The Sony Reader (an ebook revolution?)

[Nostromo]

The day ebooks will be as ergonomic and handy as paper books, paper books will become extinct. Its as simple as that, really. Imagine having all your books, all your articles, all your encyclopedias, all your dictionaries in one, nice leather ebook.

Btw, can these things display color, or animation, like in Minority report? We're probably not quite there yet. Also, you probably can't manually annotate what you're reading... That would make them useless to me.

Btw, what makes these screens more readable? Why are they more readable than LCDs?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Yeah but will this kill lending libraries? (Of course when the price goes down enough)

The internet may do that by itself. But I think lending libraries will be around for a while yet. The poor can't really afford e-books or computers & an internet connection.

[Asher]

It's a lot easier to make B&W displays readable outdoors than color LCDs -- it's also easier to give them higher contrast ratios for even more readability.

The next step will be color. I don't think annotation would be a problem for upcoming ones, the technology already exists in tablet PCs, pocket PCs, etc.

Some people at school regularly annotate documents using their tablet PCs. For example, we had to download a 10-page PDF (an academic paper), then discuss it in class. I printed it out and annotated it by hand, but some of the guys with tablet PCs had annotated it digitally.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by nostromo
Btw, can these things display color, or animation, like in Minority report? We're probably not quite there yet. Also, you probably can't manually annotate what you're reading... That would make them useless to me.

e-ink is just about to come out with a color version.

Btw, what makes these screens more readable? Why are they more readable than LCDs?

They don't "flicker" because the 'picture' doesn't constantly reload. The basic premise is that there are thousands of black and white particules which get turned on or off based on the page, and stay that way (as a static image) until the next page comes up (very simplistic, I know, but I'm no computer scientist). Without flicker, it makes it easier on the eyes, and somehow the technology makes it readable in direct sunlight.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wired.com says this:

The screen uses E Ink technology developed by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, company. It consists of 480,000 tiny "microcapsules," each of which contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When current is applied to electrodes underneath these capsules, they turn black or white, depending on the polarity of the current.

The result is a display that looks far more like ordinary paper than a liquid crystal display, because the pixels reflect ambient light rather than transmit light from behind. There's no flicker, because the pixels are completely static (in an LCD or a cathode-ray tube display, by contrast, pixels need to be "refreshed" 60 times per second or more).

[Apocalypse]

Treadmills

Audiobooks are upbeat enough.

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


The internet may do that by itself. But I think lending libraries will be around for a while yet. The poor can't really afford e-books or computers & an internet connection.

I foresee extremely cheap ereaders and public connections where you can download books for free.

At the very least.

[Asher]

It sounds like a super-modern etch-a-sketch.

[Nostromo]

But there's supposedly no flicker on LCD's... My guess is they have higher DPI and no backlight...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, there is no backlight.

[Nostromo]

I foresee extremely cheap ereaders and public connections where you can download books for free.

At the very least.

That wound be a lot cheaper than public libraries.

[DanS]

I certainly would expect the likes of Google to push out their scanned library content through these things. Millions and millions of books, magazines, old newspapers, etc.

[Imran Siddiqui]

With nice little ads on every page .

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
With nice little ads on every page .

So? We already put up with ads in newspapers, magazines, pretty much everything except books. I would gladly ignore a tiny ad at the bottom of book pages if it meant books were free.

[Imran Siddiqui]

When did I say it was a bad thing?