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E Ink Demos New Displays, Gadgets At IFA 2011
An anonymous reader writes "E Ink turned up at IFA 2011 with its Triton color e-paper, which has exactly the same properties as the monochrome version found in the Kindle (two-month battery life, no power use when viewing a page, as readable as a sheet of paper) while adding 4,096 colors. We also get to see the E Ink watch, signage, cellphone and USB stick displays, and the latest glass-less e-paper inside a credit card. E Ink hopes to use the new plastic substrate in future e-readers, meaning they will be thinner, lighter, and more shatterproof than those that ship today."
Not more than two days ago, my wife (a librarian) saw a color e-reader (using a backlit LCD), and mentioned that it'd be great for children's books. I said that e-ink was probably a better option, because the reader could use less power when a distracted kid leaves it turned on. Now, there's hope for the benefits of both!
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I used to be like you. I have about 1500 books. Then I got a kindle and I'm converted. Just give it a go, it's actually damn good technology done right.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
The current E-Ink tech is useless for video because the refresh rate is very slow.
What fascinates me about the summary is the plastic encapsulation. I wonder if eventually we will have objects which resemble paper books, but the individual pages will be easily rewritable?
My guess is that before that happens, mainline culture will change enough that people will think of paper books similar to the way most relate now to phonograph records. OTOH, I don't really believe I have any great ability to predict the future that far out.
According to this article: http://www.e-ink-info.com/fujitsu-shows-new-prototype-color-e-reader Fujitsu is building something based on this and it has a refresh rate of 0.7 seconds. So pretty slow. Other articles ( http://www.e-ink-info.com/auos-sipix-e-paper-now-fast-enough-video-6fps ) suggest that some monochrome panels are capable of 6 frames per second and speculate ( http://www.e-ink-info.com/e-ink-do-not-expect-new-monochrome-e-ink-display-2011 ) that 24 frames per second may be possible in a matter of years.
So... it's still mostly useful for static displays, but in a couple of years we may be seeing it branching out into other applications.
The article states that they print ROLLS of this stuff over a meter wide and up to a kilometer long... Why can't I have a color e-ink reader with an 8 1/2" x 11" screen, a touch screen, and full PDF support?
I don't care what it costs, shut up and take my money!
I can see screen update speed being an issue when you're looking through the pages of a manual as opposed to casually reading a book.
Looks like a value of 6fps - at an even lower speed, I don't thing thing browsing a book would create problems (comparison terms: the old silent movies were shot at anywhere from 12 to 26 fps, the standard is now at 24 fps).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
[DRM sucks]
Then use plain PDFs.
(12) Smells nice.
Nothing can beat the smell of fresh desiccant when you open the box of a shiny new gadget (such as an e-book reader).
Movies don't have the interstitial effects. Or at least much less so. For a movie 24 fps means 24 frames displayed; the time to change a frame is much less than 1/24th of a second. For a screen like this 6fps means 6 frames displayed, but also implies that the time to change a frame is 1/6th or a second.
This is also exactly why gamers waited so long to ditch those CRTs and started using flat screens. The refresh rate was too slow.
Not that I think it's a problem for books (mostly static images), but you can't fully compare it to movies.
There is a geek hoarding habit which I guess would fit in with the need to have compact digital copies of everything. But there is really no requirement to keep your own copy of every book you have ever read or may read at some point in the future.
I'm reading a book on my Kindle that has notes at the end of each chapter. By the time I get to them I want to look back and reread the passage they refer to - easy in a real book, but very laborious in an e-book. ... Along with its indifference to book design of course...
You reckon? I always hated the end-notes in a book, even a real one.
I can understand that layout-ing a book for press-printing is much cheaper if relying on end-notes instead of footnotes, but with now the ubiquitous use of the computer in "desktop publishing" this should not be an excuse (at most, I can accept the idea of relying on endnotes if the notes themselves have a large extent).
But end-notes in an ebook without back-referencing? Good God, the publisher of such books must be to lowest type $crooges, with the only motivation of staying in business being to punish everyone that need or love to read a(n e) book.
My point: don't blame the eBook reader, but the publisher of such monstrous mutilation of the ebook.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Why is Snark Required?
You forget the obvious alternative; a single long stretch of paper. It could be rolled up to make it portable. Now THAT would be progress!
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Perhaps you could roll from both ends to achieve a "scrolling" look mimicking modern computer displays. It'd give a high tech feeling to your idea!