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Devices To Take Textbooks Beyond Text
An anonymous reader writes with a New York Times piece about the tumultuous transition to electronic devices, instead of printed materials, for text. "Newspapers and novels are moving briskly from paper to pixels, but textbooks have yet to find the perfect electronic home. They are readable on laptops and smartphones, but the displays can be eye-taxing. Even dedicated e-readers with their crisp printlike displays can’t handle textbook staples like color illustrations or the videos and Web-linked supplements publishers increasingly supply. Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color."
Why not have a pc / netbook that can do more for about the same cost?
There will be a need to offer complete downloads when a word changes, so that professors may be reimbursed for a new book each term. Either that or the books will arrive as DRM locked on disposable tablets. Or will erase themselves after the term is over. Can't have people re-using books, now...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
... with their crisp printlike displays can’t handle textbook staples"
I for one welcome crisp printlike displays that can handle textbook staples.
Resolving this "bug" would seem to be a task of utmost urgency.
The e-reader will probably cost in the $500 range to cover cost. Each "book" will still cost $200 and will have to be bought again the next semester. Bookstores themselves most likely will not carry these unless they get a percentage of each reader and "book" sold because they will lose out on the used book sales.
because the next cool and hip thing is a dumbed down, overpriced but cool looking tablet that limit your ability to do whatever you want on a computer.
Why not have a pc / netbook that can do more for about the same cost?
Because PCs/netbooks don't have e-ink screens.
Last time I looked, dead trees don't handle videos and Web-linked[sic] supplements either.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think this is one of those ideas that *sound* better than it actually is. In short, adding graphics and video to electronic book readers are the first couple of steps into losing what a 'book reader' should be.
Many argue that eReaders "just aren't the same" as a real, 3 dimensional book. I agree... both literally and figuratively, I suppose. However, educational text books are perfect for eReaders. They are often enormous, have to be frequently carried around in conjunction with others book and I'm pretty sure most people don't care about how a text book 'feels'. So moving eReaders to book = good idea.
However, with an LCD screen, this changes things a bit. First, I feel this is losing the focus of what an 'eReader' is. It hasn't lost it yet -- but it is getting there. It blurs the line between an eReader and a Tablet... which could be a little blurry with a laptop already.
Another drawback over eReaders as we know them is we're going to see a pretty intensive increase in power usage. This is now going to be a device that needs to be charged hourly, depending on the battery size and how much multimedia they plan on packing into this thing. Books don't have videos and while it is neat, again, it is losing focus of being an electronic book and falling into the realm of tablet.
Take it a couple of more steps with web browsing, a keyboard etc... It's not longer an eReader. Personally, I'd rather have a 'dual screen' laptop that I could types notes on and read at the same time, since I'm going to spend a lot of my time looking in the general direction of an LCD already.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Try reading a pc or netbook screen in direct sunlight. Able to do more doesn't mean diddly when you want contrast, which is what is really required for general reading.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Cause an E-Reader uses E-Ink, which only uses electricity when the text changes. It doesn't take any power to show static text, just change it. (unless, of course, you use the low power backlight)
Nobody wants to charge their textbook a couple of times a day.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
The problem with textbooks are twofold, either A) You have to buy the textbooks themselves, and they are worthless after you stop taking that class (I mean, does anyone re-read old textbooks?) or B) Are given to you buy your education institution. Used electronic junk is usually pretty worthless and sometimes nasty (anyone want to get a pre-used keyboard?) and what is the use of a dedicated e-reader that will be used only for a semester?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Given the glaring errors I've seen in just about every school related text book I've ever owned, I'd prefer them work on accuracy before electronic.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I like the concept of having both e-Ink and LCD screens, each optimized for a different purpose. I think they could improve it further by adding a third screen that's plasma, in case you need some high-speed animation. And for ultimate readability, they could add a mini printer (perhaps two, one thermal, the other inkjet... oh and of course a third for laser, argh, forgot dye sublim as well). They could also have multiple input devices, to optimize for various users and needs. You could have touch pad, touch screen, mouse, and perhaps a camera tracking device. I mean why should we have a book that's presented in a coherent way, when we can have it 5% better by having lots of different media to switch between?
Here in Uruguay all school childrens have an XO, that have a decent screen for reading text, even under sunlight. If well don't have a dual screen like those, cost less than half of the ones in the article, and can do far more than just reading books. And doing more than just displaying books means that education don't need to be something as passive as reading/memorizing a textbook, and a lot of its activities are oriented to getting student to participate. And we are talking about a device that is around since several years by now.
In my experience as a professor I found that there are two types of students. Those who get the material without much supporting information, and those who will never get it no matter how many different techniques you use. Bloating textbooks has just made it harder for those interested in the subject to wade through the crap.
Adding more to already bloated textbooks won't help. I should start a movement for smaller books.
Note : the e-paper screen on this device is 9.7" diagonal, which is the same size as the display on the kindle DX. Most likely it's the same part number.
This device is approaching the functionality of a truly useful electronic book. That's enough screen area to make an electronic textbook practical and close to being equivalent to the paper version. The true value of course is that you should be able to fit dozens or hundreds of books onto the machine. Plus : searchability, updates, electronic highlighting, etc.
Downside : publishers will try to destroy the used book market. They'll use DRM and various access controls to try to force every user to buy a separate copy.
Upside : open textbooks directly published by professors, available free or for under $15, will be more practical.
Obviously, the problem this device has is that at $490 it's far too expensive ($200-$300 would probably be a more practical price point). Android is still basically a beta product, and we don't know if the guts of this device are up to snuff. It needs to have a long battery life, a CPU that is beefy enough to not add long delays yet use very little power, and things like an SD card reader.
I think it is obvious that what we really need is good color, hi-res e-paper. But I also understand how difficult that might be to do right now.
In the meantime, I will stick to reasonably-priced, general-purpose machines, rather than expensive single-purpose devices.
In general I tend to agree with the professor, however some subjects like higher math, physics, etc. simply cannot get by without some good graphs and diagrams.
It's okay, we can have students carry around multiple car batteries. It will end up weighing about the same, anyway.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
I would like a *cheap* usb ebook screen so I can reduce the eye-strain when reading text at work/home etc. Why doesn't that exist?
Isn't it odd how one of the easiest thing to convert to bits will be the last thing to be sold as bits? Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if books are still printed long after every human brain has been uploaded into the memory banks of Google's massive servers.
Seriously though, electronic textbooks won't fly for a good long time to come. The people who select these books tend to be hardened and cynical after dealing with publishers for years. These people know that publishers are trying to turn their books into disposable tomes of consumption. Education boards and school principals are more than aware that publishers are trying to drain them of every last cent with disposable workbooks, never mind expiring electronic books. University professors and college instructors have been around long enough to see new revisions of textbooks come out on regular intervals, with insignificant changes outside of section ordering and problem numbers.
These people will resist, and will resist as long as there aren't any intrinsic benefits for them. Institutional buyers will stick to traditional media where the costs are known until they see a way that it may save them money. Fancy technology won't do that, but integrated assessment tools may. Even post-secondary instructors, from my experience, are timid about playing into the publisher's hands. Most will account for differing editions. Usually they do so by treating the book as a supplementary resource and suggesting that the student to follow along in it, but not specifying section numbers or problems from it. Others will go as far as specifying alternate page and question numbers while making critical remarks about the publishers themselves.
Why even get that when I can take a book out of the library for a lot less?
make removable displays in netbooks then. Push in a couple thing and it pops out. You could then stick a new display(say old one was damaged for some reason, or new one has higher res and higher dpi), or pop in a high contrast, black and white e-ink screen
O.o
An e-ink reader has less to do with being more compact than a netbook and more to do with being high contrast, and not requiring any power to sustain a static image, which is ideal for something like reading.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It would be a much more elegant solution to simply use one screen, which combines the abilities of both technologies. I think when e-ink displays are able to offer full-color and rapid-refresh rates as well as the current benefits of clarity and readability, they will replace LCDs altogether.
Yes, but the idea of a tablet is that it should be much lighter and smaller than a full computer. You'd be able to cart it around like a clipboard and use it in all sorts of industries. Ideally, the tablet would be about the size and weight of the screen on your laptop. It would be running a very low power usage CPU, and would have a power efficient display. Due to the slow CPU, it wouldn't be useful for a lot of things you can do with a laptop, but would be designed for working with lots of 2d documents.
Its a silly argument that the article makes. E-Readers can display B&W pages, and gray shades. This is absolutely sufficient for displaying textbooks. There is a line of extremely bloated textbooks that takes liberties with layout and colour. I just wonder for what purpose colour is used in those books. In my opinion it does neither help understanding of diagrams and models, nor does it improve the information density. Perhaps a revisit of Tufte's rules for information design is in order for publishers?
Why not have a pc / netbook that can do more for about the same cost?
I've often thought the same thing myself, especially since downloading Kindle for PC.
OMG A TEXTBOOK!
Why, I'll have to suggest this to my anatomy teacher!
"Even dedicated e-readers ... can’t handle textbook staples like ... videos and Web-linked supplements"
Pretty damn sure you are making an unfair comparison here. Unless textbooks in the author gets all his textbooks from Hogwarts.
dedicated e-readers with their crisp printlike displays
Bullshit. There ARE no such e-readers, unless the only print you've ever seen is darkish grey text on lightish grey paper. E-reader displays are NOWHERE NEAR 'printlike' yet. Ugh.
E-ink displays have very bad contrast ratio. Typically about 10:1, compared to 1000:1 or more for an LCD. The only visual advantage of e-ink is higher DPI, which is a marketing based rather than technical benefit because there's no reason LCDs can't have just as high DPI (see the OLPC XO1's display, which is also reflective so it's usable in sunlight).
E-ink is a dead-end technology. Bistable LCDs will exceed it in ever aspect. Ferro Liquid Display technology looks promising.
Who are these people who read textbooks in direct sunlight?
And if you're such an advocate of sunlight, what are you doing posting on Slashdot?
How we know is more important than what we know.
There is no excuse for not totally changing our school system. First we should eliminate the grade system. People should have the option of trying to learn a subject until they give up. If someone is trying to learn something than the school system should not shut them off. Second is that we should redefine what teachers do for a living. Computer should be used to teach our children. Teachers should be called motivators. They would have a one on one discussion with each student every day. They would monitor each students progress and attempt to solve the student's problems with learning and motivation to learn. An electronic text book should be written so that the student reads a few pages and than must answer some question. If the student does not pass than the student must reread the pages and take another test. It would not matter how many times the student had to reread the pages before the student learned the material. It certainly would not merit giving a student a low grade when that student needed only a little more time to learn it. One would not ask a young person what grade that person is in, one would only ask if the student was at that student age level in every subject that student was taking. I am excellent at mathematics and when I was in high school I was held back by the school system. I do not do so well in English and this is why my writings are not that well. I know that if I could have learned at my own pace I could have done much better.
Already does pretty much the same thing, why doesn't somebody come up with an add-on that will let you do all this stuff?
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Why even get that when I can take a book out of the library for a lot less?
Because students tend to not check textbooks out of libraries. They buy them for the semester at considerable expense, and then have to lug them around all day. Or did you miss the use-case that this article is about?
As soon as they have books that I can check out of the library, where I can read it easily AND watch a video relevant to the content, I'm right there with you.
I know...I know...I could have my laptop/netbook AND the book beside me, but I'm lazy like that.
Oh, and also, the librarian at my university always got mad when I took notes in the margins of her books. She also made me pay for the damn book if I kept it forever.
An important change for education.
Agreed. But they will be willing to charge their textbook reader once per day (at night) especially if the reader (+ content): 1) costs less then the physical textbooks, 2) has school intranet access + internet access), 3) does a better job of explaining the subject material than the physical textbook and 4) organizes your notes into a study guide on the fly.
Combine that with Pixel Qi multi-touch displays and you've got a rock'in platform. This display does color video with the backlight on, but with it off it does E-Ink-like low-power black and white as good as any e-book reader. Power it with an Nvidia Tegra processor, and run Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and you've got one freaking awesome Internet tablet, with e-book reader being the killer app. Add a dynamically warping virtual multi-touch keyboard, and you've got a killer device. I think I'll need one of these babies for every member of my family.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Umm, my Eee PC is clocked at 900mhz and is pretty tiny. I can assure you that I can do pretty much all the things that one would normally like to do with it. Including watching movies, granted I have to rip them to a SD card because the unit doesn't fit a CDROM, but the playback is quite good. It can definitely handle Ebooks, spreadsheets and word processing with very, very little trouble and cost me something like a hundred dollars less than the Kindle.
I must be missing something since that seems to be everything that most students would need out of a computer.
Try reading E-ink in the dark. I don't think you can do that conveniently. Technology always has its draw backs I find it less likely that somebody's going to be studying outside in bright sun, than indoors where there's fewer distractions. Plus, there's any number of sun screens out there, they've been making them for years for graphics professionals.
Why not have a pc / netbook that can do more for about the same cost?
Not sure what the same cost refers to. But we have sub $300 netbooks that can read many data formats, especially open data formats. I have no patience and refuse to purchase content in a proprietary format...waste of money.
We also have the new Nokia N900, although it is pricer than most would want to spend, but it gives you a Linux computer in the palm of your hand. So as long as there is an application that can read the content in Linux, you can get it to work on the Nokia Nxxx.
For those looking to save money, I read a post the other day of a person who bought a Nokia N810 for less than $150. The Nokia N800 is also a Linux computer.
Why buy any other device...a Kindle, why...a hand held device, so called smart phone or whatever that runs a proprietary operating systm...why.
Just get a Linux netbook or hand held and only purchase content that can be read / used on them...game over.
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It has a tiny screen though. A tablet would be one huge screen and as thin and light as possible. Think giant iphone.
Well, I don't normally read *books* in the dark either, so I don't give up anything by not being able to read an epaper display in the dark either. I can always use a lamp if I need to read something in a place where it's dark. Still, no display that emits light can produce decent contrast in sufficient ambient light.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It is shame that browser still not support footnotes, math, music.
W3C should start thinking that it is not just fancy display for users.
For operating systems, more is necessary for a operating language other than a static language. We need a authoring system which can describe all of the knowledge. First step, we should able to turn the books into that language.
As to display, it will be quite easy.
"Downside : publishers will try to destroy the used book market. They'll use DRM and various access controls to try to force every user to buy a separate copy."
Much like the way Steam, D2D, and Impulse have destroyed the used game market.
not requiring any power to sustain a static image
Bistable LCDs will exceed it in ever aspect
You can argue that LCDs will be more functional than e-ink displays, but there is no way that you can argue that there will be no niche that a no-power static display could fill better than an LCD.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Oh, and also, the librarian at my university always got mad when I took notes in the margins of her books.
What? No way!
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
First of all, textbooks in an electronic format still cost a considerable amount. And any savings quickly evaporates once you factor in the cost of an e-reader. Yes most students do have laptops, however those have problems that have been explained elsewhere in this thread.
Also, who lugs their books to class? I certainly don't. Most of the time I just leave them at home.
There is something about a newspaper, magazine, book, flipping through it that I simply love. I find it relaxing and enjoyable to lazily leaf through a book, magazine or newspaper. Always will.
I have to admit that if I were searching for a phrase or phrases I would prefer to have it on a computer. Just works better.
What matters to me more is not the device (hand held, net book, tablet, laptop, PC, desktop, tower, etc...) but the data format.
I want to purchase my content ONCE, maybe twice if I have too, but not repeatedly for the rest of my life, every three or four years. That it crazy. I was taught at a young age to try to avoid being penny-wise and dollar foolish. I like to purchase things that last. So if you put the content on cheap materials that will not last, your bad, you will lose my business. I would rather save more money, pay a little more and get the data on better materials that will last. Look at furniture, I will not buy cheap furniture that breaks in less than a year. I would rather pay more (its usually not that much more either) and have it last, it should still be in good shape so that I can give it to my grandchildren if I want too. Instead of something cheaply made that will not last till I see my own children. What a waste of money.
To buy too cheap is penny wise and dollar foolish.
I apply the same logic to computer hardware and software that is proprietary in nature. Having been burned not just once, not just twice, but many more times than three, I am simply tired of seeing my hard earned money being drained away by insane fees, charges and forced updates. I will pay for innovation, however I am hard pressed to see how spreadsheets, word-processors and database programs have really improved enough to be labeled "innovative" since Windows 95/98. Granted you might have a chance with databases of finding one or two obscure new features that might be a "must have". But not with Spreadsheets and Word-Processors.
A friend of mine loved WordPerfect, the technical writers would keep finding new ways to apply WordPerfect to their craft, technical writing, literally every day, day in, day out for multiple years. It was not because the product had been improved, though it was, it was because the product was feature rich and would let a master at their craft (word processing, tech writing, etc..) really excel. Word Perfect was the best Word Processor ever. That was years before Word gained only because of Microsoft Office and Microsoft's control of the desktop. Even later when most had switched to Word after Microsoft corrupted their own file formats to force users to upgrade to the new Word, the experts, the technical writers who knew their craft preferred WordPerfect and other Desktop Publishing tools. It just made sense.
Word did not take over through innovation, but it did take over none the less. We are all poorer for the lack of innovation.
So the idea of forcing us to buy some proprietary e-reader hardware in order to read a proprietary data format that could just as easily be provided in an open data format is crazy. Quite frankly it is beyond offensive and hardly endears us to your brand.
We were not born yesterday.
Even those (probably because they are simply too inexperienced) that have not experienced this kind of FUD, still understand the concept.
Buy me (book, music, content, etc...) on this device in that format (proprietary of course) and in a couple of years that device (proprietary) will be left without support (because we said so) and not only will you be forced to purchase the content again because of the proprietary data format; but they (proprietary company) will attempt to force me (and you dear reader if you mistakenly bought in the last time) to purchase yet more new hardware (proprietary of course) that offers yet again, no new innovative features.
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A bistable LCD is exactly that, but able to display motion too.
I think we're losing sight of the bigger picture here. What we're talking about is the possibility to make a significant change in the delivery of classroom text, and unbelievably the arguments against the *potential* for doing so are sounding much like the argument in favor of postal mail versus email. What about the tons of paper saved every year? The reduced barrier to publishing material? The ability to update inaccurate information mid-semester? I'm just a little speechless that people are readily naysayers about the matter, and/or are having a technology discussion instead of a discussion of the use case.
How exactly does the cost evaporate when you factor in the cost of an e-reader? Doesn't it seem that should this idea come to fruition that market forces will make this a no-brainer? It seems to me that the cost of an e-reader is on par with about a single semester's worth of textbooks. Subtract the cost of printing and distribution from the price of each e-book and you'll have no problem finding a way to make more money for the publisher and yet cost less money overall for the student assuming an e-reader can survive an average of four semesters or so.
I think the main theme is that laptops, netbooks, or tablets alone aren't perfectly suited for e-books and the needs of the student. Ideally, we'll have a solution someday that combines everything the student needs into one device. This article shows signs that the industry is finally acknowledging the need for a specialty product.
Having two different display technologies in the same device is hell in terms of UI design and development. Those hassles mean that you're probably better off just using two LCDs instead of trying to combine e-ink and LCD technology into one gadget.
Plenty of reasons:
#1 e-Ink saves power over the Netbook LCD screen.
#2 eBook reader is easier to use and has twin screens to simulate a book which usually has two pages open at once. Netbooks only have one LCD screen.
#3 Not everyone wants to learn how to use a Netbook computer with Windows, Linux, etc in order to read books. Last thing someone wants is a Windows BSOD while reading an eBook, or have the screen saver come up due to inactivity.
#4 Eventually when mass produced the eBook readers will come down in price as technology advances and becomes cheaper due to spreading out the cost from thousands to millions of unit sales.
#5 eBook sellers want the DRM features to control how their book is accessed and used.
#6 The eBook reader is more compatible with the library system of checking out books. I expect libraries to carry eBooks and either one checks out an eBook via the library's web site or visits the library and checks out the eBook from their wireless network.
#7 The eBook reader is platform agnostic and should work with any operating system it hooks up to and accesses to convert eBooks over to it.
#8 Just like the iPod made music and videos sales over the Internet popular and profitable, so too will the eBook reader make eBooks over the Internet popular and profitable. The company that can do with eBooks what Apple did with music and video media should be the winner in this category. No iPods and iPhones are not as suitable as eBook readers with e-Ink, but yes Apple should strive to develop their own e-Ink based eBook reader.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Well by the time this is implemented at all, I will be done with my schooling and get little use out of it. If I ever have children, hopefully by then this will be commonplace.
Yeah. That has about as much a chance of happening as Obama supporting school vouchers. Didn't you get the memo? School is about warehousing kids, not educating them. That would be waaay too dangerous...
Preface: I don't have any such device (yet), but I'm becoming slightly tempted.
I was quite *uninterested* in these things, for three basic reasons:
1) the one you name; it's a computer, underneath, but can't be used for most of the things I use a computer for (can't reply to comments on Slashdot, for instance ;))
2) Turned off by all devices with proprietary or expensive batteries (this does include laptops, but since I've already committed to a small stable of laptops despite this, I can overlook it as needed for laptops, and gripe about it as appropriate). If the Kindle took AA batteries, I'd probably already have one.
3) Don't like being tied to a single source for downloads (BN.com, or Amazon, or whatever's next).
There are some responses for each of these, though:
1) Ubuntu on the Kindle -- even if it's sorta silly, it proves the thing isn't 100 locked into being only the tablet that Amazon wants it to be http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/03/2010208/Ubuntu-904-On-Kindle-2?from=rss
2) The batteries last a long time, what with the e-Ink display and all. Well, grudgingly, I accept that battery life isn't bad under most circumstances.
3) Yes, there are quite a few books that are available for free or quite cheap, and ways to get other docs on there, too. Good. If I do get such a thing, I am unlikely to buy all that many books for it, at least at full price. I'd rather have a paper copy of most books.
I recently spent most of a day in a bookstore (Barnes & Noble, as it happens, and boy were they pushing the Nook), and watching people w/ their Kindles and Nooks, as well as conventional books, and becoming slightly warmer to the idea. I read a book that day (sipping a drink), and realized that an e-reader would be handier for just that sort of situation, because I don't need to hold it open with my thumb.
A laptop, though, would be a pretty awkward way to read, for shape / weight / power-draw needs. My opinion, anyhow.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
One brand: Hanlin
Get it, use it, forget the rest.
Those things don't even waste power when displaying a page, only when you change it. It's like an "Etch A Sketch" of sorts: no backlight, no refreshing; you need ambient light the same way you need it for real books. Supports all common formats, ARM9 running Linux. No DRM, no wifi connecting on your back to delete your stuff, simple usb mass storage transfer: connect, copy and go, no software nonsense, and it has an SD slot...
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
many lcd screens are so bad that you cannot even read them in the shadows inside a car. I've worked extensively with panasonic toughbooks and it's even the case with them and they're one of the better ones. You don't need to be in direct sunlight at all. I often end up having to crouch over the things to block the light and even then still have to cup my hand over part of the screen to shade the part I'm looking at.
I think I've read that these e-ink displays are a lot better though...
XO uses predecessor of commercial Pixel Qi screens that are launching soon(tm).
I wouldn't be surprised if we find them in e-book readers announced some time ago by few big motherboard/laptop manufacturers. Or in Apple tablet.
One that hath name thou can not otter
The thing with e-ink displays though, is that _perceived_ contrast improves as ambient illumination gets increases, which is exactly the opposite with any display that emits its own light. When reading anything else, such as paper, contrast also improves as ambient illumination increases, so electronic displays that exhibit this characteristic feel easier on the eyes and are usually less tiring to look at for prolonged periods, as long as sufficient light exists to comfortably read them in the first place. Of course, there's nothing magical about e-ink in particular in this regard, any display that does not have to emit any light to be perfectly legible under respectable ambient lighting conditions would exhibit this effect. However, the number of technologies that accomplish this are quite small... e-ink is simply the most prominent one at the current time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That is funny. I just got a new office with view on a lake recently and I must say I enjoy the view. I do not enjoy reading documents on my displays especially when there are no sun obscuring clouds on the sky. This proves that albeit we both indulge in similar activities professionally (wasting time on /. ) we have totally different perspectives: yours is from the windowless cellar mine from sun light filled room. What this means is that I do not expect too much of a benefit from having those tables etc I am not syaing that they are useless but they are tools for specific purposes, most of which are foreign to me.
How about a two-screen laptop with a traditional LCD display on one screen and a textbook display on the other to render crisp printlike graphics?
But would you agree that it's just not feasible with current technology to replace the textbook? I mean e-ink displays with color can't be that far off.
But would you agree that it's just not feasible with current technology to replace the textbook? I mean e-ink displays with color can't be that far off.
Yes and no. I think you make a valid point, and yet the hybrid technology proposed in the article is an important step in the right direction. What I'm resistant to is the argument against moving in the direction of digital textbooks altogether in the absence of a perfect product. Color e-ink certainly sounds like a nice future, but in the meantime I think we need to get products in people's hands that start to turn the battleship. There will be a lot of infrastructure and process required to convert the textbook market into a viable digital system. What are we waiting for?
Plenty of reasons:
#1 e-Ink saves power over the Netbook LCD screen.
#2 eBook reader is easier to use and has twin screens to simulate a book which usually has two pages open at once. Netbooks only have one LCD screen.
#3 Not everyone wants to learn how to use a Netbook computer with Windows, Linux, etc in order to read books. Last thing someone wants is a Windows BSOD while reading an eBook, or have the screen saver come up due to inactivity.
#4 Eventually when mass produced the eBook readers will come down in price as technology advances and becomes cheaper due to spreading out the cost from thousands to millions of unit sales.
#5 eBook sellers want the DRM features to control how their book is accessed and used.
#6 The eBook reader is more compatible with the library system of checking out books. I expect libraries to carry eBooks and either one checks out an eBook via the library's web site or visits the library and checks out the eBook from their wireless network.
#7 The eBook reader is platform agnostic and should work with any operating system it hooks up to and accesses to convert eBooks over to it.
#8 Just like the iPod made music and videos sales over the Internet popular and profitable, so too will the eBook reader make eBooks over the Internet popular and profitable. The company that can do with eBooks what Apple did with music and video media should be the winner in this category. No iPods and iPhones are not as suitable as eBook readers with e-Ink, but yes Apple should strive to develop their own e-Ink based eBook reader.
I think the big problem is this, as read from another website post about the Hanlin eReader, "In China, we don't want V2 to affect the sales of V8 in our local market, because in China nobody would like to pay more 50 dollars to buy a product only for supporting PDF and DOC formats"
This is very logical and very difficult to argue with. Why would I purchase a device, an eReader, costing greater than $50 per unit, just to read books? Especially when the books could be read on my PC, laptop, net book, Linux hand held (Nokia N800, N900, Android, etc...). And if they can not be read on other devices, than the data format is hardly open platform agnostic as you put in #7 above. Let's face it, many of us want to know why .doc is even mentioned when .odt is not. As for .pdf, yes it works, but I am betting money that any vendor that is DRM focused, is not going to sell a book in just .pdf format. DRM is your #5 point above.
#1 battery life is a valid point, however I can purchase an extra power cord or get an external battery pack to extend any device as long as the power cord is not vendor locked-in and proprietary.
#2, not real important to me and as others pointed out, can become a UI issue as well. While it would be better to have a little larger screen than provided by the Nokia Nxxx hand helds, those do work. I am sure some sort of expandable screen or virtual screen will be created and this will be a non issue in the future. I can even imagine having the screen appear in my mind, thus unlimited screen size and 3D to boot.
#3, This is FUD! It is no more difficult to learn Linux (ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, Debian, etc.) or Mac OSX than to learn Windows Vista or Windows 7. Even Windows users have to learn a new user interface from one version of Windows to another. And your average windows user is no better at tweaking their windows configuration. Linux and Mac OS X is very plug and play, has been for years. This has been pointed out in many forums and is very old news. There are even reports of ex Windows users being put on an Ubuntu Linux PC and not having any problems at all. The fact is to learn ubuntu is no more di
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