Archive for the ‘color ebook readers’ tag
Blio Still Incoming – to Wal-Mart? 1 comment
The NYT reports that Ray Kurzweil’s Blio ereading software should be more widely available over the next couple of months. This as PC makers start to
include it on their machines. The article also suggests that Wal-Mart may offer the Blio software on a device of its own.
So will Wal-Mart have its own ereader? Kurzweil won’t elaborate, but he does say that Wal-Mart is “very excited” about something. Recent press releases have indicated that Wal-Mart is enlarging its consumer electronics department and it would not be inconceivable that it may try to develop its own ereader as it tries to take over the electronics section of the retailing world.
The Blio eReader software presents ebooks in the original format – layout, fonts and images are the same as in the original book. Blio is especially suited for graphics-rich books such as cookbooks, travel guides, textbooks, children’s books, etc. Purchased ebooks are permanently stored in a virtual library and can be transferred to your favorite device.
Blio also supports multimedia and includes study tools
such as translation, sticky notes, highlighting and bookmarking. You can even insert voice, image or video notes into your books and these can be exported to create study materials.
The Blio website lists the following as platforms the Blio eReader software will soon be available for:
- Windows and Mac
- Linux
- Android
- Symbian
- Windows Mobile
- iPhone
- Supported ebook formats currently are: XPS, PDF, ePub
I saw Blio at their booth at CES and it was pretty impressive, although I personally don’t like reading ebooks on my desktop or laptop. Blio should be very nice on the iPad and on smartphones though.
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CPT Making Inroads into eReader Market no comments
Digitimes reports that Taiwanese TFT-LCD panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) has had some success in the ereader market using its TFT-LCD displays. The company’s president, Lin Sheng-chang is quoted by the article as saying that probably all of the ereaders currently on the market featuring 7-inch 4:3 ratio TFT-LCD displays are using CPT panels.
One ereader with a 7-inch display comes readily to mind at the moment – the Pandigital Novel – which features a display made by CPT. CPT has also been showing a prototype reflective display that could compete with Pixel Qi.
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PVI Says its Color e-Ink Should be on the Market by End of 2010 no comments
Digitimes (via Slashgear) reports that PVI chairman Scott Liu is now saying that his company’s color e-ink products should be on the market by the end of 2010.
There have been previous reports that PVI has already shown prototypes of its color e-ink displays to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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Delta e-Magazine Color eReader no comments
Delta Electronics showed off a color ereader at Computex that uses
Bridgestone’s flexible QR-LPD e-paper display. The e-Magazine ereader sports a 13” screen and is reportedly about half the weight of the iPad. The larger screen would be well suited to reading newspapers, magazines and comics.
The colors of the e-Magazine are rather muted, but the Delta hopes that within another two to three years the display technology will be improved with sharper colors. Delta hopes to release the e-Magazine in December – pricing not yet known.
(Via Mobileread forums, KomoNews)
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Pandigital Novel eReader at the FCC no comments
Engadget reports that the Pandigital Novel ereader is at the FCC. The user manual is there as well – I’ve posted a link to it on my eReader Manuals page.
The Novel should be available at a variety of retail locations next month.
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No Color Kindle Soon – Bezos no comments
Yesterday at Amazon’s annual shareholders meeting Jeff Bezos seemed to unkindle any hopes that a color version of the Kindle ereader would be making an appearance any time soon.
When asked by a shareholder when a color Kindle would be available Bezos replied that “high-quality color is still some ways out.” He also said that he had seen reflective color screens in the laboratory, but that “they are not quite ready for production.”
Of course “some ways out” and “not quite ready” are pretty vague phrases. Mirasol is said to be on track for production in time for product to hit the shelves by this year’s holiday season if not a little before. If Amazon plans on sticking with e-Ink however, it will most likely be the first part of next year before PVI has their color solution ready. Liquavista should also be ready the first part of next year.
In good news for readers, Bezos also indicated that the Kindle will continue to be a device focused on reading – “The Kindle will compete with these LCD devices like the iPad by being a very focused product.” This would seem to weaken the theory that Amazon is preparing a multifunction Super-Kindle, perhaps with a Pixel Qi screen, to compete directly with the iPad.
Of course Amazon is always in stealth mode when it comes to talking about its future Kindle strategy – which is to their advantage – so we won’t know until they actually announce the next Kindle. In some ways I actually find Amazon’s secrecy more trustworthy than I do the PR methods of a company like Plastic Logic which is constantly telling us what it is going to be doing a year or two from now and still has not released any actual product.
(source: MarketWatch)
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Liquavista Improves Power Consumption no comments
Liquavista has released another press release – this time announcing that they have improved the power consumption of their electrowetting displays by scaling refresh rates. Unlike e-ink, which requires power to refresh the display but not to maintain an image once displayed, Liquavista’s display technology requires a constant trickle of power to maintain the image on the screen.
From the press release:
Today, Liquavista BV, announced a new dynamic frame rate capability down to frequencies as low as 1Hz, resulting in ultra-low power electrowetting display driving, aimed at providing the consumer with an even greater power advantage when using Liquavista’s displays.
“With more dynamic content electronic devices are struggling to keep up with the power demands of playing video & audio or web browsing, while providing a good reading experience at the same time.” added Johan Feenstra, Liquavista’s CTO. “Using our dynamic frame rate capability with intelligent power management, our displays dynamically adapt refresh rates to the content being viewed by the consumer, even down to frequencies as low as 1 Hz. This leads to even greater scales of power reduction without affecting optical performance. With such an increased battery life the consumer can become truly mobile.”
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Some New LCD eReader/Tablets: Pandigital Novel, Eken M003, EB710 no comments
There have been several LCD ereader/tablets in the news recently. Personally I prefer reading on e-ink screens rather than LCD, but some people do not seem to mind.
Pandigital Novel
The Pandigital Novel was announced today and seems perhaps the most promising out of these three devices. For one thing, the Barnes &
Noble eBookstore is integrated. Some of the other features:
- 7-inch color TFT LCD touchscreen; 800 x 600 resolution
- Wi-Fi
- Built-in dictionary, word search
- Note taking with the virtual keyboard
- Highlighting
- Adjustable font size
- 1GB internal memory; SD/MMC memory card slot – supports up to 32GB cards
- Accelerometer for automatic screen orientation
- Night-reading mode
- Formats supported include PDF, EPUB and HTML
- Mini USB port
- Battery life is six hours
- Supports web browsing and video playback
- Menu languages: English, French and Spanish
- Device size: 5.5 x 7.5 x .5 inches; weighs 16 ounces
- Compatible with PC or Mac
The Android-based Pandigital Novel will be priced at $199.99 and will be available “at several national retailers beginning in June.” Pandigital makes digital picture frames and photo scanners which it markets in the Americas and Europe. The video below mentions that the Novel will be able to load “any type” Android app with a future firmware update.
Eken M003 MID Apad
The Eken M003 MID is an Android-based tablet PC powered by a 600 MHz VIA MW8505 2808A processor with 128 MB of RAM. The 8-inch LCD screen has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Connectivity is provided by wired Ethernet 10/100M and Wi-Fi. The M003 comes with 2 or 4 GB of internal memory and accepts 
SD/SDHC cards up to 32GB.
Other features include:
- Audio in/out
- Built-in microphone
- Stereo speaker
- Accelerometer and ambient light sensor
- Support for Word, Excel, PPT and PDF
- Color choice of Black, White or Pink
- Android version 1.5
The M003 is available for order now and is priced as low as $179.99 (or $149.99 if you buy 50). This one is definitely iPad “inspired” – as you can see in the photo.
EB710
Okay, this one was not announced within the last few days. It looks like a 
picture of a prototype has been on the Chinese manufacturer’s website since December, 2009 and has just been discovered and has been making the rounds on the Internet recently. No idea if the EB710 is actually being sold or perhaps has been rebranded and sold under a different name at the present time.
Details of the EB710’s features are pretty sketchy:
- 7-inch TFT LCD display; resolution is 800 x 480 pixels
- Supported music formats: MP3, WMA, APE, FLAC, AAC
- Supported image formats: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
- Video: RM, RMVB, AVI, FLV, 3GP, H.263, H.264
- eBook formats: ASCII, Unicode TXT, DOC, PDB, HTML, PDF, PB2
- Audio recording
- Optional FM radio
- G-sensor
- USB 2.0
- Support for TTS
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Liquavista Goes Transflective no comments
Liquavista today announced a new transflective display platform named LiquavistaVivid. From the press release:
LiquavistaVivid offers the best high brightness monochrome reading experience both indoors and outdoors, while also offering hi-fidelity video and super-rich colors on demand. Depending on environment and application, LiquavistaVivid displays can intelligently switch from a sharp, paperlike monochrome mode, to a vivid color-rich multimedia mode, with TV like color in order to provide the highest level of performance in each intelligent user mode. Each mode comes with seamless interactivity and hi-fidelity video capability. As with all Liquavista technology platforms, LiquavistaVivid displays come with the added benefit of the widest dynamic addressing range of any display technology. This allows Liquavista displays to support hi-fidelity video without compromising on power, whilst at the same time supporting ultra-low power static reading modes.
“LiquavistaVivid displays adapt to the consumers needs by offering saturated colors in addition to a great reading experience.” Added Johan Feenstra, Liquavista’s CTO “Furthermore, the very low power consumption enables users to be truly mobile by benefitting from longer operating batteries or lighter devices due to less battery capacity being required. Device makers will no longer need large battery packs on the one hand and compromised display performance on the other
LiquavistaVivid combines a high brightness reflective mode with a brilliant high contrast, high brightness transmissive mode, based on Field-Sequential Color principles. When operated in reflective mode, the same high front of screen performance as LiquavistaBright displays is produced. On the other hand, when the backlight is operated, the display is capable of showing vivid colors without compromising the battery’s life thanks to the high efficiency of the electrowetting optical switch and to the power management algorithms.
Sounds similar to Pixel Qi. The Liquavista prototype displays I’ve seen were quite promising, but I think other color epaper type display technology is going to make it to market first, meaning that Liquavista will probably miss out on making it into the first color ereaders.
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Epson and E Ink Develop New Controller for Color EPDs no comments
Seiko Epson Corporation today announced a new display controller for electronic paper displays (EPD) that was jointly developed with E Ink Corporation. The new S1D13524 EPD controller is designed to handle color and high definition black and white displays.
From the press release:
The new Epson display controller includes a high-performance color engine that can be easily configured to match customers’ color and CFA needs. It has a built-in dither function to minimize host overhead, and can be connected to any host processor through a 16-bit parallel or TFT LCD bus.
As with all Epson EPD controllers, the S1D13524 allows multiregional and concurrent display updates. The advanced sequencer engine, power management, I2C thermal sensor and serial flash support a variety of popular functions.
"For image-rich information applications showing charts, graphs, maps, photos, comics and advertising, E Ink color capable displays enable an ultra low power and high mobility device with a paper-like experience. Epson has been a key partner for many years and the new color controller is an exciting new addition to their strong product line," said T.H. Peng, executive vice president of E Ink Corporation.
"Epson has been the market leader for the E Ink EPD controllers for the past few years. Now, by adding this innovative color EPD controller to our product family, we believe Epson can create a new market for EPD displays in partnership with E Ink Corp. Today, we already have customers waiting for our new controller and are delighted to have the opportunity to help them launch their products to the market," said Ryuhei Miyagawa, chief operating officer of Epson’s Semiconductor Operations Division.
Samples of the S1D13524 controller will be available in June 2010 at a price of $24 and production quantities should be available in December 2010.
