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Plastic Logic E-Newspaper
Ostracus writes with news of another contender for a next-gen device suitable for displaying a newspaper page. It's very thin but weighs a bit more than a Kindle. "Plastic Logic, a spin-off company from the Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, has recently released its design of a future electronic newspaper reader. This lightweight plastic screen copies the appearance, but not the feel, of a printed newspaper. This electronic paper technology was pioneered by the E-Ink Corporation and is used in the current generation Sony eReader and Amazon.com's Kindle. Plastic Logic's device, yet to be named, has a highly legible black-and-white display and a screen more than twice as large compared to current versions available on the market."
...before the first 10 posts.
They keep emphasizing the form factor is the size of a piece of paper. But a piece of paper has a display size equal to a piece of paper, this doesn't.
No mention of the display size.
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Darn, now I'd have to think of other ways, when I'm stuck in the toilet, out of toilet paper!
Obligatory FoxTrot reference (something about swatting someone with a "Rolled up Internet").
It looks really really nice. This would be amazing for reading scientific papers, sheet music, newspapers & books. Unlike the kindle it has a decent sized screen, can show PDFs and doesn't look like shit.
On the other hand, I've yet to see what the UI is like (they haven't shown it in any videos), and in all the videos I've seen it takes almost 2 seconds to turn the page. That could get really annoying.
If they fix that I'd gladly pay the £300+ they're probably asking...
(Sidenote: fix your character encoding slashdot!)
I was shown an early prototype of that when I visited the Cavendish Laboratory in 1990 and I was most impressed. I wish Plastic Logic the best of luck. Although an E-newspaper is an obvious application, I hope that they quickly move to computer screens. After having worked on back-lit screens for years, which causes considerable eye-strain, limiting my productivity (if not sometimes my very ability to work at all), there is not a day I have not been hoping for this technology to reach the market and I will be one of the early adopter when it comes out. I suspect that I am not alone in this situation.
This is the first time I actually see something that might just work. It's nice. Has a decent formfactor and could really work for me. Finally something that doesn't make you look like an idiot while communting on the bus and reading LOTR.
That's not quite right, the iLiad DR1000S is on the market right now (and the wifi capable DR1000SW in soon) and they both have similiar sized screens (an A4 sized piece of paper sans normal margins). The difference is that these screens are traditional e-ink screens with glass (?) prone to cracking/breaking while Plastic Logic's is flexible.
There are other drawbacks to both. This is Plastic Logic's first device. 1st Generation devices can really suck, not to mention 1st one ever out of a company. iRex's pushed out previous ereaders (iliad) but they all suffer from a battery problem: as I understand it the CPU never really goes to "sleep" - draining the thing in a day. One of the point of e-ink was that it takes no energy once the display is rendered. So obviously this is a drawback. Also, since the battery is non-user changeable it will cost that much more to replace more frequently. They promised to fix it soon, but what are promises worth?
OTOH, iRex recently opensourced much of their software system with more soon to come. Which is a major plus. Also, it has a wacom enabled screen - allowing you to annotate your texts and take notes on it. The problem with all e-ink displays right now is that there will be lag from your writing and it being rendered.
In reality, we're in the opening stages of the e-ink revolution (much like cell phones in the 80's) and that means we won't have a truly GOOD device for many years. Kindle helped really kickstart it. Hopefully we will see color soon, although that is really one of the lower priority things considered.
IMHO, this is a niche that a competent software/hardware company (Apple) could really exploit much like they did in previous 'established' niches when the time comes. Just set up a book section in iTunes and they'd have half the market already.
copies the appearance, but not the feel, of a printed newspaper
This is a little more like it.
I've recently seen a similar new product for musicians and teachers. It's a display like this one except mounted on a standard music stand. It's got a monochrome display, a SD card slot and a USB port (I believe there's a wireless option, too) and is made to display pages of sheet music. The pages are "turned" by a foot pedal. It can hold scanned sheet music as well as connect to music publishers. There are already several "fake books" (something working musicians use to enhance their repertoires) available in this device's native format. It can also display PDFs and the native format of some of the sheet music editing/publishing applications on the market, such as Sibelius Forte.
As someone who teaches music a bit and has tons of printed music, I can see this (or the less expensive version which is sure to come soon) making my life a lot easier.
Oh yeah, I think there's even a touch screen for making annotations or for input of musical calligraphy.
We've been waiting for products like this - e-readers, etc - to hit the mainstream market for what seems like an awful long time now. I think it might finally be here (I hope).
You are welcome on my lawn.
How great. A company takes a e-ink panel and wants to put it into a very small enclosing. There's no product yet, but this "innovative" and "great" idea, that only the geniuses at "Plastic Logic" could have.
There was no breakthrough in engineering, no battery issues or lag problems solved, no improvements in robustness - just the idea of putting a panel into a small case. Look at the promotion video on their website. Even the promotion model can't display its pages without massive horizontal errors. Page flipping is still slow as hell. No plan how they want secure electronic parts from bending. Nothing to see here, just a company thinking plastic logic. In my opinion a marketing stunt by a Cambridge drop-off to attract venture capital to spill out some good earnings for their initial staff.
" This lightweight plastic screen copies the appearance, but not the feel, of a printed newspaper. "
I'm reminded of Marshall McLuhan's observation that any new medium will have as its first content the form of the previous medium.
Why would anyone want to reproduce the format of the front page of a printed daily newspaper if you have a completely new medium available? Will the new medium be of such slow speed that the contents can only be renewed on the screen once a day (like the front page of a newspaper)? Do the various print topics have to be arranged in blocks like a newspaper? Will advertising really be necessary?
It's too bad that McLuhan died right when the digital communications era was beginning (1976 I believe). He would have had some significant insights for us.
One thing that I've noticed is that any new digital medium will ALWAYS reproduce its content in an inferior way to its corresponding analog medium. But, the new digital medium allows the content to be used in ways that so astonishingly different from the analog medium that it comes to surplant the original analog medium. The analog medium becomes a specialized subsystem of the new digital medium.
For example, consider music synthesizers. Press the cheap plastic keys on a cheap $50 plastic keyboard in BestBuy and you change the instrument being played by the keyboard. None of the instruments being sounded by the keyboard sound as good as the original instruments in orchestral form. But if you play piano, you don't need to spend ten years learning trumpet or violin to get the sound of a trumpet or violin for your music. You just press the digital button on the cheap plastic keyboard. Real trumpets and violin playing becomes a speciality and limited skill as a result of the original analog medium (instrument) being transformed by an inferior digital medium.
The main advantage of e-ink displays, apart from low power and high resolution, is that they're flexible and can be rolled up.
Like a newspaper for example. Would you buy a newspaper that you can't fold or roll up?
If I can't stick it in a pocket I won't buy it.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
all the newspapers had died...well this is great news, now i have a chance to get that shitty advertisement pack in e-form now.
i only wonder how well e-newspaper does at composting and lighting my charcoal grill?
Good people go to bed earlier.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/11/plastic-logics-e-reader-vs-amazon-kindle-fight/
I have to say, they have a nice demo :-)
Seems a pretty expensive way to housebreak the pooch, let alone get the water out of my soccer boots...
Impetuous! Homeric!
I think they are aiming wrong with these. they should try marketing them towards college students. even used some of my books are over a hundred. so the price isnt so much of a big deal compared to newspapers. It would be great just not to have to carry all those books around every day.
"In reality, we're in the opening stages of the e-ink revolution (much like cell phones in the 80's) and that means we won't have a truly GOOD device for many years. Kindle helped really kickstart it. Hopefully we will see color soon, although that is really one of the lower priority things considered."
If you follow one of the links in the story. The future of things talks about the technology behind different kinds of E-ink. Including one which I linked to in the past that does color.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Give it up, asshole. The post was a racist troll and so are you.
It seems to me people that don't understand the desire for this tech are missing the concept. While they use MP3 players and understand that it makes their music portable they totally miss the fact that this tech makes it possible to make reading material just as portable. Yes. You can open a laptop, connect to a network, connect to a web site, read and article. You can do that for music too. However, how portable are you. Really? How portable is an MP3 player. Add music, plug in ear phones, go jogging. With a reader you can add a book, walk to the park, and have 2 chapters read before someone mugs you for your portable reader.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.