generally quite new. It's not necessary to know all news within 20 minutes of it happening. The stuff ehre is also pretty useful. But the most important thing is that I don't know of any other site where the comments are as good. Perhaps that's a low bar, but nothing seems to clear it.

No more.

bye bye.

credivility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like vaporware. The article is from 2011, has no source and no comments.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article from 2011 says that it was saved (and has the title "The Readius eReader Lives!"). The other link is to an old Slashdot story in 2007. A quick search of Google News pulls up no results. So what the hell?!?

Am I missing a meme here?

[icebike]

officially never dead.

Just what does that mean?

Re:Am I missing a meme here?

[Cinder6]

It's undead, obviously. Better get some garlic.

Silver Spike !!

[Taco Cowboy]

I have that.

Can you lend me a hammer?

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[EdIII]

It means it's the truth, but passed through a bureaucratic process, and still remained intact.

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[History's Coming To]

I did a trauma management course (basically advanced first aid) where we were told that as we were not qualified to pronounce somebody dead then nobody in our care could (legally) die - so we keep trying to save them even if we think they're probably dead, until a doctor turns up to sign the paperwork.

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[Hognoxious]

If you found someone who'd stopped breathing due to being decapitated, where would you blow into?

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[History's Coming To]

That was brought up - clearly there are times when there's nothing you can do or where you have to make a triage decision - but even if there's no head I'm still not qualified to pronounce death.

While the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is pretty crap, I work in a multi-tenant building that also houses Polymer Vision and it seems pretty quiet there indeed.

Also, WTF?

[we3]

Did anyone look at this? Sources? I looked at the recent section and didn't see this.

BUT the related submission below the story, which seems to have been submitted by the same person seems to have a link to a story, which has a link to a source.

I'm guessing the submitter screwed up his first submission and resubmitted it, then Unknown Lamer screwed up and picked the wrong submission.

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[game kid]

In the story as submitted [slashdot.org], the Link to Original Source is to the proper article, but that link was not used within the blurb, so I guess UL just didn't add it to the blurb either.

Maybe the LtOS field should be removed, and submitters should be told to just link to TFA within the blurb and bold it or rel="mainarticle" it or whatever.

Words have meanings

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

"They shipped an initial production run of about 100 thousand units" is a statement about products being delivered. It's not a statement that can be backed up by a link to an old Slashdot article that said something was going to ship later.

How is this news?

[zethreal]

1) The article is from mid 2011. 2) There is nothing in the article that says that it's dead. I want a news article posted on Slashdot. Let me make stuff up about it and post links to a year old article that says nothing that's in my summary. This is why I have been frequenting slashdot less and less... ( It used to be multiple times daily & is now maybe twice a week ).

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[Osgeld]

you must be new here

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[lucm]

Seriously I could now see the whole Slashdot thing moved to a single Facebook page. The editors would post their stories and people would make comments and Like or Unlike other comments. What is the point of running a big infrastructure and maintain a large codebase if all that shows on the front page is half-baked.

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[chrismcb]

The fact that it was finally shut down was news. http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/12/02/wistorn-folds-up-polymer-vision-flexible-ereaders-are-once-again-science-fiction/#.UL0VTIM0V8G [the-digital-reader.com]

Officially..

[PixetaledPikachu]

I never read the summary

Re:Officially..

[kelemvor4]

I never read the summary

In that case I can say you're obviously not new here.

Foldable Readius Ereader is Dead...

[Randall311]

...and nothing of value was lost.

It may happen via LG

[dbIII]

The LG flexible screen is in the Russian Wexler flex one ereader.

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[nazsco]

Too bad coming from lg it will manage to have dead pixels even on the eink.

An interesting idea, anyway...

[tylikcat]

Whatever one may think of the editing of the blurb, or the chances of a particular company bringing a particular product to market, the idea behind the device looks interesting because it's aimed at addressing two otherwise contradictory needs - how do you get a larger screen size combined with a smaller device? Because large screens are awkward... and small screens are awkward. Just differently awkward. I can't be the only person here who has spent a fair bit of time debating over better total resolution v

Numbers

[wonkey_monkey]

100 thousand units

If only there was some way of writing out such huge numbers using only numerical digits to make this easier to read!

So, What You're Saying Is...

[FurtiveGlancer]

They finally folded?

Wasn't that the goal?

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[guspasho]

I think the goal is to stack them, then make them out of paper.