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The Development of E-Paper Technology
Computerworld takes a look at the development and the future of e-paper. Brought into the mainstream by e-book readers such as the Kindle, e-paper is rapidly becoming its own industry. The article notes some of the current limitations of the technology and looks ahead to a few of the upcoming ideas, such as the Fujitsu Fabric PC. Quoting:
"The resolution of EPD screens is improving rapidly. Active-matrix displays like those used on the current generation of e-book readers can work at relatively high resolutions (the Kindle screen displays 167 pixels per inch), and Seiko Epson recently showed off an A4-size (13.4-in.) display prototype with 3104 by 4128 resolution, about 385 ppi, that uses E Ink's electrophoretic ink on a Si-TFT glass substrate."
One would think that they would have figured this how with how successful their MP3 biz has been. I guess they have different folk working in the Kindle dept.
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The future of E-Paper is hopefully affordable prices, right now an iPod Touch is more accessible with a lot more functionality.
Something that's meant for nothing but reading should be as cheap as actual paper, otherwise what's the point.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
So, do you purchase books because of the amounts of paper? I would say that what one purchases is access to the content of the book, so the price of the media shouldn't be too significant to determine the price. I find most of the books I buy to be greatly underpriced for what they contain, so I really wouldn't complain about having them in a convenient format *and* at cheaper prices.
I fail to see why they should be.
Assuming the gracious amount of 25% royalties and say, a $10,000 advance, as an author I'd only be making $60,000 from a book if it managed to sell 200,000 copies. Bestsellers can be anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 or more copies. With around 175,000 new books put out every year in the US alone, I doubt that most of those books put out will even come close to bestseller status.
Taking into account that many authors manage maybe a book every two to four years, $1 is unreasonably shortchanging them.
Like, back when they shifted from LPs which cost $2.00 each to make and sold for $8, to CDs which cost 50 cents each to make and sold for $15... and it worked, people bought it, people accepted the higher price, the cartel-created massively higher profit margin.
Man, with customers like that, the sky is the limit as far as profit margins go.
Instead of making a book for $2.00 and selling it for $10.00, they can transfer the file for a fraction of a cent and charge $9.00. Huge increase in profit margin. And sell you a book reading device for hundreds. AND eliminate the used book market. And eliminate library borrowing.
And have you thank them for it. Damn, this "intellectual property" thing is a great scam.
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