Technical / Research - Page 3

There's an interesting blog post over at the NYTimes discussing whether e-readers create eye strain. It turns out that it's not so clear what's the best display for our eyes.

E-paper (such as E Ink) is great - especially outdoors. But in darker situations, an LCD (or any 'lit' display) will actually be better because the e-paper is not emitting any light. I personally think you shouldn't read in the dark anyway - the best solution is to light up the room...

They claim that in some situations, a normal paper isn't perfect either, and can provide an inferior reading experience than a digital display. Personally that's hard to accept - I find it very hard to enjoy reading in an LCD display.

PVI's chairman says that they plan to release color and flexible E Ink displays. They are also working on touch-enabled E Inks, and ones that support video. They predict that the market share of touch-capable e-readers will increase sharply in 2010. PVI wants to place the touch sensors behind the display, so image quality will be better.

PVI also reveals that E Ink's response time has increased, to the point where animation can be played.

Via E-Ink-Info

You can now sign-up for Amazon's Kindle Development kit. It's still in limited beta. The dev-kit allows you to write active-content applications for the Kindle.

Via Engadget

Yesterday Apple finally unveiled the new iPad tablet. This is basically an oversized iPhone (it is running the same OS). It doesn't have an OLED display, nor an E Ink - it's an IPS LCD (which has a better image quality and viewing angle than normal LCDs, but requires more power).

Apple iPad photo

It is also an e-reader - supporting ePub, PDF and Kindle books (via an application). The e-reader app is called iBooks, and there's a bookstore too (iBookstore) that uses the ePub format. Apple also targets this for newspaper with rich content and video support. Apple claims 10 hour battery life with a month of standby.

So will this shake the new e-reader market? It seems hardly likely - it's an expensive, big, heavy device with a very bad battery life, compared to 'dedicated' e-readers. The display might be an issue too - it looks superb, but it's not as easy on the eye as an E Ink. But then again, this is Apple... so you never know. I guess the real question is whether people want a dedicated e-reader that is great for the job, or would rather have a more general-use tablet PC that is also a good e-reader.

Amazon has released some more information on the new applications for the Kindle (called Active-Content). Applications that are less than 1Mb in download, and require less than 100KB per month in traffic can be free. Applications that have a 1Mb to 10Mb download will require a one-time purchase fee (to offset the bandwidth usage). If the applications needs over 100Kb a month in traffic, you'll have to buy a subscription.

Amazon will take 30% of the revenue, with the rest going to the publisher. Via Engadget.

Aamzon announced the Kindle Development Kit (KDK). Applications are called 'active-content', and they will be available to download via the Kindle-Store. We know of at least two participants: EA Mobile and Handmark (that wants to create an active Zagat guide).

Amazon will start to distribute the limited-beta Kit next month. Via Engadget.

Skiff (owned by Hearst) is not just an e-reader maker, they also want to allow other manufacturers to use their content system. Now they have teamed up with Marvell to create the Skiff Reader Development Kit (RDK) to allow e-reader makers to create devices based on Marvell's Armada System-on-a-chip, an integrated e-paper display (E Ink have teamed up with Marvell on this) and Skiff's eReading service and digital store.

Skiff Reader

Via Engadget