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$99 Moby Tablet As Textbook Alternative
Taco Cowboy writes "Marvell's Moby tablet will be an always-on, high performance multimedia tablet capable of full Flash support and 1080p HD playback and supporting WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, GPS and both Android and Windows Mobile platforms for maximum flexibility. It could eliminate the need for students to buy and carry bound textbooks and an array of other tools. The tablet is expected to hold a full year's worth of books but weigh less than half of one typical textbook." The tablet is a bit vaporous at this point, but if the final device comes anywhere near these specs and price point, it could be attractive.
How about just letting me load the textbooks onto the laptop I already carry around?
Too bad it doesn't exist...
Additional details: Contains video cards from multiple manufacturers with no loss in GPU power. Phantom console games sold seperately.
The CrunchPad was supposed to be a dead-simple, cheap $200 tablet. Closer to production, it looks like it'll cost more like $500. A $99 device would be nice, but I'll believe it when I see it. A decent screen + NAND memory + battery alone will add to the cost.
Go somewhere random
...all this great looking (and supposedly wonderfully performing) ARM powered vaporware products that either never shows up outside China or retail for ridiculously high prices and so locked in with WinCE nobody wants it?
Either put up or shut up already! Personally I'd rather they put up than shut up, but either way enough already!
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
So, is DC coming out with one as well? A Dark Knight themed tablet would be cool.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Launch package deal comes bundled with Duke Nukem Forever and Optimus Maximus keyboard support.
It's also going to be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever?
I involuntarily read the comments below TFA and now I want to scratch my eyes out.
A bit vaporous? You think? Hehe, well, I'll certainly cancel my iPad order for this!
I can't seem to find too much info, their site says it rivals E-Ink, which would be really cool if true.
Anyone? Anyone? If you're going to be reading that much with a screen, you pretty much need the equivalent of E-Ink.
Another kdawson special. The product does not exist. It cannot be purchased. If every claim about what somebody INTENDS to do is news...
I don't mind lugging them around. What I mind is paying out ridiculous amounts for a rehash of last year's now worthless book. They sell ebook versions of textbooks; I don't see how this will hamper that (besides eliminating resale markets). What we need is some serious, high quality, free, open source type textbooks. I wouldn't mind paying to have them stamped on dead tree, I like dead tree, it's the BS mark-up that's the problem. This is cool and all, but it would mean a lot more if they could get something good and free/reasonably priced to put in it.
I would rather use E-Paper, tables are good and all but they are hard on the eyes after a while.
http://novelwhore.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/e-paper.jpg
Seriously, you thought the RIAA and MPAA were bad? Hoo boy, you're in for a surprise when you meet the textbook publishers. They aren't even human, they're like... Mind Flayers, or something. Pure evil, and smarter than you think.
Textbook pubs will never permit mass electronic distribution unless they have mandatory DRM backed by scary laws that the state aggressively enforces. When Congress passes laws authorizing copyright holders and their agents/officials to summarily arrest and imprison suspected copyright violators, without trial or notice, THEN the textbook publishers will decide that they feel confident moving into electronic distribution.
But one of these days, somebody will start selling cheap, easy-to-make/use automated book scanners (with page turning capabilities). Or maybe they'll put up an Instructable. That'll be the harpoon in the side, for the textbook industry.
SheevaPlug isn't vaporware. N900, iPhone or any smart phone uses ARM, aren't vaporware.
I would rather use E-Paper, tables are good and all but they are hard on the eyes after a while. http://novelwhore.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/e-paper.jpg
Poor lighting causes eye strain. The reason why people don't get eye strain from e-paper as much is because is "requires" ambient light in order for you to see the screen. Don't use the blacklit display as a replacement for sufficient lighting and your eyes will be fine.
Stop buying into the hype. Do people work in offices on e-paper displays all day? No. Eye strain does not occur if you take frequent breaks and work in a well lit environment.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
A whole year's worth of books is what? 30 MB? They'll be paying a premium just to find flash memory small enough that it would support a year's worth.
Translation: This will weigh less than 1/10th of most engineering textbooks.
Why didn't they come out with this 10 years ago!?
Me too! I had been keeping an eye out for ARM based "smartbooks" etc. for several months. Lots of reference designs, lots of demos at CES. No one ever brought anything decent to retail stores. I heard HP was releasing something in Spain. Lenovo is supposed to be releasing something in the US later this year.
I wanted something around a $200 price with decent battery life, capable of running Linux. I wanted ARM, too, because I didn't want to buy a machine that came with Windows only to wipe it. After months of waiting, I gave up.
A few weeks ago I purchased a used Acer Aspire One, along with a high capacity battery. Total price, including shipping and taxes for all items, was less than $200. The machine had originally come with Windows, but was sold without any OS installed. I put Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it, and I'm quite happy with it.
I'm now out of the market for one of these many rumored ARM-based devices... no one has any decent offerings (and no, the Touchbook is not what I would consider a decent, consumer-oriented offering, and they're not even in stock AFAICT), so I gave up. Also, $99 for this Moby Tablet? Yeah, right. Maybe the bill of materials is $99, but I doubt even that. This thing stinks badly of being vaporware.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Huh? "Carry" is one thing, "buy" is another. It's true that free textbooks exist (see my sig), but they are not yet all that popular in K-12 or colleges. California has a Free Digital Textbook Initiative for high schools, but it has not yet reshaped the landscape; the traditional commercial publishers are essentially sitting it out.
So I don't see why a cheap tablet would eliminate the need for students to buy textbooks. Publishers are already offering DRM'd electronic textbooks, at about the same price as print textbooks. K-12 schools that are using non-free books will still need to buy books for their kids. College students will still need to buy books.
Actually, the traditional publishers love DRM'd e-books, because it's a way for them to kill off the used book market. They can use the DRM to prevent you from selling your copy if you don't want it when you're done with the class.
The books I use in my physics courses at a community college are all free online as DRM-free PDFs. Even so, the vast majority of my students end up buying a printed copy. (I don't receive any royalty from the printed books. They're priced pretty cheap, about the same as photocopying.) Maybe some of them are not going digital because they can't afford a laptop, but I suspect that in most cases, they actually perceive a printed book as more convenient than an electronic one. Reading a book off the screen of a laptop is a pain in the ass. It's much nicer and easier to be able to see two full pages at once, in a large format, and to be able to riffle through pages.
Find free books.
Considering Marvell already produces devices with similar specs at that price point, but no battery and no screen, it's unlikely they are going to be able to meet that price point.
Now if they said that was the bill of materials, I'd almost believe it. But still not with a Pixel Qi screen, which the article speculates but is not mentioned by Marvell at all.
1) A cell phone module
2) 2 swapable batteries
3) A charger to charge the spare battery from regular outlet and/or USB.
The $99 might cover the parts, but the R&D to design the thing is a different story.
Whoever can ramp up the economy of scale around netbooks is going to own the market.
My money is on the company that did this in the smartphone market.
You know who they are...
Plans for ones without page-flippers already exist and are very fast. If a handful of college kids wanted to take turns scanning their books and sharing with each other, it could be done very quickly.
The fact that most decent novels get scanned and OCRd (or at least PDFd) but textbooks don't is a big sign that students don't really think that process will help them much.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I suppose this could used for textbooks?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858723010&Tpk=ectaco%20jetbook%20lite
And adjust your backlight appropriately. If the backlight is too low or too high you can get eye strain. If it's set correctly the result is just the same as a reflective display. It's not like your eyes can tell the difference between a reflected and an emitted photon.
And it will end up being yet another 500 dollar device once it ships.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The main problem is that you either have to provide students with power outlets, or the batteries have to be able to perform in the real world for around 8-12 hours.
I would have loved to have had such an option when I was in Uni. You had two choices. Either carry the textbook as you were told in which case you'd better have a good hiking backpack and like being a social outcast, or don't carry them and do your homework/reading at home. Most students chose the later.
I did my Masters online and never had to carry a book. It was a much better experience in that respect.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I don't see them being sold, for the same reason its about impossible to sell a DVD backup device. Few could afford the legal costs.
I also expect them to squelch the plans for them as 'forbidden knowledge' and if you are caught with that data, well, you go to jail as a terrorist or something.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
SheevaPlug is $99 with no screen or battery. A tablet at that price would be really something.
We need to have open text books to put on these low cost machines. You should be able to put much of human knowledge on a computer with a 32GB flash drive.
Stop buying into the hype. Do people work in offices on e-paper displays all day? No. Eye strain does not occur if you take frequent breaks and work in a well lit environment.
Hype? I think most people are referring to comments from end users, not the manufacturers. The end users are reporting their observations based on personal experiences. No hype involved.
As for people in offices going about their daily tasks, here's an observation. None of them is reading, unless it's a published newspaper, periodical or book they're holding. To the extent anyone is staring at a computer monitor for a length of time, they're doing so in a way that only resembles reading.
Here's a simple test for you. Put a copy of something challenging on your monitor. I'd suggest a FCC filing like a prospectus, or if literature is your thing, Cervantes or Milton. Be sure it has none of that benefits that the form or typography of books offers (aka "mile long lines on a big screen with lame computer fonts"). Now try reading like a person accustomed to reading books: no breaks or interruptions for hours on end. See how many chapters you get through before you "tire" of the experience, and ask yourself if you could pass a pop quiz based on what you've read. I'll guarantee you'll fail to demonstrate anything other than limited reading comprehension, and you'll be in a shitty mood.
An LCD computer monitor is a far improvement over the flickering monstrosities that sat on the everyone's desks once upon a time, but it still flickers (however imperceptibly), and it's still requires looking directly into a light source. You don't notice or don't mind? Good for you. The rest of us know the difference and won't/can't settle for less, irrespective of our ambient lighting conditions.
Nice buzzword usage, but see, I actually WORK at a University Press, and we make textbooks. And we're doing pdfs for the majority of our ebooks.
The *real* reason that textbook publishers don't make more ebooks is much less sinister:
There's no universal standard for ebooks. It costs money to get something converted to a format and checked for errors, and you don't want to fragment your efforts too much, so out of the several dozen implementations of ebook formats, you pick one or two, then you pick which version of THAT you want to support, and you try and learn about them. And since it takes two years or more just to make a textbook, by the time you've got a format learned sufficiently to get it in to your workflow, you've still got a two year lag before books start showing up in that format.
But oh hey! In the meantime, the standard shifted. So you're back to trying to learn the standard and get that merged in to your workflow. You think the RIAA and MPAA handled the change in the technology of their field badly? Books have been printed basically the same for centuries, not decades. Since the printing press, there's not been many advances that effect publishing. The offset printing press, and use of computers to do layout and editing. No, seriously, that's about it. Books are long enough that few people wanted to have to sit and stare at a screen for hours on end, so they never had to worry about digital distribution until laptops became common, and even then, people still didn't want to read things hundreds of pages long on a screen. It's only been in about the last 10 years or so that it's even been mentioned, and it wasn't anything close to a viable idea until the kindle came out in 2007. And remember what I said about textbooks taking at least 2 years to get through the publishing process?
No, you'll start seeing textbooks for e-readers when the formats are more stable. Until then, you'll get most publishers playing it safe and not wasting their cash on converting.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I have a PhD and have always read far more on a CRT or backlit LCD than I have on paper, mostly code and papers versus textbooks.
If you adjust a backlit screen properly and use it in appropriate lighting conditions it's the same as a reflective screen. Reflected photons aren't magic.
You don't need a page flipper. Students all kick in for one book that will be destroyed - you cut the binding then use a standard page feeder to the scanner. Done.
Or... maybe we don't need the publishers to create and distribute decent textbooks anymore.
Many classes are already moving to a web based model where you have to pay some $70 a semester for a login. Unfortunately, that is in addition to the dead tree version that runs $170 and will net you $75 on the buy back.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Have you looked at the ebook category on the Pirate Bay recently? It's not "it could be done very quickly," it IS done.
It's tough to find THE textbook you need because there are so many. It's not hard at all to find A textbook on a given subject.
I'm happy to see the technical achievement for what it is, but I am worried that the purported text books would change daily (updated by WiFi or some wireless means) to fit the revealing political views. Ministry of Truth, anyone?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Hype? I think most people are referring to comments from end users, not the manufacturers. The end users are reporting their observations based on personal experiences. No hype involved.
You're generally representing the parent post as stating that manufacturers are hyping how bad their screens are?
I think he meant epaper hype, as in, that it would be any better under the same lighting conditions.
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But... But... the edges of reflected photons aren't as jagged as backlit screen photons so they won't tear holes in your eyes and all the fonts look warmer with reflected photons!
They need to reach ARM Cortex A9 or good A8 with full hardware acceleration of Google Android for Laptops or Google Chrome OS software and Flash 10 support for full speed web browsing. Once they have that, which is really imminent, they will be selling huge amounts all over the market.
This plus the DNF and the Phantom console.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
It's as good as e-ink for reading. Check my video: http://armdevices.net/2010/01/08/charbax-tests-pixel-qi-at-ces-2010/ I tested it only for a few minutes though, I didn't actually read much on it, just had time to check it out outdoors and indoors at Computex 2009 and at CES 2010 as I was filming those Pixel Qi videos. It's very very readable and the whole 10" screen currently uses less than 500 milliwatts which means potentially reaching 50 hours battery runtime using an ARM processor to turn e-book pages on a 3-cell netbook-sized battery.
Only if you hook up the low oxygen video cable the right way around. Otherwise the electrons get bruised and bruised electrons can be rather rough with the photons.
Check the link, there is a picture of a working prototype at 10" and even a video of a working prototype with a 4.3" screen.
It will also butter your muffin.
You make a decent point. The Nvidia Tegra processor, QualCom Snapdragon, and TI something-or-other, are all fine ARM processors for multi-touch slates, yet no respectable manufacturer (I'm not including Apple as "respectable"), has even announced a device based on this.
My brother-in-law works at Dell, and while he may take issue with how I paraphrase him, what I heard was "Dell doesn't innovate. Instead, we wait for others to prove the market first, and then crush them with our manufacturing capabilities." The big players, like Dell and HP, are waiting for the equivalent of the Asus EEE PC in the ARM based tablet/slate space. Once an off-brand has dominated the market, they'll follow like lemmings. In the meantime, early adopters will need to buy products like "Notion Ink Atom" from some random group of entrepreneurial Indians, or this Marvell thingy. Honestly, I think the big players look to Apple for innovation. MacBook Air? How about a nice Dell netbook for 1/4 the price? iPad? How about a Dell slate for $150? At least we have that great A-hole Steve Jobs to help our corporations find their way...
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Marvell's Moby tablet will be an always-on, high performance multimedia tablet capable of full Flash support and 1080p HD playback and supporting WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, GPS and both Android and Windows Mobile platforms for maximum flexibility.
It cures cancer ... and it even includes a pony!
It's a bit like the Chicken and the Egg problem. You can't really use laptops to read textbooks. Once students all have low power readable tablets at $99, the affordable if not totally free access to all books and all textbooks is an obvious development. Even if the publishers will want to keep prices of digital versions of textbooks high, students will very easily be able to pirate them. This will force a new business model to monetize the work of authors. Such as one that is already used with libraries. Borrowing books from the library is free while authors are compensated directly accordingly with the popularity of their work through some sorts of taxes. Authors whos books are in libraries are compensated by how many times people borrows their books, which could be even more precisely counted using e-readers by counting the actual exact use and popularity of each ebook page.
Check out the Pixel Qi LCD screen technology, provide e-ink quality ereading and very low power consumption when turning off the backlight, and you can turn on the backlight to get the full color qualities of regular LCD screens as well when you want to browse the Internet or watch some movies. All on the same screen: http://armdevices.net/2010/01/08/charbax-tests-pixel-qi-at-ces-2010/
I am a PHB
FTFY, you smug bastard.
The Pixel Qi screen is designed to cost about the same as a regular LCD screen, especially once mass produced by the millions. And Pixel Qi is confirming that their technology is not being mass produced by LCD manufacturers without them having had to change anything in the LCD factories, thus as soon as the orders for millions of these screens comes in, I think you could find a 10" Pixel Qi with a Bill of Material below $60 including the capacitive touch screen.
There's probably going to be an option to get an unlocked 3G module with SIM card reader, but it'll currently cost you at least $50 extra. But it'd be unlocked and you could use any SIM card you want from a telecom that allows any device on their network and provides SIM cards for that. In Europe you can get SIM cards for free and only have to pay starting 5€ per month for data services on it, especially for the few hundreds of megabytes per months which are probably enough for downloading e-books and doing basic web browsing.
this is pure vaporware, but pixel qi's screens aren't: http://www.pixelqi.com/products
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Check out Pixel Qi on youtube. Better sunlight readability than e-ink, cheaper, larger displays, and with the backlight on, you can watch video in color. With backlight off (e-ink mode), you battery can last days, not hours. Still, not weeks like some e-ink products, but getting there. So, I 100% agree with you. I don't want an iPad. I want something like the Notion Ink Adam.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Nice try, but http://www.idpf.org/pressroom/pressreleases/idpfstandards06.htm . And that was 2006. It's been 4 years, where are the cheap ebook textbooks?
...better than the iPad, and the thing isn't even out yet. (Moby)
Of course, iPad will still probably sell better than it simply due to that almost certainly stale chewed apple.
LCDs tend to have terrible contrast ratios at lower brightness levels. If I turn the brightness down to match a piece of paper (or get as close to such as the monitor will let me), the "white" starts to look brown, and other colours are similarly muddled.
Hype?
I own a Kindle 2 and for several hours of reading there's no contest between it and any computer screen I've ever seen. The Kindle wins hands down.
That's not hype, that's personal experience.
No my eyes can't tell the difference between a reflected and emitted photon. They can however tell the difference between a static image and one that's refreshing 60 to 75 time per second.
Eyes are funny and very personal things. At 38 I don't wear glasses, I have an annual eye checkup and I don't need them but I do have some particular quirks with my vision. For instance the refresh rates of an LCD flat panel gives me headaches after sufficient time and I can't read in a car without getting motion sick. On the upside my night vision is so superior that few believe it. Not only can I see in lower light conditions but my eyes can go from strong light to see in the dark in about 90 seconds flat. Most people take upwards of 5 minutes for this transition and some people take 20. My depth perception is also better than average, however I have real issues with strong sunlight. I pretty much have to wear quality sunglasses when I go outside and this seems to be getting worse as I get older.
Your eyes are likely at better at some other things, maybe you've got less sensitivity to refresh rate for instance. Perhaps you can focus to a finer detail than I can or maybe you have more "zoom" than I do. Who knows?
What I do know is that to casually dismiss how someone else's body works is incorrect. For me an e-paper display is much better for long reading sessions than any monitor I have ever come across, no matter how much I fiddle with it's settings.
Many classes are already moving to a web based model where you have to pay some $70 a semester for a login. Unfortunately, that is in addition to the dead tree version that runs $170 and will net you $75 on the buy back.
It's all part of their master plan to kill off, or at least offset, the used book market.
I've recently returned to college after dropping out in 2005, and this has been the biggest, most annoying, change by far. Publishers run these 'web-enhanced' sites with study tools, drills, etc which are REQUIRED for the course by the professor. The 'new' books come bundled with a login to this portion. You can still buy the book used, but then you have to buy a login separately from the publisher.
As an example: For the math class I am enrolled in, I can buy the textbook new bundled with a login for $125, OR I can buy the used textbook online for $50 and buy the login for $75.
The problem with e-ink (or displays like Pixel Qi) is that the screen is of inherently lower quality to something like the IPS display in the iPad. In sunlight, Pixel Qi can be better, but when watching a video indoors, or away from direct sunlight, the iPad (and similar) screens will be much better.
The Notion Ink Adam looks pretty cool. I'll definitely be checking it out when it hits stores in the US, but I highly doubt I'll buy one. Ignoring the iPad, the Adam looks like the best of the current crop. Compared to the iPad, however, the Adam just isn't compelling. Given the choice of a free Adam or a full-priced iPad, I'd rather pay for something that I'll find useful rather than settle for something less capable of meeting my needs.
As for requiring some sort of e-ink in order to spend hours on end reading on a device, that's rather absurd. Most everyone on the Internet finds reading text on an LCD suits them just fine.
I don't know what HS and/or college you attended, but I'm pretty sure "A textbook" is not useful to most students. Most profs expect you to read particular sections of a particular book, and possibly to answer questions listed in that particular book for assignments. If you just grab any old Calc 1 textbook off the shelf, you're still SOL.
Nice try, but that's done shit. There Is. No. Accepted. Standard. Trust me. We've got digital distribution contracts with 4 different e-libraries, and not a single one of them wants content in the same format. However, they're willing to take a copy of the book and convert it themselves. And then they keep that. The only one that gives it after they've covered their conversion costs is the one that converts it to standard pdf.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Sniff, sniff... what's that I smell? Not even vaporware. Anyone can announce anything.
It's good that readers are getting better, but they are still nowhere near the 300+ dpi of the printed page. Any large table or graphic just doesn't work.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
A Chumby One, with a small touch screen, WiFi and FM radio, was $99 on pre-order, and $119.95 now, so it's not impossible, if the screen cost can be kept down. I'd suspect $150 is a more reasonable number to shoot for, though.
Dead on. College textbook publishers are easily the most evil group of people around. 400 bucks a semester for books that are designed to be obsolete by the end of the semester...
I'd rather call my utility company twice a day (7 levels of phone menu, 30 minute hold times, 13 digit account number) for the rest of my life than deal with that crap again.
That would require organization, planning, time, effort, up-front capital, etc. Which means it will have basically zero impact on the vast majority of students. A couple of nerds will probably do it, but nobody else will care.
Music file sharing didn't take off because it was free. Back in 1998-99, college kids went apeshit for Napster because it was CONVENIENT and EASY. If you told those same college kids "You can have all the music you want. For the new Eminem album: Just email John Smith, he's a junior in CS, give him $0.05, wait a week, and he'll email you the MP3s. For the new Pink album: Find Becky Lewis, she lives off-campus but works at the Union coffee shop, give her $0.05, wait a week, and she'll email you the MP3s..."
Nobody would bother with that shit, it's just too much hassle. Everybody likes free shit, in theory. But in practice, what people really want is easy instant gratification where they don't have to worry about how much each individual transactions costs.
The post I replied to was talking about scanning books. The fact that people scan textbooks even though those texts are probably not directly useful in a classroom setting suggests that the difficulty of book scanning is even less of a barrier than otherwise.
FYI, most of my professors were smart enough to make up their own questions, in which case a generic textbook, while maybe not being ideal, would be workable. Alternately, scanning or photocopying the questions at the end of the chapter is a whole lot easier than scanning the whole book.
Ha! I think that's the first time a post doc has ever been referred to as any sort of "boss" in the history of the world.
Serf, indentured servant, slave, yes. Boss? Yeah, right.
Reflective screens (and paper, for that matter) also has a pretty crappy contrast ratio at lower brightness levels.
Didn't your mother ever tell you to turn on a light while reading?
$99?, Yeah right and incredible 3D performance and a mini levitation device built in to boot! Wow I'm blown away..lol
Sales jibjabba it's 90% BS 10% substance.
So far as I know, the whole point of Pixel Qi screens (and the reason why they should be better than eInk) is that they can also work as conventional LCD displays - with color, fast updates, etc.
No one can be as gullible as he seems to be, so the cause has to be money.
I note that the summary only mentions the need to buy _bound_ textbooks disappears.
Methinks they are subsidizing the cost of the device by continuing to charge exorbitant prices -- only for DRM'ed electronic textbooks that expire, instead of books you can keep.
We are the 198 proof..
Are you saying that Pixel Qi's backlit LCD mode is as good as an IPS LCD? That's a pretty bold statement, and almost certainly an incorrect one.
And since it takes two years or more just to make a textbook
I don't think anyone in the world would agree with you on this as a universal argument; if you truly believe that's a good point, then you should ask yourself if you're drinking the kool-aid.
It is outright illogical to complain that file format standards change every two years when textbooks publishers create and print a new college algebra edition more frequently than every two decades.
I have no idea, since I haven't seen a Pixel Qi screen live, and I don't know anyone who had. So any information there is at the moment is either second-hand (and there isn't much of that), or downright speculation. And there seems to be particularly much of the latter.
That's great, except LCDs don't refresh...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate#Liquid_crystal_displays
It was a problem for me with CRTs as well, albeit only at below 70Hz. Luckily I actually did some research before complaining that my LCD "only went to 60Hz" and nipped my hypochondria in the bud.
It's possible there's some other reason LCDs are disagreeable to you, but it's not flicker unless the backlight's broken.
as someone who has used ebooks for about a decade now, I can tell you that there has been a standard in place almost that long.
it's called HTML and is supported on just about every device that has come out that I know of.
Starting with the Franklin Ebookman 911 in 2000 and the REB1100 in 2001, I've been able to convert HTML to a format that my ebook readers have been able to faithfully reproduce without problems up to my latest ebook reader, the PRS500.
the problem is not standards. there are standards and the software used to layout books can create HTML as easily as it creates color separated PDFs for the printer.
the problem, as the gp stated, is DRM.
epub
From you link:
"Most of the TFT LCDs used in portable devices and computer monitors need a continuous refresh. The driving voltage determines the transmittance of the liquid crystal."
Of course I could have used the word "flicker" which would have been a more accurate way of describing the problem.
"...while nearly all LCD backlights (most notably fluorescent cathodes, which commonly operate at ~200 Hz) have a separate figure known as flicker, which describes how many times a second the backlight pulses on and off."
So the backlight "flickers" on and off. It's not a constant emission source.
You were saying something about "hypochondria"?
I know of no one as well. But I'm basing my judgement on common sense. It just doesn't seem likely that the hybrid type system behind the Pixel Qi would be as good (let alone better) than a high quality LCD. If it were, this would be trumpeted. It would be marketed as this extremely high quality new LCD type that can *also* go reflective, as opposed to the way it's actually presented, which is as a display type that can toggle between backlit and reflective.
Or put another way, does it seem likely to you that Pixel Qi would be of such high fidelity that graphics artists would specifically seek it out, the way they seek out IPS today?
You're right that this is speculation, but as far as speculation goes, my confidence level is pretty high. I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but I won't be holding my breath.
Hype?
I own a Kindle 2 and for several hours of reading there's no contest between it and any computer screen I've ever seen. The Kindle wins hands down.
That's not hype, that's personal experience.
Yes hype. Most people read books or a kindle in sufficient light because both paper and displays like the kindle are reflective surfaces requiring ambient light in order to see them. I have observed that a lot of people like to use their computer LCDs at full brightness in either rooms with no lights on or a light level that would be insufficient to read from paper. Those people will suffer from eye strain. Even though you might not read a lot in a movie, being in a movie theatre will cause some eye strain and it will take time to adjust to the outside light levels.
I work on computers for approximately 8 hours a day as a software developer and I have to not only read and compose email but also read and compose documentation from time to time. I can read pages and pages of a text without my eyes getting too tired because I have light overhead and light coming from a window next to my desk on the top floor of our building. Sufficient light and taking breaks is key in preventing eye strain whether you are reading on a screen, on epaper or a paper book.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
How long has PDF been around for? And is it really so difficult to convert between one format and another?
Honestly, this is the chicken and the egg problem. If publishers were to simply pick a format, that's what you'd see readers supporting. And most uni students will be using tablet PCs running full operating systems, so even if the format isn't supported out of the box it'll take ~5 min to find and download the required program.
Just give us the data in some digital format, it doesn't matter which. We'll do the rest.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
You work at a University Press. You do NOT work for a for-profit textbook publisher. There is a difference.
Sorry you're stuck with poor work processes. Better ones exist.
Does anyone still make LCD's with CCFL backlights? If they aren't all LED by now, they will soon be.
I saw something about Dynamic Books on one of my news feeds. It looks like you can completely configure the book (useful for teachers), distribute it to students computers, and they can interactively create notes and links within the books. Looks cool but is probably a Windows only thing.
Don't hold your breath. Its already been reported on multiple sources that the colors are not nearly as saturated as they are in an ips display. The videos I've seen were pretty impressive. For a tablet device I thought it was good enough and while the movie I saw demoed looked somewhat washed out, it was still certainly viewable. I would say it was certainly on par with older passive matrix displays if not a bit better. I mean the color and contrast. It certainly updates fast. Part of the usability of tablet would be using it in direct sunlight. I mean if you are indoors all the time, you might as well just use a laptop. A tablet you can whip out and check your e-mail in the street in direct sunlight would be pretty sweet. I think the downside of the reflective mode is that it is more or less gray scale. I would imagine they will figure out how to do color in reflective mode, while still allowing a backlit mode. I mean hell, the original game boy color was reflective! Something tells me that cost is the issue.
zosxavius photography
Exactly. Netbook computers already cost less than printed textbooks, and schools here and there are getting ready for the transition. Herr Gubernator Schwarzenegger has noticed that California could save billions with digital textbook replacements, and started the process last year.
Earth Treasury has a plan for creating such materials under Free licenses.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/wiki.cgi?ReplacingTextbooks
We are partnering with some of the major pioneers in computerized education from the 1960s.
Alan Kay, inventor of Object-Oriented Programming and the Dynabook educational computer concept, and his Squeakland group. (Smalltalk)
Doug Engelbart and the Doug Engelbart Institute (The Mother of All Demos)
Ken Iverson's group based around his company J Software and his previous employers, IBM and I. P. Sharp Associates. Iverson died in 2004, but his work continues. (APL and J)
Seymour Papert's group at MIT. Papert has been disabled by brain injuries from an accident outside an education conference in Vietnam. (Logo, Turtle Art)
We are in contract talks with education authorities.
Edward Mokurai Cherlin
Founder, Earth Treasury
mokurai@earthtreasury.org
"A knot!" said Alice, ever ready to be useful. "Oh, do let me help to undo it!"
For a tablet device I thought it was good enough and while the movie I saw demoed looked somewhat washed out, it was still certainly viewable. I would say it was certainly on par with older passive matrix displays if not a bit better. I mean the color and contrast.
This isn't exactly high praise.
Part of the usability of tablet would be using it in direct sunlight. I mean if you are indoors all the time, you might as well just use a laptop.
That's silly. The tablet form factor isn't merely something for outdoors use. In fact, tablets don't exactly strike me as something people will want to take out and use randomly on the street (and I don't mean for fear of theft, but simply for the natural benefit of the form factor). Phones are much better suited for this.
A tablet you can whip out and check your e-mail in the street in direct sunlight would be pretty sweet.
It's called the iPhone (and Android, etc.).
The only situation where the Pixel Qi display is really beneficial is for things that aren't graphically important (indoors or outdoors), but where readability is important, and outdoors plays a significant role.
This doesn't strike me as a very important technology in the consumer sector. It may be great for certain types of public displays and perhaps in-dash displays (like on the Prius). But on a media-centric tablet? It's a non-starter. It doesn't meet the primary goals of the technology (vivid, quality display of media), and instead delivers on a secondary goal (outdoors, direct sunlight readability).