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E Ink Unveils Color E-Reader Display
Kensai7 writes with news that E Ink, the company who builds the displays used in Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and Sony's Reader, has launched a color version of their e-reader screens. It will first be used by a Chinese company called Hanvon Technology. Other companies will be watching and evaluating how well it works before integrating it into their own designs. Quoting:
"Unlike an LCD screen, the colors are muted, as if one were looking at a faded color photograph. In addition, E Ink cannot handle full-motion video. At best, it can show simple animations. These are reasons Amazon, Sony and the other major e-reader makers are not yet embracing it. Amazon says it will offer color E Ink when it is ready; the company sees color as useful in cookbooks and children’s books, and it offers these books in color through its Kindle application for LCD devices. Sony is also taking a wait-and-see approach."
It says the big US companies are waiting to see whether it will be useful for cookbooks and children's books, but wouldn't the color aspect of it have an immediate market with the magazines and periodicals that those same companies are pushing so hard to distribute on their devices?
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
Those all use black and white(more accurately not quite white) display. This may not be the clearest writing ever, but it indicates a reason why they are not rolling out color eInk in their products.
..embracing color. Children's books and cookbooks? That's it? Really? What about textbooks? I can see significant increase in e-reader use for textbooks if they had color capability. Not every HS and college student is going to have the luxury of having a pad/slate device. Color provides an extra dimension of information without physical space, pretty useful IMO!
... they want to sell what they have on their shelves and it's way too early to make all the buyers go out and rebuy a planned-obsolescence upgrade. If they wait, they won't anger all their christmas customers with finicky "i'll wait for it" choices.. you know.. for the good of the product.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Amazon says it will offer color E Ink when it is ready
AKA, once it can display full-motion videos ^W ADS.
We've heard something similar about today's half-baked HTML5 ^W^W adobe flash replacements from the likes of youtube.
The fact that ANY consumer product (nevermind a whole category) has succeeded with black-and-white screens is remarkable, and points towards to some hard to beat advantages of the E Ink technology: they were strong enough to outweigh the fact that on first impression, the screens looks cheap.
With the addition of color (and the assumption of steady improvement to contrast and color gamut), it's entirely possible that e ink will be wrapped on all kind of things -- dashboards, airport signage, ATMs -- where power is an issue.
That was precisely my point - "cannot handle full-motion video" is not a reason to not use color EInk when you already use B&W EInk in your products, because the latter has the exact same limitation.
Sorta. We have flat panel lcd screens which show color and motion video, but the battery life on these devices tends to be moderate at best. The promise of eink is to have a device that lasts about a week or two between charges due to a significantly lower power draw. I imagine that we'll start seeing these screens in many devices: smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc. There are a couple of emerging screen technologies that are leading in this direction: pixel qi's display and qualcomm's mirasol display. These technologies seem to be about 1-2 years away, which is nice for people who like to read a lot but get annoyed at excessive piles of books and papers.
The quality of the colour is why they're not using it yet. Black and white e-ink is significantly better than the original versions of the product. Only in the last generation or two has it approached print quality in terms of contrast ratio. Undoubtedly, the same will be true of colour e-ink for a while. Presumably, Amazon and others will wait for a generation or two for the technology to improve sufficiently.
I feel that finding ways to allow the eInk to display motion (without leaving a ghosted image behind)would a more important next step. I would rather have an eReader be able to do that than display color, as you wouldn't have to see it flash the screen every time you need to "turn" a page. After that color would be the next most important thing to me, even still I don't see myself ever needing color on an eReader. But, I wouldn't want to be the one blocking the advance of technology as I'm sure I would eventually see a use for, just like all sorts of people have found a use of having 641K...
Maybe a color eInk screen will be found on all of our little smart phones someday, with an optional back light.
"To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
The article is not currently behind a pay-wall, and does not currently require registration. But then, you knew that, because you only complained about this after trying to access the article, right?
Virtually indestructible waterproof color e-ink tablet with WiFi and replaceable scratchable surfaces, so I can toss it around like a book.
Bonus round: built in drivers to act as a USB display.
... quantitatively, what does that mean? How fast could it update a whole screen? If it's faster than 1/10 of a second, that may not be enough for full video, but it's probably at least fast enough to feel responsive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How is the contrast ratio on a recent one?
The latest sony I saw was maybe phonebook quality in that respect. The nook I saw in B&N also looked worse than $7 paperback.
Either way until ebooks cost less than paperbacks I am not interested.
This just in to the /. news room; The TSA has announced that E Ink Color E-Reader Displays are now banned from domestic flights worldwide. The little electronic eInks might be related to toner in toner cartridges and thus a threat to the safety and sanity of the worldwide local traveling community, at large. A spokesman for the TSA had this to say; "I don't know what all is in there, but those colors could be made to look like a powerful explosion or some such thing, or another. Heck, I just don't like the look of that contraption. It looks like some sort of controller for human zombie robots or somethin'."
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
How is the contrast ratio on a recent one?
For "Pearl" displays (which is what the recently released Kindle 3 and Kindle DX Graphite use), the claimed contrast ratio is 10:1. For paper, it all depends on the quality of both paper and print, but I've seen numbers for books (which are higher than newspapers and the like) which go from 1:10 to 1:15.
Neither Sony nor B&N use the new screens yet. For the older stuff, the contrast is 1:7, IIRC.
Either way until ebooks cost less than paperbacks I am not interested.
They usually cost about twice as cheap on Amazon store - at least those few titles which I've bought there.
That said, you'll need to buy quite a lot to cover for the price of the reader. Right now it's still expensive, so it's all down to whether you are willing to pay for the convenience of having your entire library with you, and a screen which can be read for hours without tiring the eye (any more so than a paper book).
FTA:
“Color is the next logical step for E Ink,”
Really? I'd have thought that "refresh rates that aren't measured in epochs" would be the next logical step.
Perhaps they've improved since the last time I picked one up, but it was depressingly unresponsive. That, and the poor contrast ratio, was not really grabbing my attention.
I love the idea of e-ink; using ambient light is both low-power and easier on the eyes. But I don't feel the urge to get one with the current state of the (commercially available) art.
Haven't they had relatively low power, daylight-readable color screens for a while? The question is how their power drain compares to e-ink. When the Notion Ink Adam comes out, we'll see if it's a viable replacement for a real e-reader.
What books were these that were 1/2 the price?
I just looked for a random selection and it seemed that the ebook and the paperback are the same price.
As far as I know, newer sony readers (PRS-350 and 650) do use pearl displays.
"Cannot handle full-motion video" may, though, be a reason (along with price) that, where companies determine that the demand for color is sufficient to drive a decision to produce an e-reader product that does not use B&W e-Ink, the choice is color LCD, not color e-Ink.
The reason not to choose color e-Ink over B&W e-Ink is probably just cost (though there may be display quality issues, as well.)
Granted, reading a pdf on a screen that is smaller than the size the document is formatted for does present challenges, but amazon has done a fairly good job.
Yes, that is correct. I just haven't kept an eye on new Sony Reader releases lately, so I didn't know they refreshed the line. Nook will probably follow soon as well.
From what I know, B/W E-Ink doesn't do smooth animations and full motion video either, so I don't understand why Sony or Amazon are not jumping on using color E-Ink displays.
I think you got to understand the target market better. If you want full color, high resolution, smooth animation/video displays, then use LCD or OLED technology. If you want an e-book reader with color graphics and simple interactive graphs, then use E-Ink.
I think the biggest failure of E-Ink will be to try and compete with LCD. They are already years behind in being able to match what LCD or OLED technology can offer, so if Sony or Amazon is waiting for E-Ink to match those spec's then they will be waiting for a good long time. I don't believe E-Ink will ever replace or compete with LCD or OLED, period. It should be used in cheap pupose driven devices not expensive jack-of-all-trade devices.
Make the damn thing so that we can cut it to a desired size and easily control it without needing an expensive built-in or external controller and everyone who builds arcade cabinets will finally have dynamic marquees that looks almost as real as the real thing.
LCD panels may be more bright, but you can't easily cut that. Normal marquees may be backlit but it's not quite the same as LCD.
Plus, we'll be able to have slightly rounded dynamic marquees, instead of being limited to flat ones like with LCD.
You need to go to the Kindle store section to see the "special Kindle price". For example, here is a book for $10 in digital download which goes for $14 in hardcover. Here is another, with similar savings.
I'm not certain if it applies to all or even most books (the above is also just two random clicks), but it did apply to all books which I've purchased so far. Granted, my selection is mostly the classic sci-fi of 60s-70s, and they may be keeping the prices low for that entire category.
Amazon's interest in the technology involves replacing their current tech which can't do video either. Say what you will about Amazon, but their philosophy and strategy around Kindle is clear and consistent. Battery life and paper-like contrast and visibility are king. Barnes and Noble went LCD, but Amazon so far seems that they are sticking to E ink. The fact they haven't moved is either because there's some unspecified hit to battery life, the black and white contrast is degraded, or the price is too high for their price point.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You can get ePub books cheaper than paperbacks, as long as you stick to public-domain books. Project Gutenberg has them available, and there's something like a million from Google readily available for the Nook, and B&N typically has lots on sale for $2.00 or less (what I'm willing to spend on an eBook, all things considered - offer me something reliable and/or tangible, with full First Sale rights, and I'll raise that limit).
I find my Nook very readable, and an excellent way to read a whole lot of excellent, if older, books.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Ah, old books. You mean books I could get used for $0.02 + shipping.
If I am going to lose the ability to resell and the ability to lend I am sure as heck not paying those prices.
Although I love my Alex eReader, I am little disappointed that e-paper is being used as a display instead of being used like paper like it was originally conceived.
The basic idea was that you'd get a special electrostatic printer that you'd load with a ream of e-paper and print out your documents as usual, then, when you're done with a document just return it to the hopper so that some other document could be printed on it. It was supposed to be the ultimate recyclable paper.
I suppose that it was never really likely that e-paper would reach the price point where such a thing would be reasonable, but it was an interesting concept.
Even though people complained that computers, not only didn't hearken the arrival of the paperless office, but actually increased the amount of paper that was used, I think that the trend is going the other way and people are beginning to print less and less. So, the demand peak for a product like this has likely passed and few would see it as a valuable option.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Either way until ebooks cost less than paperbacks I am not interested.
Why? You're paying for the words, not the media. Personally I love my Kindle. Some of the books I read are pretty large (I'm looking at you Peter F). My Kindle fits in my jacket pocket.
E Ink cannot handle full-motion video. At best, it can show simple animations.
That's true, and it applies to EInk in general, not just color EInk, so...
interestingly, ink (of the non "e" variety) also cannot handle full motion video, At best, it too can show simple animations.
Um, the links that I gave in my post are not to old books. They're both published in 2010.
What I said is that I personally mostly buy old books, so that's where the bulk of my experience with the store comes from.
Oh, and ebooks you can get for $0 and no shipping, if you know where to look (hint: #bookz @ irc.undernet.org). Of course, the author doesn't see the money, but then he doesn't see it when you buy a used one for $0.02, either. I usually try to find an official digital edition online, but if there's none, or if it is "not accessible from your country", then IRC it is.
I've been waiting for years for color e-ink to mature enough to make a good digital picture frame. Something cheap, lightweight, with great viewing angles, daylight readable, non-reflective, awesome resolution, takes no power in between refreshes - heck, you could set it to only switch 1x day and run it for a year on a small battery.
Sounds like they are getting closer - keep at it, guys!
Yesterday's technology available... TODAY!!! ~rimshot~
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
My price point was hit for the device when it hit $189. I wanted it because of the convenience to carry books and it is easier for my to hold (low tonality in my hands makes it stressful to hold a book open)
best thing about the kindle version is the author (or copyright holder, depending on how bad the author's deal is it could be the same thing) gets 70% of the money if they price it according to Amazon's price point, 30% if they decide to set their own price.
While you're right that it's the words not the media you're paying for, the problem is the lack of resale/giving away--it's effectively a sizeable price increase even if the nominal price is constant.
You clicked the link? HERETIC! Get thee from our midst before we burn you as the INTARWEBS demand!
The thing about e-ink is it only draws a charge when it changes something on the screen, if you don't update any pixels you don' draw any current. For reading static text that means once a refresh every 1..10 minutes, but if you stick video on the display causing 30 frames per second refreshes to be drawn you can kiss the battery life goodbye.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
It's a fluff piece. Check the E Ink web page, and there is no related announcement. They've been selling colour displays for a while (several years), but there is a problem with them: they have the same number of dots per inch as the monochrome ones. Unfortunately, you need three (or four) colour dots to make a colour pixel, while you only need one monochrome dot to make a monochrome pixel. This means that you get a much smaller number of pixels per inch. This removes a lot of the advantage of eInk.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Most magazines are very, very fussy about color quality. The muted aspect of the Kindle would probably mean tailoring any images destined for it, a lot of work. The iPad LCD display (or other upcoming tablets) is a lot more like a computer display in terms of how you process images.
So I don't know that many magazines are chomping at the bit for devices that use the new eInk either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just looked for a random selection and it seemed that the ebook and the paperback are the same price.
As a rule, publishers are still wary about undercutting their paperback sales. They've already paid to print those things, after all. Exceptions may be for special offers to get new readers into a series, etc. They're less worried about cutting into hardback sales because the profit margin on those is higher and they do smaller print runs, and it's a slightly different market. (Those who buy e-book editions are unlikely to buy a hardcover edition, and (maybe less so) vice versa.)
Authors selling their own backlists tend to price lower, because they don't have the overhead of a NY publisher. To tell those from newbie authors who may be self-publishing (and thus whose quality is unpredictable -- could be good, more likely terrible) you have to start looking at reviews or pay attention to authors which are also in print from a recognized publisher (ie small press or NY house, not self-pubbed).
-- Alastair
Of course, the author doesn't see the money, but then he doesn't see it when you buy a used one for $0.02, either.
True. The difference is that the supply of used books is finite, the supply of unauthorized e-copies is effectively infinite.
Up to a point either helps an author by making readers aware of his work, and perhaps encouraging the sale of other titles by that same author. (The whole point behind the Baen Free Library.) Past that point well, it's gonna start hurting.
(There's also the concern that if a publisher wants to contract with an author for a re-issue or new edition, they won't care about existing used copies. They will care about on-going e-distributed copies, and possibly reduce their offer, or decide not to make it at all. Depends on how big a problem they perceive it to be.)
-- Alastair
Whoever wrote this article is an idiot. "E-Ink" is a high-contrast, bistable liquid crystal display. Please refer to an active-matrix TFT as such. There are many types of LCDs, all with different properties.
Yeah, but the paperback is that cheap.
They have lower value since I cannot resell them nor can I lend them.
Remove the DRM and I will gladly pay paperback prices.
because I doubt consumers will accept colors that don't jump out at them having been used to color LCD screens for so long.
I guess it really depends on how muted those colors are, if its like the screen is always dark or fuzzy its DOA.
I won't touch the new Nook (color LCD) or an iPad simply because battery life and usability out doors is so compromised.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Doubtful. The new Nook uses an LCD screen.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
I've seen the screen of the new Kindle 3, and the contrast is very nice. Noticeably better than my old Sony 500 or my Astak EZ-Reader. I haven't seen any of the newer Sonys.
If the Kindle did EPub, I'd grab one. If the Nook upgrades to Pearl, I'll probably jump on it. Not interested in an LCD reader, though, so the color Nook won't attract me.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Uh ... really? ...
Whoever wrote this article is an idiot. "E-Ink" is a high-contrast, bistable liquid crystal display. Please refer to an active-matrix TFT as such. There are many types of LCDs, all with different properties.
I'm afraid if anyone is being an idiot, you're it. The "LC" in LCD refers to a family of substances which are completely absent in E-Ink displays, because E-Ink displays use fundamentally different principles of operation.
LCDs are planar sandwiches of electrode arrays, polarization filters, and LC material (and, in the case of color LCDs, color filters). LCD pixels are tunable light filters: by manipulating the electric field passing through LC material, it's possible to twist the polarization of the light in a controllable way. Combine with known fixed polarizers between the light source and LC material and the LC material and your eye, and you get a controllable intensity filter.
E-Ink displays use microcapsules filled with charged ink particles suspended in a fluid. Positively charged particles are one color (say, white) and negative the other (black). By applying an electric field one can attract/repel the particles such that the top surface of the e-ink display facing the user has either white or black ink.
The main similarity between the two is the use of electric fields to control the pixels. Aside from that, everything else is different. E-ink is purely a reflective technology and does not use liquid crystal material at all. LCD is a controlled polarization technology using LC material.
I hit the "registration required" wall when trying to read the article, which is weird, because as far as I know I haven't viewed any Times articles in - well, ages. I guess that's not the pay wall, but I definitely couldn't access the article. Clearing/refusing cookies didn't resolve it either.
As far as I can tell, the article does in fact require registration to read.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I like the idea of having a light weight e-Reader which I can carry reference books on. But most of my reference books have colour diagrams, illustrations and figures. They really don't work in black and white - or at least are not as visually appealing, which is important when you're reading something.
I'm not sure why the NYT thinks not being able to play FMV is a problem. I don't want to watch video on an E-Reader; I want to read books. I've already got devices which I can use for watching videos while on the move - though I seldom use them for that - but they suck for reading because of the glossy reflective displays. I just want a device for reading books on the move. In colour.
If Amazon were to bring out a new Kindle with a colour display I might actually buy the damn thing.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
The Sony Reader, Nook, Kobo and Kindle all use the exact same display and therefore provide the same quality
Sorry, this just isn't true. My housemates have between them a Sony PRS300 and a Kindle 3, and the quality of the Kindle's display is markedly superior.
While E Ink is pretty cool for readable displays in all sorts of bright light conditions, interferometric modulator display looks pretty cool as something that has full color and soon full motion video as well. Uses the same technology as peacock feathers, butterfly wings, etc. It refracts ambient light to create the color the same way natures does i.e. biomimicry.
I think it'll be an interesting race. Note I'm not in anyway related to Qualcomm. I just stumbled across this while reading more about E Ink.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N19ivyaQ5Mc&feature=related
Not true at all.
It is like saying all cars have internal combustion engines thus they deliver the exact same performance.
The older Kindle displays were on par w/ nook and Sony display.
The gen 3 Kindle (plus latest Kindle DX) us pearl display which marketing term aside is a significant improvement in terms of contrast and refresh rate. The newst Sony model also has the same display.
No version of nook uses the highest contrast eink display.
I haven't found that problem on the Kindle DX. The first and second gen Kindle didn't display pdf they did a conversion.
Kindle 3 displays native PDF but the display is too small (since most pdf are fixed size docs formatted for 8.5"x11". The DX is nearly perfect.
Only a couple issues.
1) Most reference books have a lot of wasted whitespace (I use pdf editor to quickly crop off the whitespace).
2) Internal links (i.e. table of contents w/ links to chapter headings) don't work.
2 is just sad. Hopefully amazon resolves it in a future version. Sadly I doubt it. Nobody sells pdf ebooks hence there is little vested interest to improve pdf support.
LOL. I guess you mean it doesn't function as well as a door stop.
Kindle 3 vs Nook. The Kindle is:
Lighter
Thiner
Lighter
Longer battery life.
Higher Constrast Display
Faster Refresh Rate
Better interface (although both as sub-par)
The nook has a tacky, ill thought out, but flashy touch lcd display. MEH.
Honestly what is the resale value of mass market fiction books?
I know I have donated dozens to libraries but never considered selling them.
The DRM on Kindle has been broken a long time
Google "unswindle".
I have DRM free backups of every book I purchased.
I rarely sell mine, but I do very frequently give them away. The social value of this is considerable. Not being able to give a book to a friend after I've read it is a major decrease in the value of that book to me.
I can get that. I think eventually we will see a single format and it will support transfer of ownership.
Will it happen in 2 years, 10 years, 100 yearS? No idea but eventually the idea of permanently transferring ownership of digital content will be no more esoteric than transferring ownership of physical items.