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iRex's iLiad E-ink eBook Reader is Now Available
An anonymous reader writes "iRex has just started shipping its e-ink eBook reader, the iLiad, starting today (July 3rd) — making it the first e-ink reader commercially available outside of Japan. It is available for purchase though iRex's website, for 649 euros (ouch!). Hopefully this price will come down before Sony releases their eReader later this summer."
I think this guy might have something to say about the name. :-)
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
iThink tHis is aGreat iDea. iMean, yAy!
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
649.00 Euros = 825.9823 U.S. dollars
Don't they even try to cover up the advertising in a submission anymore?
Demented But Determined.
I'll stick with books if only for the pure satisfaction of the ritual of turning pages. And of course, books are a less painful loss when left someplace by mistake (or stolen).
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Perhaps the most hard read title in the world?
From their FAQ:
Which formats do you support?
In order to stimulate the momentum in electronic reading, iRex Technologies will support as many formats as possible in as open an environment as possible, respecting the rights of owners of content and IP.
Ok... So what formats are those again? This sounds, to me, like they will only support DRM capable formats... Which makes this a non-buy in my opinion.
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
iThat iProduct E-name eSucks
I don't know about everyone else, but some of these naming conventions are starting to get annoying.
now we just need to combine it with one of those Nokia 770s and you'd have a device I would be completely unable to resist purchasing.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
iRex's iLiad E-ink eBook .... say that 10 times fast!
too many i-*** and e-*** to be comprehensible.
Cartoon text ...
A:How goes our facexpaces effort?
B:It looks like our penetration has been significant. We have over 20,000 sign-ups in a few short weeks.
A:And Revenue?
B:Gross revenue through paypal is over $600,000.00
A:And our net is fourteen dollars?
B:Because of our exchange fees. Transfer fees. And Account fees. Oh. and Just-Because-We-Can fees.
User Friendly by J.D. "Illiad" Frazier
I actually like the idea of the e-reader and I think that this is a good step, but as is mentioned, it is just too expensive. For that money I could buy a pda and then view pda's on that... I might even be able to find a workable tablet pc on e-bay for that price. It also raises the question about how much the ebooks will actually cost for these; the ones I've seen have cost nearly as much as the hardback versions which is simply a rip off. paper will be my method of choice still, not only because of price, but at the moment it also seems easier to read/flick through.
It makes me wonder why the released this whilst the price is so high. I'd be amazed if they sold more than 1000
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
iUgh, an e-New iContender for the worst eBuzz.com i-Product iName, turbo gold deluxe II.
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As someone who reads books almost exclusively on my handheld device (10 years of Palm, now Windows Mobile), I don't see what the point of this is.
As it is today, with a good-sized SDRam, I can carry all the books I own in my pocket for easy access, anytime, anywhere.
If I want to carry around a bulky device to read books, I already have a notebook PC, which includes MUCH MORE capability than this silly thing. And at todays insanely low hardware prices, $825 will get me TWO notebooks, or even a pretty-decent gamer portable.
And especially considering that the ebook market is tiny on top of the above, who do they expect to buy this?
If Microsoft can't get it done, these guys sure won't
"You're either outstanding, or outprocessing"
Does anyone know if eInk is the only producer/provider of LCD/Electronic Paper? I have a few ideas for inventions that would make use of their paper, as well as projects for both work and college, but they want $3000 for a development kit, and I just can't afford that (I don't know if my company would cover the cost or not, at least for the ideas I have that are work-related.)
I thought there were more companies putting out LCD Paper itself, but so far I've only been able to find eInk.
Also, how much does LCD paper cost per sheet these days?
What do you mean, "starting"?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
This sounds, to me, like they will only support DRM capable formats
It supports PDF, TXT and HTML, among others. Plenty of scope for non-DRM'd files.
Whether or not anyone will sell you a book in a non DRM'd format is another quetsion, but if they will the chances are you'll be able to read it on this.
My main problem with it is that I can buy an awful lot of dead tree for 650 euros. I'm still waiting for a really good e-reader. I would be happy to pay somewhere around 150 pounds to get an A5 size tablet that I can read PDFs on. Wake me when that happens.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Another platform for the Sony rootkit to run on.
iCan't wait!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
One of the attractions of electronic paper is that it uses very little power compared with regular lcd monitors. (Of course, it wouldn't be very good for watching animation.)
A laptop with an electronic paper monitor would finally have a useful battery life.
Example: Everything except the monitor in my frankenputer (world's ugliest portable computer) uses 1.5 amps at 12 volts. The monitor uses almost twice that. If I had electronic paper, my battery life would triple. Of course I won't be buying this one because of the price.
Hopefully this price will come down before Sony releases their eReader later this summer.
Maybe you're new here, but "the price will come down" and "Sony" simply cannot be used in the same sentence.
Words starting with lower case vowels followed by capitalised consenents is the new aLtCaPs. Damn you iPod! Damn you to iHell!
Even for an early adaptor this thing is disappointing.
1. VERY expensive, Euro 649 (that includes VAT over here) for a black+white ebook reader. I'm come on... Please leave the WLAN out next time.
2. VERY slow, VERY slow. Page flipping sometimes takes 2 seconds, sometimes 3-4. That's bad for a newspaper, but it's simply unusable for a technical documentation where you're searching for specific parts, etc.
see mobileread.com for videos.
3. No backlight, I (as a consumer) don't care wheter that's realizable or not, but I would like to have some sort of backlight. Yes a book doesn't have a backlight, too. But my books at least don't cost 650 Euros.
Nice is: a 1024x768 resolution, everything else is not usable for my purposes.
I'm waiting for the next generation.
Making the text larger so I can more easily read it is DRM dependant!? Anyone suggesting "DRM will never get in your way unless you're a thief" needs to be kicked in nuts.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Yeah, e-ink may look nice, but not $800 nicer than a simple, low power, B&W LCD with a slow/old CPU that can easily, quickly decode PDFs and probably MP3s as well.
Seems like overkill in every sense of the word. When will we see finally a few dirt cheap ebook readers that (also) support DRM-free formats? Preferably with a mini keyboard for notes.
I like my Psion5 as much as anybody, but the screen just isn't big enough for reading a full book.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
IMAO* "iLiad" is the first in this line of product names that is actually any good. It's witty since it's a thing that reads books, and the iLiad is a book that is on the bible-ass-kicking level of hot-damn. Iliad already starts with an "I", so all they need to do is change the capitalization, meaning the whole thing isn't nearly as contrived as the rest of these product names.
The name's easy to remember since it already rings a bell for most people who have spent more than a day in a school, so for evil marketing purposes it's also a keeper. Only thing actually wrong with it is that it won't show up in google because... no wait, I just checked. They've somehow managed to get it listed as 6th.
Pretty decent branding, I'd say.
Not that I'd buy the silly thing. Got a laptop that I acquired for 10 that's portable enough for me.
All rites reversed 2010
I saw this device last month in Moscow at the World Editors Forum, where Dr. Caroline Pauwels of the Free University of Brussels discussed a field test being conducted in conjunction with De Tijd, a daily newspaper published in Antwerp, which produced a daily e-paper edition. They gave the device to 200 people, both print and online readers. The test was continuing but she talked about some preliminary results:
* Slow.
* No search.
* Difficulty setting up wifi connections.
* Good quality display, easy to read.
The bigger picture: She called it an "evolution of paper" but not an evolution of newspapers, and raised questions about whether editors are prepared to evolve into a medium where RSS feeds/aggregation, interconnections with other resources, and conversation are expected and demanded.
I briefly examined the device, which seems a bit larger than the e-paper device Sony has been selling in Japan for a couple of years now.
I can even buy a PS3 and a couple of games for that money!
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I'm a big Gutenberg.org fan, so if one of these comes out that is light enough and cheap enough to let me keep my Thackery and Fitzgerald handy I'll jump at it. For someone who likes a lot of old, i.e. out of copyright, literature the support for .txt is great.
Yeah, the lack of backlight is the killer for me. I wouldn't mind an eBook system that does better outdoors when I'm on vacation and want a nice page turner on the beach (my Palm Tungsten is only just barely legible in direct sunlight), but honestly, I use my PDA at night before going to bed a _lot_ more, and the ability for my wife and I to read in the dark without disturbing each other has been a godsend.
Buddha says, "Shut your karma hole."
The Worlds Most Expensive Etch-a-scetch!
Because you can - or because you should?
Did you miss the point?
:)
The GP's point was that the author's nickname is "Illiad", similar to the product in question, "iLiad".
(Thanks for posting the text of the cartoon, but you forgot to post the text from the ad below the cartoon, too.)
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I mark up text files with Latex and then print them out for my own use. I find a two-column layout on 8.5 x 11 paper works best. An average novel usually works out to 30-40 pages printed on both sides of the page. Depending on your printer costs, you can print an entire novel for less than a dollar. Leave an offset on the left for a binding, and what you end up with is alot like a magazine or newspaper (which is where novels used to be published).
Project Gutenberg is an obvious source for text files of public domain books to print. But I've also noticed that most science fiction, from classic to contemporary, is available in text files from a host of torrent sites. Not that I would download them -- that would be piracy! But I will note that used editions of Philip K. Dick's books now run $10.00 at my local bookstore (where other sci-fi writers hover around $5.00). If Dick wrote 50 novels, that's 50 x $10.00 = $500.00!
does it run Linux?
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
2. Taking 4 seconds to turn the page is certainly a pain. But under some circumstances, that's a good tradeoff for not having to recharge the thing for a week.
3. Excuse me? You want to take an expensive device and add an expensive, power-draining feature just because it's expensive? Laptops don't have backlights because they're expensive. They have backlights because a color LCD display is useless without them. This device works fine without a backlight.
It's because of consumers like you that electronic devices suck. You insist on a lot of unnecessary features, and the idiot marketeers listen to you. So every cell phone has a zillion lame features nobody uses. And every device has to have a color display, so it's useless without a backlight. I particularly hate the fact that cell phones are no longer made with mono LCDs. So the display is only visible when you push a button, and then only for a few seconds at a time. All for fancy graphics that nobody really cares about.
You don't want a backlight, you want a traditional light that shines onto the page, like you do with traditional books. Backlit screens are harder to read over long periods. This is pretty much the whole point of e-ink.
1024x768? If I'm not mislead about the resolution of e-ink, the screen on that is likely to support 4-8 times that resolution.
Where'd you read the part about 2-4 seconds for a page refresh? If true, that would really suck.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Perhaps citizen will get into the e-reader market as well http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/17/citizen-lcd-ret ains-image-even-when-off/
You don't want a backlight, you want a traditional light that shines onto the page, like you do with traditional books. Backlit screens are harder to read over long periods. This is pretty much the whole point of e-ink
l eaflet-Iliad.pdf
May be. Just some sort of lightsource.
1024x768? If I'm not mislead about the resolution of e-ink, the screen on that is likely to support 4-8 times that resolution.
See the product specs: http://www.irextechnologies.com/downloads/Product
1024x768 16 grey tones.
Where'd you read the part about 2-4 seconds for a page refresh? If true, that would really suck.
Take a look at the videos mentioned in my first post or google for "Iliad page flip seconds". Plenty of first-hand reports there.
(IANAMD), but I think a backlit display is probably one of the biggest causes of eye strain. The whole point of buying an e-reader, for me, would be the e-paper.
My dad prints out hundreds and hundreds of pages daily because he simply hates reading backlit displays.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
If I had mod points this comment would have received them.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Great, I have been waiting SO LONG for something I can read documents and books on without having to carry around a stack of documents and books.
Now, what's it say here?
You can change the font size of your text to suit your own reading comfort. (Format and DRM dependant.)
WHAT THE FORK???
Write and comment in articles (format and DRM dependant.)
WHAT THE [utensil]???!?!?!?!?!
I mean WHAT???
Sabotaging your own product like that is supposed to be the exclusing domain of Microsoft and maybe Sony. Now every small startup's jumping up on the 'make a product that's expressly designed so that others will actively desire to avoid using it' bandwagon.
Seriously.
Well, I guess I won't be buying one of those. I don't know or care exactly what DRM would prevent me from making notes on the text I'm reading. There's no real justification, but doubtless in some idiotic sense it counts as 'distributing a modified version'. Maybe nothing I would ever want to read would decide to be un-zoomable. But you know what? Why the fork should I even have to think about it for a second??
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
they already have their updates mapped out for the next 4 months :) hilarious.
June:
Software version 2.4
Ordering and shipment of iLiad
July/August features
Software version 2.5
Hotspot support
Apabi format (in Asia only)
"Re-open" a file on last read page
Support for an E-Book DRM format (to be announced soon)
Page-break support in HTML (instead of scrolling)
August/September/October features
Software version 2.6
Dictionary support*
Annotation on PDF/TXT/HTML/Apabi*
File management on the iLiad
MP3 playing
Search (for or in) documents*
Bookmarks in documents*
Page turning speed improvement
have you noticed that lower case letters in front of words have just exploded lately? 3 such words in the title of this article!
I could just get a PDA for that price and read all the ebooks I want + 802.11b + email + web + bluetooth + GPS.
Try again iRex.
(No, I'm not a shill I just want one...and can't afford it...but it'd get it over this e-ink crap)
Question everything
Okay,
.lit format. Much as I despise MS, the MS Reader format is very good.
:-)
From the site it's got some form of internal storage. HOW MUCH??????
You can plug in alot of different media types. COOL!
Doesn't read
Doesn't read the peanuts format.
So far we have a device with less capabilities than my IPAQ at many times the price.
I'm still waiting for the combination PocketPC/IPOD Video device with a 100GB HD to come out and since I finally got MS Reader to work with Codeweavers, I hope the device is linux based.
Thanks for telling us about it!
Damn. That's awful. I thought the e-ink pixels were measured in microns?
Hrm. People seem to be saying that the physical screen refresh is a lot faster, but that the software is just sluggish, which makes me happier.
I don't really care what happens to this particular product, I'm just really excited about e-ink stuff.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Sony Portable Reader and the Jinke Hanlin v2 are other good alternatives soon to be released here is a comparison of them all. I'm personally thinking of getting the Hanlin v2, its got a good price, will come with a SDK, runs Linux and I dont have to worry about Sony's Rootkit or other sneaky stuff they might do.
yeah....just lately. except, how long have the eMac and iBook been around?
and after plopping down that much we find that we "are now able to read digital text in full sunlight, just like paper."
Gee, I have an idea, how about I save 650.00 Euros, don't buy into this stupid DRM scheme, and go borrow a book from the library written on fucking paper?
No Backlight?
DRM?
I think I'll stick with my zaurus, thanks.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Make it compatible with .cbr and .cbz files so I can read comic books, and I'd be all about it. Also, it would be cool if it were thinner and maybe even foldable into something pocet sized. They could further develop that thin electronic paper http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/1 5/1720224, and it would be perfect.
Hope their ebook is more readable than their website! Green on light green, ugh!
Before you dismiss this device on account of DRM, note carefully that -- unlike Sony's pile of shit -- the iLiad does not require DRM. It supports text, PDF, HTML, and probably other formats. In reality, it's actually a big PDA -- it's got a fast XScale CPU, wireless, expansion slots, etc. -- and maybe USB host!
You know, with the right software this could even replace Tablet PCs for some uses. That's certainly what I want it for!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm with you. IMO they made some serious mistakes. First and formost is the cost. Secondly we have something which ties in directly to the first, which is the inclusion of (of all things) an mp3 player. Is it some new dictum that all new hardware will evolve to a point where it includes an mp3 player?
Anyway, it's too expensive. I'm an early adopter, but I will not pay that kind of money for a mere ereader. A portable screen like this should cost 300 euro's max...and that's for the first run of the tech. But then they have to go and include an mp3 player?!? WTF? WHY? I do not want one on my ebook reader. Either make an all purpose device like a palmpilot with this screen or just make a simple no-frills reader. Preferably just the reader, as everyone and his dog has a better mp3 player. It increases cost and size (chip, jack) and drains the battery. AND PEOPLE WHO WANT THIS THING TO READ ON DON'T WANT AN MP3 PLAYER! THEY WANT TO READ BOOKS!
I mean, shoot, my phone has an mp3 player which I never use, as does my palmpilot (which I do use the mp3 function on). I love the screen on this thing....but just not for that money. My guess is they'll never re-coop their investment, as they screwed up their market research on who wants one of these things and what they want on it. They should have diverted the mp3 R&D towards creating a html help (.chm) reader for this thing, as that's what it's sorely missing.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Don't forget that none of this development is going on in a vacuum. Cholesteric LCD (www.kentdisplays.com), Iridescent display (www.qualcomm.com/qmt), and electrowetting display (www.liquavista.com) technology are all reflective bistable formulations. Any of these could leapfrog E-ink and make a better, cheaper E-book.
Pics of these technologies at the last Society for Information Display Show is here:
http://www.smartalix.com/Consumer/SID/page2.html
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
Where is GPRSS module on this gadget? Wifi doesn't cover much while GPRS is available almost everywhere... and can this thing browse the net?
You still need to be "invited" to get to the online order page. Invites can be found here at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t= 6927.
Why an MP3 player? Well, they probably had something like a sound chip (maybe even build in) from a PDA. This thing uses a 400 MHz XScale processor. It is very easy to add MP3 in software, and the software is probably even already available for this kind of configuration anyway. So why? Because it is already there.
:)
As an early adopter, you definately do no like spending. If you look at Blu-Ray, you would have to put in a hell of a lot more cash to get one of those. I think the eInk market is in potential much, much bigger. For most companies at least, this is not much of a price to pay. I would love having one of these things, if only for not having to lug all the documentation to company meetings (and printing them out). Give me a single purpose eInk reader over a laptop anytime.
The resolution of 1024 x 786 would be the largest drawback for me. A laser easily does 600 dpi, almost 4 times the resolution, giving my eyes some much needed rest (what am I still doing here behind my computer
The damn thing is priced into oblivion and the functionality is still not there (slow, no search, etc.)
With eInk offering a developer's kit for $3000, is it time that the open source world took it upon itself to put together the first working ereader? Would an ereader not be possibly as useful as a $100 computer to a Third World demographic?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
This device does 4-bit greyscale... a laser printer is 1-bit. It may even be that the "greyscale" pixels are just groups of four monochrome dots, and it's addressed as 1024x768 greyscale for convenience. With antialiased text, it should come out looking pretty similar.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
They never intended to sell this device to consumers directly. They mainly were selling to bussinesses and other places that could use the technology and just decided to sell to consumers.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.