Electronic Paper's Past and Future

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.

Comments

E-Readers

[imstanny]

I've heard good things about them, specifically the battery life. Does anyone own an E-Reader? I was thinking of getting Sony's. Any thoughts?

Re:E-Readers

[Kris_J]

My main thought is that since it's by Sony it'll be drenched in poisonous DRM.

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.

Re:E-Readers

[tftp]

Sony's e-paper reader is a disaster, I looked at it at Fry's and couldn't force myself to like it. Ghosting, low contrast, and most unpleasant is the low speed of updates (about 1 second to flip the page, with awful flickering all the way.) It is also a single purpose reader, nothing more. I ended up buying a Sansung Q1 Ultra, it is not perfect but at least it is a usable tablet with a Windows OS so you can load stuff onto it, run Mozilla, do things (802.11 + Bluetooth) and in general I like it. The handwriting recognition is excellent, though it has a keyboard as well. Some say it's slow, but as long as it's not your primary gaming box you would be OK :-) A tablet has many uses, and speed is not needed for any of them (as long as it's fast enough to decode MP3s.)

Re:E-Readers

[Anonymous Coward]

> Does anyone own an E-Reader?

I don't, but I have an Nokia N800 that I use sometimes as an e-reader. The default reader software sucks, but there are some MUCH better ones available as open source. Battery life is excellent as long as you don't go wild with the display brightness - which means in effect, indoor use only.

It's shirt-pocket size, so there is always the tradeoff between "small enough to carry anywhere" and "big as a page". The n800 tends more towards the small-enough-for-shirt-pocket end of it. Oh, and it runs Linux :D, so in addition to e-reading you also get everything from bash to gnumeric.

Re:E-Readers

[tlhIngan]

I've heard good things about them, specifically the battery life. Does anyone own an E-Reader? I was thinking of getting Sony's. Any thoughts?

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.

Re:E-Readers

[Moonwick]

Have you thought for just a single moment that maybe you're not the target audience? Maybe not everyone needs a fucking web browser in every gadget they own.

Re:E-Readers

[chill]

The latest incarnation of the Sony Reader plugs in to a USB host and shows up like a drive, to drag files over. It can handle .txt and .PDF as well as JPEG and MP3. Feel free to totally ignore installing their software and never using DRM. I have one and it is fantastic for taking with me when I travel.

Re:E-Readers

[tftp]

I am the target audience. I read many books, I read every day. Many books are available on the Internet, so a browser is not a caprice, it is a necessity. Besides, right now I am reading a book on my Samsung tablet and also replying to you - so it is practical as well.

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 obscure electronic device for such a mundane use.

Re:E-Readers

[chill]

The new model will show up as USB Mass Storage, so you can just plug it in and drag files across. No more Sony software.

Re:E-Readers

[NickCatal]

One thing that is worth highlighting is that the display looks absolutely fantastic. The new reader supposedly has a much faster refresh rate (I'm sure this will speed up even more over time) and it is very easy to read off of. It is somewhat nice not having to look at a bright backlit display to read books and such.

Re:E-Readers

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

I'd say the vast majority of the personal reading I've done over the last few years has been in ebook form. It's a shame there isn't a better outlet for them, at least that I know of. Your probably right about the text books though. Like for my history class this quarter were given a textbook/ebook option, and its alot cheaper to get the ebook, making my choice pretty easy. If we could have everything on some kind of e-paper device (or maybe i just need a laptop?) it would be even better though.

Re:E-Readers

[Technician]

Otherwise it's hard to beat the convenience of Dead Tree Format.

For many things, the dead tree format is obsolete. The obvious is simply missed. Newspapers and other formats for distributing the current events is old by the time it's printed. Get a newspaper if you want yesterday's news. Go online (a form of e-paper) and read Google News, Yahoo news, MSN news, API, etc. An offline publication in either a dead tree format or e-paper format is by defenition a record of history, sometimes as recent as a day or two ago.

Re:E-Readers

[p0tat03]

Actually IMHO college textbooks are the LEAST likely place for ebooks to take off. College students like myself, being poor as we are, like to sell their books after their courses are done. There have been eBook initiative tried in some schools, but the lack of resale ability really killed it. I can get about 70% retail value for my books after I've used them, why would I pay something like 50% of the dead-tree price for something I can't sell later on?

Re:E-Readers

[JavaManJim]

I kind of agree in theory with tfip here. I have not seen an eReader but a couple of prototypes.

Several years ago I was lucky enough to meet the MIT team that developed eInk. At that time, I saw their little proof of concept device. It was a thin copper strip about four inches long and half an inch wide. Mounted on the strip were four or five square plastic covered blobs that enclosed the eInk ping pong type balls. The balls were half white and half black. There was soldering here and there around the copper strip. Again, not really a prototype but a test of concept.

Then four years ago, someone made a large eInk sign for JCPenney. A little further up the food chain to the prototype stage. This is probably the granddaddy of eReader. Here the little dots flipped quite nicely.

I am screen resolution driven. 170 DPI is great for a store sign (ignoring expenses) but hmm, for a book? I wonder what eyestrain might be after a couple of evenings spent eReading (posterity watch, first verb form of this? Naah.). Then is it possible to get 1200 dpi. Those are teeny tiny little ping pong balls there.

I think eInk technology is kind of neat. Neat in a kind of Luddite back to simplicity sense. Reflectivity is its strong point. It may occupy the same niche that those old flip digit alarm clocks used. Digit flip alarm clocks worked like a rotary Rolodex file except the outside face had numbers on it. Each number was a little plastic card that pulled up and over to reveal the next digit. Digit flip clocks were on a time-line approximately between Nixie tubes and later LED & neon based displays.

Thanks,
Jim

Re:E-Readers

[Kris_J]

Browsing a dozen news sites on a PC is not the same thing as an ebook.

Re:E-Readers

[AVee]

So what is it, did they screw up on there DRM scheme once again or did they finally make one properly usable device?

Not that it matters much, it will take a lot more before I start buying Sony again. For starters, I'm not going to spend a single cent on a company that calls me a thief for making a legal copy of legally acquired music. That's just sponsering an upcoming lawsuit against myself, which to me seems really stupid.

Re:E-Readers

[Maximilianop]

I am the target audience. No, you're not. You are not interested in just reading a book. You are insterested in much more at the same time.

Have you taken into account the ecologic impact paper books have? or paper(even recycled) printed newspapers?
Any "normal" book reader as you said, with a little ecologic conscience would choose an electronic paper device, even those who just want to save money on the long run.

Also, you seem to expect a full grown product from a child technology (it's still in pretty early development).
I share your vision, on tablets being practical, just as much as any modern cellphone, blackberry, laptops, etc. But sometimes it's more comfortable a just for book reading device when you want to read a book.

Re:E-Readers

[supergnom]

I am a happy owner of an iRex iLiad, which has a fairly large display (8" vs the Sony's 6, 16 gray shades vs 4), and it is absolutely brilliant for reading. I used to read some books on a Sharp CL860, but the eInk is so much better on the eyes it's hard to describe. I can write on it, which makes it excellent for academic purposes - I read and make changes to quite a few papers and articles. And it is excellent for Sudoku solving. :-)

The sweetest thing though, is that it runs Linux and has an increasing amount of community applications. It uses GTK, so quite some apps have been ported, and several nice changes has been done to the in-house PDF viewer. Together with some scripts on a PC, the iLiad can wake up in the morning, download the newspapers off the WIFI for me and turn itself off.

Only bad thing (except for the steep price tag) is that the battery only lasts for about 10-12 hours on a charge, as they in one way or another managed to not make it able to suspend...

Re:E-Readers

[dedo_jozef]

I have an iRex iLiad (V2) and while the battery life is very, very bad (10-20 hours, but may be better in future if they get the kernel right), the display is the best I could wish for. It is bigger than Sony's (8" vs 6"), runs Linux, supports CF, MMC, SD cards, has wifi, ethernet and 2 USB slots and some internal memory also. A great device. Not cheap, though.

Re:E-Readers

[trenien]

I read as much news on line as the next geek (many hours a day). However...

Thinking that instant news is the only valid news is a huge mistake IMHO.

Having news that have taken a while to be gathered and properly studied and presented by the reporter is very important. Sometime you have to take the time to think.

Having said that, this kind of news I'm talking about can perfectly be delivered through a computer's screen or that of a mobile reader of some kind (e-ink or otherwise).

Just don't confuse the stream of data you can get from any website such as Yahoo - the same way you could from Reuters - with real news. I thought it was worth pointing it out.

Re:E-Readers

[cafard]

I'm the happy owner of one. After years spent looking at e-books and never finding one whose functionality/price was good enough, i almost found the holy grail. Battery life is brilliant, though something like 10 times less than advertised (i think they advertise 7500 page turns of autonomy, and my experience is that i can read books up to 800 pages on a full charge).

On DRM, the reader's best supported format is the sony one (.lrf files), which provides the best rendering, and which *can* support a DRM layer. It also happens to be a trivial format that also works without embedded restrictions. Therefore, you can download many books from the Gutenberg project in unencumbered lrf format from Manybooks.net. You can also convert many document formats (txt, rtf, html, doc) to unencumbered lrf. PDF support is not good though, as most A4 formatted pdfs will be too small when read in portrait, and will require you to scroll when in landscape. Good enough if you really need to access a pdf from time to time, but there's no way you'll ever read a book that way.

Finally, on accessing the device, mine doesn't work as a usb mass storage device, and i don't know if that's going to happen in the next models (sure hope so, obviously). However, there's a cross-platform open source driver available, which means that since i have the reader, i never had to use the crap software sony provides more than once, just to have a look. Never bothered again, and it doesn't run on my linux box anyway. That driver also comes with a GUI software, and many basic command line tools to access the device (cp, rm, ls etc), and to convert file formats (html2lrf being one of the most useful).

In the end, i really love that 'toy'. The hindrance of not having a backlight on the screen makes it more comfortable on the long run: no more visual fatigue than reading paper. The battery life is good, it is small enough to be carried comfortably (i'm looking at you iLiad), it can read most of the free books out there on the web. The main downside of course, is that you won't get access to the most recent books, as they're only sold with DRM, and usually not in Sony's format. Personally, i wasn't looking for that, so i'm fine, but this *is* a hindrance, and will be until ebook shops change their policies, which could take many years... Ah, and also, it's an ebook reader, nothing else. Well ok, it can display images and play mp3s, but that's really a waste of battery life. It doesn't browse the web, it has no wifi. It's only a book reader. But it's a damn good one.

Re:E-Readers

[Andrew Aguecheek]

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.

Re:E-Readers

[trenien]

I have one (first generation screen from E-Ink)

170 dpi, 6 inches.

The way it feels is incredible. Sure, the letters aren't as crisp as those you get from 600 dpi (and above) print. That said, you honestly have no strain reading it.

Overall, it feels like you're reading some kind of print out made on a plastic sheet.

Re:E-Readers

[dioxide]

The latest incarnation of the Sony Reader plugs in to a USB host and shows up like a drive, to drag files over. It can handle .txt and .PDF as well as JPEG and MP3. Feel free to totally ignore installing their software and never using DRM. I have one and it is fantastic for taking with me when I travel.

Eh, you can, but you're going to get the best results regarding display quality (because you can control font and size), as well as not waiting (feels like an eternity) for the reader to format the file itself.

If you do want to just drop books in, at least convert them to Sony's native book format. They really do tend to be better. The tool I use for this purpose is called BookDesigner, and it makes for some very comfortable reading. Still have the formatting wait though.

While I'm at it, PDFrasterfarian can format your PDF files. You can crop the pdfs, force one pdf page to use two frames (thats usually what i go for) portrait or landscape modes, all free stuff. Google should lend you a hand finding these.

for the record, i own one of these, and i absolutely love it. my only real gripe is the lack of backlighting, but i think i might be able to hack something up to make a frontlight that wont send a glare back at me.

Re:E-Readers

[dargaud]

Can it handle cbr/cbz files for comic book reading like CDisplay does (besides the fact that it's only B&W) ? Heh, that's literature too !

Re:E-Readers

[Fred_A]

The obvious is simply missed. Newspapers and other formats for distributing the current events is old by the time it's printed. Get a newspaper if you want yesterday's news. Much of the stuff in papers (or at least the few proper newspapers that are still available here and there) is way beyond the one liners that passes for instant news nowadays.
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.

Re:E-Readers

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I am currently a college student (Electrical Engineering).
I currently buy all of my books (and keep most of them), seeing as I am in my senior year.
I currently have electronic copies of more than half of my books (running around 80%).
I currently have electronic copies of ALL of my in-class materials (lectures are recorded for graduate-level classes, notes are PDF or PowerPoint format on-line, research papers are PDFs on-line, homework is written in and submitted in electronic format).
Many students around me take notes in electronic format (laptops or the fancy kind you can write on).

I think that e-books are just waiting to take off here.

Also, given the amount of piracy on campus, I would not think the re-sale value would come into question (or, indeed, the sale value).

Re:E-Readers

[sayfawa]

I can get about 70% retail value for my books after I've used them, why would I pay something like 50% of the dead-tree price for something I can't sell later on?

But who says you would pay 50% for the digital format? Lots of e-books on your favourite torrent site. I have just about every physics and math text I've ever heard of in pdf or djvu format. If a student doesn't have an ethical problem with that then surely paying nothing for something they get to keep is better than paying 30% for something they don't. And then there's the weight benefit of these readers.

The only problem I have with these things is that you can't write on them like with a real book.

Re:E-Readers

[Tejin]

If we switch to PDFs we can finally get out of the scam that is university textbook pricing. If textbooks were priced rationally, students wouldn't be quite as poor. If you grab the textbook PDF off the iniversity's network share then you don't need to resell it.

Re:E-Readers

[Dragonslicer]

I can get about 70% retail value for my books after I've used them Can I come visit your planet?

Re:E-Readers

[rthall]

I once got 17 cents for a textbook I paid $50 for.

If I had the choice, I would go e-book all the way.

Re:E-Readers

[chill]

I was amazed that they didn't find a way to screw this over in the end. The only thing I can think of is someone messed up. :-)

Anyway, Sony Music != Sony Electronics, but I understand your point.

Re:E-Readers

[IndieKid]

I don't think textbooks are that overpriced. The market isn't as big as that for your average novel, and the quality of the paper and binding tends to be a lot higher as the book is likely to be re-read a lot more.

Your average [insert topic here] for Dummies or Learn [insert programming language here] in 21 days book is usually just as expensive as an average college textbook. Colleges tend to get discounts for course books too (at least my University over here in the UK used to) - of course that raises issues about whether the best books are being used as course texts or just the ones the college can get a discount on.

I think college books as eBooks are a good idea as long as they are priced appropriately (i.e. the price takes into account the reduced publishing and distribution costs). Personally I didn't re-sell any of my Computer Science course texts and I've found some of them useful over the years since I graduated. I didn't bother buying the ones I didn't think I'd use again and got them from the library as I needed them instead.

Re:E-Readers

[kaitou]

No, but if you combine the images into a PDF and run it through PDFRasterfarian, you get a very readable comic out of it

Re:E-Readers

[AVee]

As far as I'm concerned Sony Music == Sony Electronics, they both hide behind the same www.sony.com, and more importantly, they feed the same shareholders.

Re:E-Readers

[afroborg]

I hate people who write in text books.
Especially people who write in MY text books.

One of my friends at university used to be really bad for that - i'd lend him a text book and it would come back with notes all through the margins, bits underlined, and drawings all over the place. Even worse is one of my collegues now who insists on highlighting things in text books. It makes them really hard to read afterwards.

Honestly, make notes on your own paper.

Re:E-Readers

[FLJerseyBoy]

For many things, the dead tree format is obsolete.

Oh man, I can't tell you how off-base I think this is. Only thing that salvages it is the "for most things" qualifier. I've been reading stuff on-screen since the 1970s so don't have a knee-jerk Luddite aversion to it. But as others have said, there is just too much GOOD reading that won't be available -- electronically, conveniently, portably -- for a while.

Obsolescence is coming, no doubt. But it's no more here and now than, say, jacking in a la Neuromancer. Claims otherwise say more about the claimant's taste in reading than they do about the written word. Which isn't a personal criticism, with a value judgment intended; more along the lines of Will Sonnett's "no brag, just fact" disclaimer.

Re:E-Readers

[swillden]

Sony's e-paper reader is a disaster, I looked at it at Fry's and couldn't force myself to like it. Ghosting, low contrast, and most unpleasant is the low speed of updates (about 1 second to flip the page, with awful flickering all the way.) It is also a single purpose reader, nothing more. I ended up buying a Sansung Q1 Ultra, it is not perfect but at least it is a usable tablet with a Windows OS so you can load stuff onto it, run Mozilla, do things (802.11 + Bluetooth) and in general I like it.

I prefer a single-purpose reader. In fact, I find a good e-book reader to be a better reading experience than paper. The problem with tablets is battery life. I own a couple of Gemstar e-Book readers, and I really like them. They're light and compact enough that I can carry one in the place of a paperback, backlit so I can read in the dark, have an adjustable font size so I can read at arm's length when that's convenient (for example, while on a treadmill), and only need to be recharged once every week or two. How would your tablet do on a day where you're traveling for 12+ hours, without access to an AC outlet?

My only complaint about the readers I have is that the flight attendant makes me turn my book off during takeoff and landing. I'm hopeful that I might, maybe, be able to talk them into letting me use an e-ink-based reader which doesn't have to be turned on to display text. Well, I think it's a possibility when I'm sitting in first class, anyway -- the stews in coach will never allow it.

Re:E-Readers

[Ephemeriis]

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.

See, for me, the exact opposite is true. I have precious little time for recreational reading these days... But back in college I was a voracious reader. I carried around a Palm PDA loaded up with literally dozens of eBooks. It was terrific to be able to carry around a dozen books in a form factor that was smaller than a single novel. At the time, battery life was an issue...but that has supposedly changed. It was very convenient for me to have a wide selection of books to chose from, and to have another one available as soon as I'd finished the last. I definitely prefer the convenience of an eBook to Dead Tree Format for recreational reading.

For educational texts, I actually prefer Dead Tree Format. It's generally helpful to be able to highlight things, add notes, underline, whatever. I'm sure those things are available to varying degrees with eBooks, but it never worked terribly well for me on my old Palm.

Re:E-Readers

[tazbert]

Every "normal" book reader would pick a paper book without thinking. That's what libraries have, right?

Actually, my local libaray has an e-book lending program. Yeah, it's got DRM, but it hasn't been too limiting. For my fiction reading, I much prefer downloading a copy to my Palm and using an e-reader program: my Palm is much smaller than a dead-tree book, it's always with me, I can read at night without keeping the lights on and disturbing my spouse, and I can get in some surreptitious reading during boring staff meetings by pretending to take notes or check my schedule.

Re:E-Readers

[tlhIngan]

For many things, the dead tree format is obsolete.

Oh man, I can't tell you how off-base I think this is. Only thing that salvages it is the "for most things" qualifier. I've been reading stuff on-screen since the 1970s so don't have a knee-jerk Luddite aversion to it. But as others have said, there is just too much GOOD reading that won't be available -- electronically, conveniently, portably -- for a while.

Too true. The one major disadvantage of electronic to deadtree is well, cost and disposability. Curling up with a good book on the sofa and munching on some snack is a pastime for many people. Well, if the deadtree gets all the crumbs and crap on it, you don't care (if it got too grungy, you buy a new copy and chuck the old one (assuming you don't read rare books like this - but most people make a copy first and read that)). Get your e-reader grungy, and (forgetting DRM) means you're shelling out a chunk of change for a new one.

Ditto with reading in the bathtub - I have tons of books that have undergone major soakings, and other than crinkled pages, are otherwise still readable.

Or, as someone once complained... they read the newspaper, and eat their breakfast. They don't care if they spill some coffee on it, or if their breakfast drops crumbs / oil on it. They put it in the recycling, and get a fresh copy the next day. Reading off a screen... well, you don't want to do stuff like that.

For stuff that changes often, e-readers are great. But deadtree will be around a long time, simply because they're far more durable and disposable than an e-reader. Until we get rid of reading in the bathtub or curling up with a good book and a snack, or just reading stuff at breakfast and not minding the fact that it's getting dirty and grungy. The convenience of deadtree in this case has yet to be surpassed by e-readers. Maybe in the future when e-readers are $5 each...

Re:E-Readers

[neophytepwner]

Ahhh... If only. That would bring in the day of free* textbooks. Unless of course they were laden with DRM.

*i.e. shared over the net

Re:E-Readers

[Anonymous Coward]

IRC

Undernet

#bookz

Re:E-Readers

[FLJerseyBoy]

in the future when e-readers are $5 each

That's a good point -- that it's not just the physical format of books/magazines, but also the economics of the format. Far as I'm concerned, if they can get a readable e-reader to display just a single work, with no replacement of the content possible, and get it down to $5 a pop, then I don't care that it's glass or plastic or what-have-you instead of paper: I'm there in the checkout line.

Hmm. Wonder if anyone's working on such a thing? Even for $5.95 a pop? [g]

Re:E-Readers

[absoluteflatness]

"For Dummies" books cost like $10-$20. I think I've had maybe one college textbook in that range. Average books range from about $40-$80, and if you're unlucky the books for some subjects (in my case I think it was physics and calculus) will run you well over $100. At least these books you sometimes need for more than one class. Sadly, even this isn't always true. For example, my school's required books for statics and dynamics run $123.50 each from the bookstore, and each are only used for one class.

Re:E-Readers

[dgatwood]

Not that it matters much, it will take a lot more before I start buying Sony again. For starters, I'm not going to spend a single cent on a company that calls me a thief for making a legal copy of legally acquired music. That's just sponsering an upcoming lawsuit against myself, which to me seems really stupid.

I was boycotting Sony long before that. I've thought their electronics were mostly junk since the mid 1990s.

Re:E-Readers

[tftp]

I am not so sure of ecological savings unless one reads (and then destroys!) tons of paper books. I do read a lot, but most people don't, they may need a month or two to go through a medium-sized book just because they have only 15-20 minutes every night available for reading. Let's assume they read 10 books per year. A eBook reader would last for 5 years (until it fails, gets dropped and broken, or lost on travel, or just obsolete.) So an electronic gadget - which is not recyclable and not biodegradable - is equivalent to 50 books (which in fact won't be destroyed after 5 years, they'd merrily keep existing, if not in my home then in the nearest library.)

When we compare 50 books (borrowed from a library or bought) to a small computer we can easily see that all that electronics inside is quite poisonous and requires lots of energy to manufacture. Lithium batteries alone require special handling, since Li is too much biodegradable. Books, on the other hand, are almost clean (paper manufacturing can produce some waste.)

But of course I can only express my personal opinion on advantages that a modern small tablet might have over a modern small eBook reader. eInk is not there yet, in my opinion - it is a nice prototype but to my perception the slow refresh rate is too painful. It practically eliminates on-screen menus, or half-page scrolling, or smooth scrolling (which I don't like) or anything else that would require dynamic content, or even color. Quite a few .lit ebooks have images, and some HTML ebooks (such as what you can find in the URL that is specified in my /. account) also have and use color (and images.) But if you, and others, prefer an offline monochrome device with low screen contrast but very eyes-friendly texture, by all means go for it, and argue for it as much as you wish (as you do already :-) I understand that there can not be a single opinion on such a personal matter.

Re:E-Readers

[Maximilianop]

Your point is valid. I too tend to keep my books for as long as the paper takes to brake from oldage.
But you can't deny not everyone in the world is willing to increase the lifecycle of books as we and others do.
Every book I had to buy in high school was resold or given free to undergraded schoolmates, but most my class mates did quite the opposite, some even burnt them as a way to show relief from school years end.

Also you didn't take in account text-books, analytic reports, manuals, and plenty others mass printed books which can cost several thousands to millions paper sheets.

Anyway as you said a tablet is as good as any e-paper device for me, but it doesn't mean a Tablet is better cause it lets you connect to internet, convergence is not the only thing in mind when you want to read a book

Re:E-Readers

[bhiestand]

for the record, i own one of these, and i absolutely love it. my only real gripe is the lack of backlighting, but i think i might be able to hack something up to make a frontlight that wont send a glare back at me. I own one as well and can't find anything bad to say about it. Backlighting is currently technically impossible. Since it's e-paper, trying to put a backlight in is like trying to put a backlight on a book. You want to/have to light it up from the front. I use a normal book light for mine.

One thing I want to point out here is that Sony isn't lying about the battery life. One charge lasts me about 10,000 page turns. I've used my reader nearly continuously for ~2 weeks without needing to recharge it. It is a LiON battery, though, so you will need to recharge it occasionally even if it's not in use. I use mine daily and recharge it about once a month.

Re:E-Readers

[tftp]

How would your tablet do on a day where you're traveling for 12+ hours, without access to an AC outlet?

I don't know how the tablet would do, but I would be really wasted after traveling for 12+ hours regardless of access to an AC or DC outlet. I definitely would not want to read for all this time. On a few occasions when I had to cross the Atlantic I read for a while, then slept as much as I could, then it was dinner time, then some work (on a laptop) then some more slumber, then landing. You'd be hit with so much jet lag that it pays to sleep while you can.

Of course if you travel on a steamboat or a sailing ship (no AC power!) from Anchorage to San Diego, then your options may be different (depends on your resistance to sea sickness, for example :-)

Re:E-Readers

[swillden]

Try crossing the Pacific, rather than the Atlantic. Australia, for example. But even just flying around the states, it's not uncommon to have 9 hours from the time you leave home to the time you get to your hotel room... and I do spend nearly all of that reading. A tablet might be able to do that, as long as you were sure it was fully charged before you left. The e-book is much nicer, though. I pretty much never worry about it. The screen also works in full sunlight, and the device is much smaller and lighter -- and cheaper. If you have other uses for the tablet besides reading, but don't need a more powerful laptop and don't need something that works outside, and remember to keep the tablet charged, it would work. For my needs, a regular laptop plus the e-book are a better solution.

Re:E-Readers

[Technician]

I read as much news on line as the next geek (many hours a day). However...

100% in agreement on that one. With an online resource, the old news is a link away unlike any offline reader. For example, if you are following the RIAA lawsuits, you have an instant list of the past and related documents. The Media Sentry testimony is old news, but when the points are in the current case, you can review the testimony. A prime example is the IP spoofing and such in the recent mega award. IP spoofing is possible as well as piggybacking on an unsecured access point. The jury found that is not probable because of the lack of a router or wireless access point and the user names showed the probability that this was not plausible. Old news is as important as new news. Having it readily available online is very important.

The Recording industry vs the people is much more important than the Yahoo headline news most any day.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/

I mean, the un-important entertainment stuff is in the top stories on the entertainment media news networks. Yahoo is news that doesn't matter.
Under top stories is a story about a dancing cockatoo and some dispute over a dog. That's real news? Does it matter? It's entertainment and little else. Why is any of this in NATIONAL news?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_dancing_cockatoo;_ylt=AsqNO.bEkPvxhYtiBiy3z6.s0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_en_tv/people_degeneres;_ylt=Aqhd_MV_fCo68v1cgksbX3Os0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_en_tv/people_degeneres;_ylt=Aqhd_MV_fCo68v1cgksbX3Os0NUE

Re:E-Readers

[rogera]

In view of Sony's DRM , I am not going to buy another Sony product again until they change their idiotic policies and to develop a more customer friendly attitude. I would recommend that others do the same. This way we can get their policies changed.

Re:E-Readers

[Anonymous Coward]

I own the Sony Reader PRS500 and I am a very, very happy owner.

Yes. The display does change the contents by briefly reversing the graphics. Yes. The "page turn" takes about 750miliseconds. Can you turn the page in a paper book faster than that? I do not think so. By the time you finish your second book on the Reader you will stop to notice the "flash". Our brains are extremely eficient in filtering the noise - like smell, like the train that your visitors can hear in the night but you do not register, like the slight optical distortion your reading glases cause.

If you are - just like I am - a bookworm that is interesting in a device that will let you to read [LOTS of] novels and/or other long fiction text-only stuff, from beginning to end, you will love the reader and you will love its screen.

And unlike you I have used the Reader to read many dozens (perhaps over a hundred) books on that thing.

it's really one word,

[User 956]

the question of how electronic paper will change our lives in the next few years.

Two words: porn.

Re:it's really one word,

[ILuvRamen]

wait wait wait, come on...porn AND ads. Maybe even porn ads.

hip

[sh3l1]

personally, i'm really interested in this whole e-paper movement, whatever it is. It has an e at the front so it's hip.

One Question

[sqrt(2)]

Can I still write on it?

Re:One Question

[martin-boundary]

Can I still write on it?

Of course you can! But I'm afraid James Spader beat you to it in the first Stargate movie.

Re:One Question

[chill]

Yes, but it costs a bit more.

Re:One Question

[Hoi Polloi]

Will it have an antimicrobial coating for trips to the loo?

I want some...

[dotancohen]

...electronic rolling paper. Maybe some electronic hits while I'm at it. Creepy, it's been years since I've seen stamps dancing on their own...

Well,

[K.os023]

From TFA:

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!

Re: Well,

[Maximilianop]

From 2012 predicted and scheduled events

February 6 -- If she is still on the throne, Elizabeth II will celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. A series of festivities across the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations will likely run throughout the year. There won't be enough e-ink to fill in that many billboards.

May 20 -- Annular solar eclipse, a Sunday. Batteries won't suffice to let us read that day.

October 19 -- at 1:36 UTC, the Earth will be home to 7 billion people, according to the US Census Bureau. 7 billion people will mean 7 billion readers... come on, Dead Tree Format won't suffice.

November 13 -- Total solar eclipse (visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific). Good luck I'm in South Atlantic, I'll be able to keep reading.

December 21 -- The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the Maya civilization among others of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, completes its thirteenth b'ak'tun cycle since the calendar's mythical starting point (equivalent to 3114 BC August 11 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, according to the "GMT-correlation" JDN= 584283).[7] The Long Count b'ak'tun date of this starting point (13.0.0.0.0) is repeated, for the first time in a span of approximately 5,125 solar years. The significance of this period-ending to the pre-Columbian Maya themselves is unclear, and there is an incomplete inscription (Tortuguero Stela 6) that records this date. It is also to be found carved on the walls of the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, where it functions as a base date from which other dates are computed.[8] However, it is conjectured that this may represent in the Maya belief system a transition from the current Creation world into the next. The December solstice for 2012 also occurs on this day. Yep, they were right... no more ink over paper just flipping ping pong balls from now on.
Based on the Bible being the first mass printed book, it will be a total new era.

# December 23 -- The alternative date for the completion of the thirteenth b'ak'tun cycle in the Maya calendar, using a version of the GMT-correlation based on a JDN of 584285 (a.k.a. the "Lounsbury correlation"), which is supported by a smaller number of Mayanist researchers.[9] Also, my 30th birthday. Of course it's the most important fact.

at least 5 years away

[vlk]

When the display can be folded and put into a pocket, when I am able to read all of it on a single charge, when I can effortlessly pull down background info from varied sources - let me know, I'll be buy 10 of them.

Re:at least 5 years away

[cjp]

They're already very low power usage, since epaper only uses power when changing the display - there's no passive power usage. Define "effortlessly"? Copying your text onto a flash card is pretty slow effort. Hanging out for foldable, for sure.

Re:at least 5 years away

[vlk]

Foldable is pretty important though - it's one of the most convenient qualities of paper. Otherwise, you have a stripped-down PDA, no matter what the marketing department says.

"Effortlessly" for me would have to involve some sort of wireless, and, being USA-centric here, the only *currently* reasonable solution is Ev-Do. Which is a pig relative to power, though Wi-Max or municipal Wi-Fi (yeah, right) are even worse (and have another fatal flaw in that they don't exist).

Re:at least 5 years away

[cjp]

I was envisaging something with the same reading qualities as a book, not the same qualities as a piece of paper. So something that folds once to fit in a (large) pocket, opens up to the same dimensions as a paperback, has switches for page flipping or whatever. Maybe I'm married to the past and have to move beyond the book paradigm, I don't know :) Wireless for the win, I guess. I just carry USB to mini-USB cables everywhere though, which has the added advantage of charging the device while I'm transferring.

bookster.com

[Damon Tog]

I see that bookster.com is already register. Even the pirates are planning ahead.

Hopefully, this copyright/piracy controversy will be straightened out by 2012, or authors will be joining musicians in the welfare lines of Tomorrow.

Re:bookster.com

[speaker of the truth]

Because musicians are hurt so much by piracy. Oh wait, no they're not. The small ones freely allow others to copy and distribute their music while the big ones are still making more then enough to support their coke habits. Guess authors don't have so much to worry about then.

Re:bookster.com

[benow]

Yeah, cause we all know how dynamic and personally relevant the financial system is. I hope a trust based barter system emerges so we can rid ourselves of negative reinforcement backed, centralized (corruptable), bottlenecked, legacy systems. Piracy is a the death cry of scams that have been routed around... this too shall pass. The treasured will always be rewarded, in one form or another.

Re:bookster.com

[Damon Tog]

"a trust based barter"

Don't we already have this? Isn't this the point of currency?

Re:bookster.com

[benow]

Do we? It's removed from the individual... we're using representations we have no say over. There is no barter, for the most part... just an asking price with no negotiation... it costs what it costs because its what is asked. Pay it or go without. Barter for actual worth to self is refused. Steal or revolt and go to jail. There is no direct exchange between buyer and seller... just an indirect market valuation. So, buyer is not exchanging directly with seller and seller not with buyer, instead they use an intermediary. That intermediary is centrally controlled and detached from the populace. I don't want to get into centralized banking scams, but they are plenty... they get rich on the backs of those who have no choice but to participate, and by participating collectively condone the distasteful acts that go into keeping the whole house of cards intact. Starvation and drought in the land of plenty. Nobody learns from the process, there are far too many slaves to a broken system and far too few benefit, despite the propaganda. Sure, it's what we know, and sure everybody has to participate in it at one level or another, but that doesn't mean they have to like it or to not push for something better. We're getting closer to it online, but there is still no concept of direct barter. I'm not sure if we have the language to transend the inherited.

First Porn!

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed a great opportunity, so I had to correct it for you. :)

Other devices might be better

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumors are flying around that Amazon is going to release their own e-ink device any day/week now. A version of it went through the FCC a while ago since it might have a wireless modem in it. It will probably be more expensive than the Sony, but might have the ability to download newspapers and magazines directly.

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/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/kindle-edition-books-appear-on-amazon-reader-launch-imminent/
http://www.bookeen.com/
http://www.irextechnologies.com/

Re:Other devices might be better

[zippthorne]

I hope that's not it. That is one ugly beast. And what's the deal with all the buttons? Do they seriously expect people to want to type on a 1 hz display?

Re:Other devices might be better

[Maximilianop]

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). QFT, I'm a novels enthusiast but books costs, difficulty to take along and lazyness to go to the book stores makes me read one to two books a year tops, I don't read on a PC cause it really messes my eyes and I don't own a laptop.

I'm waiting for e-ink based devices to grow in popularity, include an optional back light for night reading as the ones I've seen don't come in such a flavor, and for virtual libraries becoming popular web 3.0 era e-businesses. Once all this happen (and we know the last one WILL happen), I will buy oneof this devices and be happier than kid in a candy store.

Re:Other devices might be better

[swillden]

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).

If you want a break from the classics, you can also get lots of sci-fi and fantasy from baen.com. Much of it is somewhat "pulpish", but I find it entertaining. They sell most all of their books for $4 each DRM-free and in various formats (HTML, RTF, Rocket e-Book, Mobipocket and MS e-book), and they also have a "free library" designed to get you hooked. The free library features books from almost all of their authors, so you can get a good idea about whether or not you like their stuff without spending a dime. Actually, even for the books that aren't in the free library, you can read the first few chapters on-line at no cost.

In addition to the free library and single book sales, they also have their "webscription" program. Each month they package a set of books, usually including one or two new releases (and by "new", I mean "get it before it hits the shelves") and four or five older books. You buy the months that you want for $15 each, making your per-book price somewhere around $2.50. In many cases, the older releases are actually omnibus volumes that contain, say, a whole trilogy, so it's not uncommon for a $15 webscription to net you more than 10 full novels. The downside, of course, is they come as a package so if you only want two or three of the books in a month it doesn't make sense.

Another interesting thing they do is "Electronic Advance Reader Copies", or "eARCs". An eARC is more expensive, usually $15 for one book, but you get it as much as six months before the book hits the shelves. The reason you get it so early is because it's basically the text straight from the author, unedited and unproofread. Why would you want an unproofed book? For some people it's because they just can't wait for the next installment in a series, but apparently lots of eARCs are sold to fans who just think it's cool to have the "raw, uncut" version, as it were. According to Baen, eARC sales often peak well after the regular book is released.

All of their stuff is not only DRM-free, but they actually encourage sharing. Apparently this concept has worked really well for them, significantly increasing sales of all of their books, including the ones they give away for free. Many of their authors report that their royalties from electronic sales are approaching and occasionally exceeding their brick and mortar royalties, and the publisher is doing well, too.

Disclaimer: I have no connection with Baen, other than as a very satisfied customer. I'd really like to see their business model spread.

Re:Other devices might be better

[Anonymous Coward]

what do you think about Jinke.
They are coming out with 10" *any time now* (for the last 2 months), but looks good.

Re:Other devices might be better

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also a device from a chinese manufacturer called Jinke I believe.

Fragility

[Merovign]

I think durability will be the biggest problem.

People are rough with things. Especially students, one of the ideal user groups for this kind of thing.

The low-power portion is desirable, but my guess is that most of these things will end up in frames.

Re:Fragility

[RuBLed]

If you make them inexpensive enough, I'm sure its a good tradeoff. Besides, this time we only need to replace that single paper, the data is tucked somewhere safe unlike ordinary paper where the data is destroyed with the paper.

But I still like to brag my game manuals or books around though. You see books are not only meant for reading. If one thinks of it as only a reading material, I believe that person had never owned a book. (Cue: Internation Space Station moisture problem :D )

Giveaways

[Merovign]

Oh, and if, as is mentioned in the article, they have some sort of promotional giveaway of e-paper with ads/slogans etc... grab one quick!

They'll stop giving them away when a "hack" appears online to add battery life, memory, rewrite the OS, etc. :)

I don't know...

[RalphBNumbers]

I'm actually not sure that stable-image type displays (what I would generically consider e-paper) are going to be the first widespread paper-replacement. As nice as their low power consumption is, their bit depth, color, contrast, and refresh rate are all horrible at the moment. And while they are certainly improving in those areas, things like LCDs and OLEDs are improving in power consumption and form factor as well.

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...

[chill]

Really? Then you don't read. The Sony Reader's screen is 100x better than an iPod for reading something like a book.

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 on the iPod Touch and then the Sony, then get back to me.

Totally different targets.

Re:I don't know...

[mark-t]

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.

Re:I don't know...

[m2943]

I read a lot on mobile devices and I find that screen size and screen resolution makes little difference for reading literature; they are only important for diagrams or reference works.

In fact, what matters most for reading is that the device is pocketable, and a small screen device is far superior to imitation books.

Re:I don't know...

[martin-boundary]

That doesn't seem right. My experience is that if the screen is twice as big, one only needs to press the scroll button half as often. There's nothing more annoying than trying to read a novel while pressing a button each time one has read 5 or 10 lines of text. It's an optimization between portability factor and annoyance. There's a reason books come in standardized sizes.

Re:I don't know...

[battjt]

I'm ignorant of most of what you describe, but bit depth?! Newspapers are 1 bit. The original NeXT was 2 bit gray and beautiful. Looking at my screen right now, the only color is in my RSS icons, the scroll bar and just a few other hot controls. I remember that making the jump from 2 bit gray on the NeXT to 24 bit color wasn't nearly as useful as we thought it would be. The first time someone showed me a color NeXT and said "Look!", I couldn't figure out what was different.

I thought these epaper devices are reflective and of very high resolution. I would think that those benefits would compensate for a low bit depth.

I'm surprise that today, the low refresh rate is a big deal. Must the device refresh the whole screen? Can it just update changes and if so, does it keep up with typing? Most of what I do is text (code and terminals). A portable device with a reflective screen would let me work as a passenger in a car on a sunny day or at the ball diamond during my son's ball practice.

Joe

Re:I don't know...

[RalphBNumbers]

Actually, I read quite a bit, including many full novels, and I do at least half of that reading these days on a computer display of one sort or another. In point of fact, I've been actively avoiding buying new paper books for a while now simply because all of my bookshelves are full and I have no space for more (I'm looking at giving them away and getting taller ones at the moment).

And, having played with a Sony Reader (the 500 model) for a while, I can definitely say that it does not have a "much higher contrast ratio" than current emissive displays in a normal indoor environment; it's display can hardly even be called black and white, more like light gray and darker gray (like newsprint when compared to a magazine, it's readable but not gorgeous). I do very little of my reading "in full, direct sunlight", as that can be hard on the eyes even with plain old printed paper, and when I'm outdoors I tend to be on the move anyway.

E-paper has it's advantages, and is just fine for reading lots a plain static text on a dedicated device in a well lit area. I just don't think that is sufficient to give them mass market appeal when other devices are getting pretty damn good at displaying text, and >3-bit graphics, and color, and video, and interactive webpages and programs, etc... all at once.

Re:I don't know...

[m2943]

My experience is that if the screen is twice as big, one only needs to press the scroll button half as often.

Talk about stating the obvious.

There's nothing more annoying than trying to read a novel while pressing a button each time one has read 5 or 10 lines of text.

I can think of plenty of things more annoying, like not having the book on me in the first place, having to deal with slow refresh, carrying multiple devices, etc.

It's an optimization between portability factor and annoyance.

Given that pushing a button doesn't bother me, there are big gains in portability against essentially no annoyance for me.

There's a reason books come in standardized sizes.

Yes, like paper handling, binding, and paper waste. A 3" diagonal book with 2000 pages is not practical. A 3" diagonal e-book with 2000 pages is.

Re:I don't know...

[anethema]

I almost have to agree with the grandparent here. If you have seen the Sony reader and something like a PDA, then chose the PDA for reading, I cant imagine you are a very avid reader. Reading staring into fluorescent bulbs for hours on end is MUCH harder on the eyes than reading from e-paper. The background is a bit greyish, but I would still say, compared to a PDA or similar device, the screen is AMAZINGLY easy on the eyes. And, like a book, you can read it in any light from full sunlight to single candlelight.

Plus, having to recharge it once every 5-10 books is so bloody nice, you can take it on vacation without the charger and never have to worry about it dying on you. Its like carrying entire bookshelves of paper like goodness with you, in the form factor of a paperback of 100 pages or so length.

Re:I don't know...

[steveg]

I have a Sony Reader, as well as an old Palm that stays in my pocket.

There are advantages to the Palm, primarily the fact that it *is* in my pocket, so it's nearly always available. If I find myself somewhere with a little time to kill, I can always reach in and read on the Palm -- I generally have two or three books residing on it.

On the other hand, the Sony is a bit large to carry in a normal pocket. In the winter, if I'm wearing a coat, it will fit in an inside jacket pocket (if a mass market paperback will fit, so will the Reader.) In the summer, it will fit in the cargo pockets of my shorts, so availability is not *that* big a problem.

All that said, resolution and screen size makes an *enormous* difference when reading literature. I can read on the Palm for 15 or 20 minutes, and after that I'm pretty much ready to stop. I can read on the Sony for hours with no visual fatigue. The contrast and resolution is not as good as dead tree, but it is far above any other electronic device I've used, and it's nice having 100+ books in my pocket. Many's the time that my dead tree book finished up with the next one in the queue being across town somewhere.

Price

[Fengpost]

The Sony's PRS-505 is at $299. I will wait until the price drop to 199. I have seen the epaper made from E Ink, it is very easy on the eyes and the latest Sony ebook has made a significant advancement in the refresh rate.

There are tons of copy right expired content online. I can't wait to curl up on the couch and read a good classic novel.

Re:Price

[mochan_s]

Check this site out:
http://www.sonycard.sony.com/sonygateway/gateway.aspx?offerlink=iklipze

Re:Price

[clickety6]

here are tons of copy right expired content online. I can't wait to curl up on the couch and read a good classic novel.

Go to Amazon and check out something like Dover Thrift editions and for your $199 you could have around 80 - 100 good classic novels right now to curl up with.

The Pros and Cons of Epaper

[billy901]

I don't think epaper will make a huge difference in our life in the years to come. The biggest reason is that it's overpriced. A laptop is a good example. Laptops go from $400 to thousands. On the upside, they will save you money after you have used at least 400000 (four hundred thousand) sheets of paper roughly. It is also more environmentally friendly and efficient. Not to mention more organized and smaller! However you've also got battery life... It works just as well without the price and no batteries required. If you could make some sort of pocket book that had an easy input method such as a widely sold stylus and a battery life lasting at least 200 hours on full power. I think for now I will stick with good old fashioned paper.

Re:The Pros and Cons of Epaper

[triffid_98]

We already have that, it's called a Palm IIIe. It's smaller, more organized, has great battery life, oh and it has some sort of widely sold stylus type input device. Just don't drop it.

It is also more environmentally friendly and efficient. Not to mention more organized and smaller! However you've also got battery life... It works just as well without the price and no batteries required. If you could make some sort of pocket book that had an easy input method such as a widely sold stylus and a battery life lasting at least 200 hours on full power.

Re:The Pros and Cons of Epaper

[Verte]

they will save you money after you have used at least 400000 (four hundred thousand) sheets of paper roughly Unless you get some monetary benefit out of having several hundred pieces of paper organised and indexable. Having all your documents neatly stored and easy to carry around could make this electronic paper pay for itself.

Gimmie it now

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit telling me when it's coming, gimmie it now.

Dropping E Paper

[jflo]

Personally, I am waiting for Sony to release their clear plastic imaging technology for this purpose. I believe that once the Japs get their DRM controls a little more liberal, then all of can start making leaps past the wet dreams of an iPhone.

Backwards

[rgaginol]

Great, we've managed to replicate yet another crappy input device which is still many levels below direct neural interfacing. Seriously, we're almost 2010... c'mon guys, I'm not lashing out until the Logitech (TM) Direct Neural (TM) connection hits the shelves. And cerebral subprocessors... I mean, I'm still trying to do maths with my woefully inadequate brain - and why can't I use Google by thinking about it??

People from 20 years in the future will laugh at us for our crappy IO devices. Still, they'll all be wearing badly done external implants. Now the people of 100 years in the future with internal bio-processor implants, I'm really jealous of.

Look for a reb1100

[Hecatonchires]

Best gadget I've ever bought. _SO_ good. Fictionwise have the rest of the stock and they've rebranded it, but its the same (awesome) device.

Mine has been a trooper

[Calledor]

First of all the PDF functionality is non-existent despite the claims. However the .doc .txt translation is fan freakin tastic. Pictures are pretty crisp and the major bugs with it were patched. I imagine sony has some evil rootkit what have you on my computer, but quite honestly the program hasn't done anything I can think of as invasive, and other than being a little slow it's ok. Right now I have a slight gripe with the browsing ability on the reader itself when there are lots of books or documents on it. The ability to magnify documents and books is also really nice and it is really easy on the eyes. This is definitely still first gen hardware, so you can wait for better, but honestly this thing keeps me sane on train travel, airplanes, etc. I often just copy whole online articles, paste them in word, and then browse at my leisure on the go.

Re:Mine has been a trooper

[steveg]

If you make your own PDF files, they work just fine. I have a couple of SED scripts that convert .txt files to .tex, or I use html2latex to convert HTML. With a .sty file optimized for the Sony reader, I get font sizes and layout just the way I want them, and the Sony honors table of contents hyperlinks that are embedded in PDF.

I actually prefer my PDFs on the Sony to the native LRF. Yeah, you can resize and reflow the LRF files, but the ebooks I've tried that were LRF based had so much white space that each page had too little text. The page turns were too big an interruption.

It's called e-paper for a reason.

[Gadzinka]

You missed the point. E-paper as the name implies isn't a replacement for computer screens. It's a replacement for a printed paper as in newspapers and books. Most of the people still get their knowledge from dead trees and e-paper for them is more or less just like paper, only better, since you can "print" on it many times.

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

Re:It's called e-paper for a reason.

[Kevin Stevens]

An avid reader on palms?

What software do you use, and where do you get your books from? One of the main reasons I bought a Treo was to use it as an E-book reader, and I have been very disappointed. I have tried e-reader, adobe reader, plucker, and a few others, but found them all to be disappointing- either annoying conversion programs are required, or the text is just unbearable to read (scrolling every 5 lines or so gets old quick).

Re:It's called e-paper for a reason.

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

E-paper as the name implies isn't a replacement for computer screens. It's a replacement for a printed paper as in newspapers and books.

While it may be true that the current e-paper projects aren't looking to replace computer screens, the technology will eventually be incorporated into them. If it's easier to read e-paper than an LCD screen due to better contrast and less glare, then why would people continue using LCDs?

e-Paper is like Linux on the desktop

[tsa]

I've heard about e-paper and the way it's going to revolutionize our lives for about 5 years now. I've never seen one device that has it, and I've only heard about this Sony thingy so far. If this stuff was really so good other manufacturers should have embraced it by now and we should have a hard time avoiding it, no? For me e-paper is just like Linux on the desktop: always just around the corner.

Re:e-Paper is like Linux on the desktop

[MythMoth]

I don't really understand why the Sony Reader isn't more popular. It's infinitely nicer reading text on the reader than it is trying to read it on a laptop. You can use the reader outside in direct sunlight and the screen is clearer than in dim lighting conditions. And unlike a paperback (otherwise the superior medium) you can carry thousands (literally) of texts in a pocket and still move.

I own one and use it constantly for reading project Gutenberg texts (pre rendered for the device and downloaded from http://www.mobileread.com/ and http://manybooks.net/ ). Like any early generation device, it has some rough spots, but none of them seem sufficient to explain its relative unpopularity.

For me it would attain perfection if O'Reilly integrated it with their Safari online technical catalogue so that I could replace my physical technical bookshelf (now approaching critical mass) with something a little more portable.

Re:e-Paper is like Linux on the desktop

[elp]

I also don't understand why the demand for ebook readers aren't higher. I'm going to get one as soon as they arrive in my country (they are still too new and expensive for me to take the risk importing from the states).

I think that long term epaper readers will really boost the publishing industry. Lower costs means lower prices = more sales= more incentive to publish more books. Also the barrier to publishing a book will plummet which means more books will get published.

As much as I love dead tree books, I'll happily switch to ebooks if they are cheaper and I can lie in bed or on a hammock in the middle of the bush and still read. In my day job I'm forever using reference books which are a pain to use in ebook format if they take up the same screen space that I'm busy working on, and dead tree can REALLY waste desktop space. The size of the actual reader isn't that critical, I even think the bigger the screen the better for the most part. No one complains about the size of the latest chunky bestseller or the size of a reference book.

Re:e-Paper is like Linux on the desktop

[pjt48108]

Hey, at least the e-paper revolution is only 5 years away. We've been going to Mars in twenty years for the past fifty years, you know...

Who cares?

[bm_luethke]

Other than a specific crowd that will purchase anything neat (and I am very much in that group) who cares about any of those issue?

To largely replace paper books we need a minimum of large size, lots of contrast, rugged construction, light weight, and generally usable anywhere for long periods of time. We are no where *near* that. Add in cost and being able to make marks on it being a requirement for many applications and we have some real issues.

Size, rugged, and battery life do not go together. I need something I can carry in my car, backpack, or just mostly leave lying around and not have it break or get scratched to the point of unusable. I need to be able to expect to take it to most places I go and have it work *and* be readable at the same time - having to have it plugged up every 10 hours is, in many cases, unacceptable.

That is only concerning replacing books, let alone paper. Can I fold it and stick it in my pocket? Will I care if I happen to destroy it? If I can't stick it in my pocket what good does it do me? If I can't carry it in any place other than carefully controlled environments due to its cost - again what good does it do me? Heck, if I can not make a note and give it to someone else that doesn't have one what good does it do me? Everyone on the planet isn't going to carry around their e-paper (which can not be folded, carried in their pocket, exposed to water, exposed to much shock, exposed to high/low temperatures, and all the other things any current or foreseeable future technology has to offer).

E-paper has not come close to its window - it hasn't even come close to the point that most people would seriously look at it. Heck, even the totally made up stuff we saw in Star Trek didn't really replace paper books, let alone paper. That's not to say it will not happen (I think it will), but anything I have remotely seen companies working on do not come close to meeting the requirements to replace paper. They are trying to force books/paper into existing technology and technological paradigms instead of trying to make electronics work like books/paper.

Well, it might

[SmallFurryCreature]

Change our lives in the next few years (hey that is what the article says, blame the editors)? Might be tricky, since we don't actually have e-paper available right now, and no clear date when it will be either, how exactly is it going to chance our lives?

THE BLOODY STUFF DOESN'T EXIST YET.

I am sure a cure for cancer will change our lives, but it doesn't exist yet, so it won't be in the next few years.

Real paper is incredibily cheap and can be easily recycled, do we really want to replace it with something that is more expensive, and can't? I for one can't really see the benefit of having e-paper used to package my groceries.

As for e-books, well we all know how well those worked right? The problem is simple, the readers just ain't books (too expensive and well just not books) and the contents are too fucking expensive. Just because we pay a premium for paperbacks does not mean we will pay the same for a tiny amount of data.

Books unlike say CD's got tremendous extra value for some reason. Maybe it is because most bookstores don't blast our ears with crap music that the idiot behind the counter happens to like, and most bookstores actually bother to hire people who like their job. I like going to my local bookstore, the musicstore BAH.

Simply put the problem is that we don't "mind" the price we pay for our fiction right now. Especially since the alternatives ain't realistically priced. Uploading less then 1/10 of a MB to me does NOT inspire me to pay EXACTLY the same amount, if not MORE then for the dead-tree version. Why yes, I do think the Apple is ripping people off with iTunes, why do you ask?

I can see the costs of producing a dead-tree copy I buy in a brick&mortar store, I can't see them in e-book websites. WHERE ARE THE HUGE SAVINGS GOING? Savings in having to print books, stock them, distribute them, stock them again, take unsold copies back, etc etc. WHO IS RAKING IN THE CASH? Wanna bet it ain't the author?

So I am left with a very expensive reader, that can't stand being wet, or being sat on or having the cat sleep on it (my cat is a bit old and sometimes wakes up a bit too late), I don't think bleaching the wet spot works well on electronics) that if I forget it, I am out NOT just the reader but ALSO the collection of books, so I have to rebuy them at EXACTLY the same price as the dead-tree versions.

LOWER THE GODDAMN PRICE! That is when e-paper will change our lives.

The only way I can see this taking off is combined with the move to make textbooks freely available. Give each student an ebook reader, publish the textbooks online for free and voila, huge savings to education.

But if e-books continue to be sold at 20 bucks for fiction, then no, it won't take off.

Re:Well, it might

[Maximilianop]

THE BLOODY STUFF DOESN'T EXIST YET. Yes it does, a few products are already out there.

I for one can't really see the benefit of having e-paper used to package my groceries. Have you thought of taking your own bag to the store? maybe a ecologic one?

Just because we pay a premium for paperbacks does not mean we will pay the same for a tiny amount of data. I totally agree with you on this one.

Books unlike say CD's got tremendous extra value for some reason. Maybe it is because most bookstores don't blast our ears with crap music that the idiot behind the counter happens to like, and most bookstores actually bother to hire people who like their job. I like going to my local bookstore, the musicstore BAH. Forget it, non consumables stores are in for fast disappearing.

WHO IS RAKING IN THE CASH? Wanna bet it ain't the author? I will bet you, and win.
How many Authors do you know who has the printing facilities, warehousing, distribution and publicity logistics for mass selling books? It's the Editorial the one ranking up the cash. Maybe the author will see a little increase in his royalties, but pretty much sure it will be VEEERY little.
I agree with you, if they save this much money... I wanna save it too.

LOWER THE GODDAMN PRICE! third time is the charm, So I'm quoting your price rants for the third time :D

Re:Well, it might

[Anonymous Coward]

eBooks do work and sell. I know because I work in the industry. Granted, they haven't made the kinds of inroads that were universally predicted, but they're gaining market share every quarter. Also, the print industry as a whole are reporting a down-turn in sales in print. Print will always have a place, but so will digital editions.

As far as you not being willing to pay the same for a 1/10MB data file that contains exactly the same information as a print book just because the file is small, I wonder if the file sizes were 2GB per title instead would you be happy? Or would you instead be bitching that in this digital age eBook providers should be able to make a text file in the low Megabyte range by now...

Print, as you point out, does cost money to produce, ship, shelf, etc. so the cost to you doesn't seem as offensive as paying for an eBook which has none of those associated costs. Creation of the digital file doesn't happen by accident, nor does storing it on servers that aren't free, the bandwidth necessary to provide access (especially in hosted or subscription models) isn't free, the technical support departments that customers expect to be able to call with problems (frequently issues not related to the product "I recently purchased one of your eBooks and now my high score in Solitaire is gone...") etc. Perhaps the cost of providing eBooks isn't as high as producing print versions, but publishers have a right to charge for their products, regardless of the media type. They will charge what the market will bear.

The industry as a whole is moving towards standardization of the eBook format, if that ever actually happens, we will see the kind of interoperability we all want with digital editions. VHS and Betamax went through it, CD vs .mp3 downloads is dealing with it, BlueRay and HDDVD too... the list goes on. Like all technological innovations, everyone wants to be the one to define the standard to cash in. On a long enough timeline eBooks will sort themselves out.

One more point on the cost of print vs eBooks. If your eBook can be read in the free and ubiquitous Adobe Reader, you can record text or audio notes to your book, have it read out loud (sounds like story time with Stephen Hawkings, but I digress...) drawing tools and markup options, manipulation of text size, etc. When is the last time your print book read to you?

All that being said, please join me in a refreshing glass of kool-aid.

e-voting?

[pipatron]

So in the future, we can have e-voting machines which leaves an e-paper trail for accountability!

Laptop E-Papper

[XavidX]

The prefect situation for me would be to have a e-paper module added to the top of a small laptop lid. That way i can read any documentation off the back of the laptop without having to even turn it on. You can cache emails, webpages or anything that you need to read from the laptop while its on and read it later from the lid.

sweet. I'm gonna love this e-papper era.

We've heard this before and it means....

[3seas]

... we are going to cut down even more trees...

I'm not a tree hugger as trees are just crops that take monger to harvest, but the point is clear.

E-piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"My main thought is that since it's by Sony it'll be drenched in poisonous DRM."

As opposed to the analog DRM that books presently enjoy. Yes one can copy books, but technology makes the copying of digital media much easier than analog.

"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."

As someone who had to move and give up a lot of books in the process. I'd say it's for more than just textbooks. Bibliophiles would enjoy the convenience of E-books and E-paper. The effects piracy will have on that dream remains to be seen.

Re:E-piracy.

[Kris_J]

As opposed to the analog DRM that books presently enjoy. Yes one can copy books, but technology makes the copying of digital media much easier than analog.

How about lending them to a friend or selling them after you've finished with them? DRM is not just about copying, it's about total control. When you're dealing with industries that see sharing stuff with friends as lost sales, or considers it stealing to go to the toilet during the ads, I'd rather they didn't have control over the stuff I'm supposed to own.

BSter.com

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because musicians are hurt so much by piracy. "

It's not about "hurt", but loss of trust and respect. That "hurts" enough.

"Oh wait, no they're not"

No one here has been able to conclusively prove that it benefits either.

"The small ones freely allow others to copy and distribute their music while the big ones are still making more then enough to support their coke habits."

Piracy is based upon "lack of permission". The big one's have a big stick and lots of padding that the small guy doesn't.

"Guess authors don't have so much to worry about then."

If an author decided to go into another line of work due to piracy?* Then everyone should worry instead of assuming that authors like being treated the way piracy treats them and they will continue to accept it no matter what.

*Much like a FOSS author no longer writing due to repeated license violations with a "whack a mole" attitude public.

Re:BSter.com

[speaker of the truth]

Piracy is based upon "lack of permission". The big one's have a big stick and lots of padding that the small guy doesn't. And yet its the big ones that don't allow distribution via p2p and bittorrent while the small ones do. It seems like this big stick and padding only lets them bully their fans.

If an author decided to go into another line of work due to piracy? How many times has this happened to musicians? I'd certainly love to hear it.

Fire

[hernyo]

I bet you won't be able to light a campfire with your e-paper.

Re:Fire

[rubycodez]

that and a few other applications make me wonder if e-paper is really better:

can I wipe my ass with it?
can I wrap fish with it?
can I spank the puppy with it?
will the puppy poop on it?
can I roll a doobie with it?

until these technical obstacles are overcome I think we should hold off adoption.

Another Reader

[CMan0]

There is another Reader on the market, though it's much less famous. I can't find an English page about it. But it's cheaper than the Sony PRS.
And a review says its functionality is also better. Unfortunately the review is also in Russian

Re:Another Reader

[tryfan]

> And a review says its functionality is also better.
> Unfortunately the review is also in Russian

No problem - BabelFish makes it perfectly clear:

"1. In one electronic chitalke can be stored although entire Leninist library".

Anything else you wonder about?

sony is not the only option

[randuev]

I personally own an ukranian Jinke Hanlin (http://www.jinke.com.cn/Compagesql/English/index.asp) clone - Lbook (http://www.lbook.com.ua/).

I have two models, V8 - which doesn't have an OS and runs on Epson cpu and V3 - that runs LINUX and runs on ARM 200mhz processor.

Both are great. Both have MMC/SD card, no DRM. V3 can display PDF and DJVU files. Both have SDKs for you to tinker with. While V8 is very basic and you have to use ANSI C to code your things, V3 is somewhat more powerful.

Nevertheless, as a reader, I prefer V8, because it has cover built in and an additional small display :) and I do most of my reading in FB2 and TXT.

waiting for ePaper.......

[bukuman]

ePaper etc always seem 'just around the corner' - until then a cell phone works great as a book reader. The screen is 'not perfect' but the ubiquity sure is.

Can't be had by mortals.

[MikeFM]

Having recently tried to find a company that could sell me any economical form of electronic paper I can tell you it's damn near impossible. I had a special project I wanted to use it in. I didn't need color or high resolution. I just needed a really cheap, low power, thin, flexible, screen. The best response I got offered me a tiny bit of paper for around $3500. Hardly the stuff they could be making cereal boxes out of. *sighs*

Re:Can't be had by mortals.

[smallfries]

Yeah the prototype kits are pricey. I've wanted to play with some of these panels for a while, but not at the current prices. If you go to E-Ink's website and follow the links through to the store they have kits with the 5/6" screen for $2000!! and the 8/9" screen for $4000.

Not quite as pervasive as paper just yet...

Re:Can't be had by mortals.

[JohnFluxx]

What about irex? They sell ones right now:

http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/wheretobuy

Re:Can't be had by mortals.

[MikeFM]

Do they actually sell the paper by itself or just as an eBook? I need the paper itself.

Re:Can't be had by mortals.

[JohnFluxx]

So buy the ebook, and take it apart. I'm sure you can download the specs of the actual screen to find the connectors. Plus you can probably salvage the video controller and CPU as well.

An electrical engineer should be able to do that for you.

Re:Can't be had by mortals.

[MikeFM]

I'm looking for several yards of the material. Buying eBooks and taking them apart to attain the material isn't a price conscience method. One of the points of ePaper is to be nearly as cheap as paper.

Stuff e-books, I want e-wallpaper!

[jimicus]

Seriously. With e-wallpaper I could change the entire look of my house without having to pay decorators, move furniture or get paint/wallpaper paste all over the carpets.

With the added bonus that if I don't like how it looks, I'm not stuck with it until I can afford the time/money to do it again.

We won't know if this technology wins out until...

[Jafafa Hots]

,,,somebody invents electronic rocks and electronic scissors.

"epaper" == "Polavision"

[knorthern knight]

Just as VCRs were starting to take off, Polaroid launched "Polavision". It was a moviecam that used a one-shot film cartridge that produced rather grainy movies. Polaroid always compared the low-cost moviecam against $2500 VHS moviecams. Main problem... the 10-minute film cartridges were damn expensive. By the time you bought enough 10-minute cartridges to equal a 2-hour VHS cassette, you'd spend more on the cartridges than the cost of the $2500 moviecam... ouch. AND THE VHS CASSETTE COULD BE ERASED AND RE-USED, while the Polavision cartridges were one-shot devices, like 8mm and "Super-8" film. Polavision was intended as a competitor to 8mm and "Super-8". 8mm and Super-8 were anihilated by VHS moviecams, and Polavision also fell victim to VHS moviecams.

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...

1. the ORIGINAL web, as developed at CERN, was text-only with browsers like lynx
2. 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.

Re:"epaper" == "Polavision"

[swillden]

Unless my phone's screen is pretty close to the size of a paperbook page, I'm not going to want to read on it.

Re:"epaper" == "Polavision"

[JohnFluxx]

Um, how about size differences. I want my phone to have a 1" screen. I want my ebook to have about an 8" screen.

Do I have to put my text in bold as well to yell back again?

e-face

[tinkerton]

this world needs it. or the cheapo version, d-face.

piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I get 100% off college eBooks.

Application?

[bigdavex]

Q: What do you think will be the "killer application" of e-paper?
A: Color.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Sony PRS-505 ebook reader at Borders

[WillAdams]

(I wrote this up for the bookpeople mailing list....)

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 .lrx)
  - 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 .rtfs is _awful_, allowing widows and orphans and pages to end on a hyphen
  - 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 .pdfs which break at a line end become two distinct hyperlinks (this may be a problem in how the user guide .pdf was created)
  - 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 .pdfs especially for this and leave page numbers off?

More information on the reader at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16184

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 which includes my version of _The Book of Tea_ which is in the TeX Showcase))

What, you can't sell your texts for 70% of cost?

[KWTm]

Throughout my university years, I've consistently sold my textbooks for 90% to 95% of original price (after having bought them new from the bookstore). Two main things I did: first, I treated my textbooks very nicely; second, I found a student who was in the year behind me, and basically consistently sold my textbooks to him, so that he didn't have to worry about having to hunt for textbooks (or buying it from the bookstore, with tax --damn GST), and I didn't have to worry about finding a buyer. (Also helped that I gave him advice from time to time about his courses, homework, etc.)

I can imagine that occasionally you'll find a textbook where you can't get 70% of original price, and I suppose that if the text changes to a new text (or new edition) that's required, you'd have trouble selling --but consistently below 70%? I find that surprising.

Ebook Reader for Palm OS.

[Gadzinka]

There's an excelent GPL program for Palm OS: Palm Fiction. It doesn't need any conversion programs, it can read plain .txt, .html, .rtf files, also in .zip or .gz compression, straight from the memory card. I used it on m500, Tungsten T3, TX and now on Treo 650 and I'm glad I've found it. The UI is so much configurable, I sometimes consider it a drawback.

The only thing Palm Fiction lacks IMO is webpage and documentation in English ;)

Of course it doesn't read any proprietary, encrypted formats, but since I've got Baen free and commercial offerings, as well as MLDonkey I can't complain. I just feel sorry for the publishers that don't want to take my money and thank the authors for their hard work in such cases.

Robert

Why no html?

[NotPeteMcCabe]

I'll be getting an e-paper reader for my wife for Christmas this year. She reads a lot of classic books and online (free) fiction, so the current Sony product, or ideally something even better and cheaper, will be great for her.

What I don't understand is why more models don't support html. I mean, pdf, txt, and rtf are all fine. But it seems pretty clear that the best format for an ereader is one that will automatically adapt to the different sizes/resolutions of the device. Isn't html the best possible format for this?

Why don't all the ereaders support html?

The best e-book...is a book

[DrVomact]

None of the examples given in the article embody my ideal electronic ink application; none of these devices would come even close to getting me to give up paper books. I think Neal Stephenson had it right in his novel Diamond Age: an e-book should look and act just like a paper book—with some additional benefits, of course. The format could be anything between a small, thin, pocket-size paperback or something like an unabridged desk dictionary. There would be maybe a hundred pages or so in the ebook I'd carry around with me; they would look and feel pretty much like real paper, except that they'd be smudge and spill-resistant. And the ebook would be networked.

Your personal ebook could contain anything you want it to. You'd probably have a section devoted to email, another to newspaper articles—and both could be updated continually. There'd be a special "input" section—maybe inside one of the covers—that would allow you to write and send emails, make notes to yourself, or do any of a wide variety of computational tasks for which you'd use a laptop today. You could use a stylus, but a "keyboard" printed on the first page would be my choice for input. You'd need power for the networking and computational tasks, of course, but the text on the epages wouldn't disappear if your batteries went dead.

And of course, your ebook could contain books. Any book you want could be downloaded to a section of the ebook. You could read the book as you would a normal paper book, but the ebook pages would "refresh" as you read them. Say you download a novel. You'd get maybe the first 50 pages. By the time you got to the last page, the previous 49 would be replaced by pages 51-99 of the novel. Of course, if you wanted to have the whole novel at once, so you can riffle back and forth between the chapters, you'd have to buy the large format ebook--maybe one with 500 or even 1,000 pages. (That's not the way I'd go, though.)

I don't know how realistic my requirements are, but I do know that this is what it would take for me to abandon paper books. I have a feeling that I'll be reading paper for a long time to come.

New Sony 505 has been great for me.

[Frobisher]

There's been many replies talking about the pros and cons of the current crop of reading devices, and although it hurt a little to put down $300 for the latest PRS-505, I have no regrets about it at all. Within a week I have read two complete books on it, and its been an absolute PLEASURE. I had tried reading ebooks on my Blackberry but the LCD emmisive screen hurt my eyes, and the constant scrolling was a pain. The Reader has been effortless to use and I've been FLYING through the text, and actually find myself MORE engaged with the book than a regular paper book. I don't have to move to turn the pages, so I remain comfortable at all times. The brief flash (NOT 2 or 3 seconds by any means) is hardly noticeable any longer, the multiple font sizes ease my tired eyes at the end of the day, and I'm loving the experience. I have an overseas trip coming up soon, and this will happily contain my reading material and not weigh my bag down. Carrying around large hardbacks is a pain, and this relieves me of it.

For me, this is a complement to plain old black and white paper books, which, for the most part, I read ONCE, from beginning to end and then shelve or give to charity or second-hand book shops. So for me, DRM is not an issue. The chances of me wanting to read the book again in 10 years time is so remote that I just don't care. I NEVER write in books, I never "look anything up" from a book, so I do not care about all these bells and whistles that some people seem to want. I never read paper books in the dark, so the lack of an attached light means nothing to me either.

For a regular READER, who reads books from beginning to end, then starts another book immediately, (meaning you're usually carrying two around), then this a GREAT device. The display is beautiful, and much better than last year's 500 model. I'm keeping track of how much money I've saved on paper books, and will probably break even sometime in 2009 by my calculations. But you know what, I don't even care if I never get to that point. It's been fun playing with my new gadget, I read way more than I listen to music, so in a toss up between an iPod or a Sony Reader, I'd pick the Reader everytime. Like the iPod, it does the job it was designed for, and does it well. Nuff said.

Re:I don't know... Readability

[eleuthero]

There's nothing more annoying than trying to read a novel while pressing a button each time one has read 5 or 10 lines of text. I can think of plenty of things more annoying, like not having the book on me in the first place, having to deal with slow refresh, carrying multiple devices, etc. ... There's a reason books come in standardized sizes. Yes, like paper handling, binding, and paper waste. A 3" diagonal book with 2000 pages is not practical. A 3" diagonal e-book with 2000 pages is.

Reading speed and comprehension is affected by the size of the reading sample in actual space not simply the size of the document. Reading on the Sony Reader is faster with greater comprehension possible than for the same text with the same person on an ipod touch / pda screen. (among others, vis http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/62/whitespace.htm)

Sony 505 at Costco for $250 US

[NotPeteMcCabe]

I was at Costco in Canoga Park, California (West Valley) and saw the new Sony 505 for $250, which includes a $50 certificate for electronic books. I didn't have time to find out more, but anyone considering buying an ebook reader might want to check this out.

Re:I don't know... Readability

[m2943]

Reading on the Sony Reader is faster with greater comprehension possible than for the same text with the same person on an ipod touch / pda screen

Even if the study were showing that, you may notice that the highest comprehension was achieved at the lowest reading speed, so the different conditions simply resulted in different speed/comprehension tradeoffs. By your reasoning, if you want to understand what you're reading, you should actually be using the slower device.

Of course, that presumes that the study itself is actually meaningful and relevant, but the experiments reported in that study are so incompetently done that you, in fact, can't infer anything from them.