Archive for the ‘ereader touchscreen glare’ tag
Amazon Buys Touchscreen Start-up no comments
The New York Times is reporting that Amazon has purchased Touchco which is a start-up specializing in touchscreen technology. The acquisition will be merged into Lab126, which is Amazon’s hardware development division.
This is exiting news for the Kindle family of ereaders. While Kindle DX2 will definitely need a touchscreen, it is a feature that is perhaps less vital for the 6-inch Kindle, at least for some users. It is however, a feature that Amazon will need to add to maintain parity with competing hardware. It could also perhaps enable Amazon to ditch the chiclet keyboard and have a larger screen on a new ereader with the same overall size as the current Kindles.
The touchscreens commonly used in current ereaders are either of the capacitive type, which Sony uses in the Sony Touch Edition and which has glare issues which detract from the reading experience, or Wacom technology which adds considerable expense and must be used with a special stylus. Endless Ideas (of BeBook fame) will be releasing their new Neo ereader on February 25. The Neo will use a touchscreen based on Wacom technology and is priced at $299. I believe that this is the lowest priced ereader using this type of touchscreen that has been announced so far.
The technology (interpolating force-sensitive resistance) developed by Touchco is said to be completely transparent and flexible, and could cost as little as $10 per square foot. It is also capable of multitouch and can accept input from either finger or stylus, or just about anything else you should choose to touch the screen with.
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New Koobe eReader uses Neonode Touchscreen no comments
The Swedish company Neonode announced in a press release that Koobe Inc has launched a new ereader using Neonode’s zForce touchscreen. The new ereader is named the Jin Yong Reader, is ARM-based and has a 6-inch electronic ink (sic) screen.
It seems that this new ereader is meant for the Chinese market, but Neonode’s touchscreen technology does sound interesting:
“Electronic ink and reflective thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) panels with no backlight used in e-book readers need a 100% transparent touch solution to achieve the desired ‘paper like’ reading experience. Current touch solutions like resistive and capacitive reduce the brightness and contrast of the display and have a negative impact on the user experience. Our new e-book touch screen platform, zBook, fulfills the need for both consumers and manufacturers and will usher in a new era of e-books using full featured touchscreen applications,” said Thomas Eriksson, CEO of Neonode Technology AB.
Neonode’s touchscreen technology sounds like it might not have the glare issues associated with capacitive touchscreens such as those used by Sony on its ereaders. It may also be cheaper than using Wacom touchscreen technology, and can accept finger input as well as a stylus. 
The zForce touchscreen was used in the Neonode N2 mobile phone a couple of years ago. The responsiveness of its touchscreen was one of the noted features of the N2. Neonode’s touchscreen appears to use infrared to detect interaction with the screen.
The quote above and most of the material on Neonode’s website seem to reference the use of the company’s touchscreen technology on LCD screens. Neonode spokesman Mikael Westmark did assure me in an email that zForce “supports electrophoretic and e-ink displays”.
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How will the iRex DR800SG eReader Compare with the Sony Daily Edition and the Kindle DX? 1 comment
This week iRex announced that its new and unfortunately named DR800SG ereader will be coming to a Best Buy store near you at the end of next 
month. The new ereader will have worldwide wireless connectivity provided by Verizon Wireless. Barnes and Noble and NewspaperDirect will be the partnered content providers for the DR800SG.
Because of its price of $399 and a touch screen with a size of just over 8″ it looks like the DR800SG will primarily draw comparisons to the Sony Daily Edition and the Kindle DX
Some of the features of the DR800SG:
- 8.1 inch e-Ink based display
- 3G wireless connection provided by Verizon
- Supports a number of DRM and open based formats, including Adobe PDF, EPUB, Newspaper Direct, Fictionwise, eReader, TXT
- Touchscreen
- Weighs 10 ounces
- Note taking will be added later with a free firmware update
- Comes with a pre-installed 2GB SD card (holds up to 1,500 ebooks); can be user upgraded to a larger capacity SD card
- Comes with a leather cover
- Battery is replaceable by user
The DR800SG ereader has a rather minimalist design. Some will find this refreshing as an ebook reader’s purpose should be to read books; the less distractions caused by the device itself the better. On the other hand, if you like to have ereaders in all colors of the rainbow to choose from and lots of hard controls to mess with you may not be taken with iRex’s design choices.
Some thoughts on how the iRex DR800SG, Sony Daily Edition, and the Kindle DX ereaders compare (realizing, of course, that neither the DR800SG or the Daily Edition ereaders are out yet to get an actual hands on with):
Wireless connection:
- iRex DR800SG will only let you connect to purchase ebooks and periodicals. No internet. Initially free, though iRex has left open the possibility to charge for airtime later on. The DR800SG will use Qualcomm’s Gobi 3G module and service should be worldwide.
- Sony Daily Edition only lets you use the wireless connection to connect to the Sony eBook Store.
- Kindle DX lets you connect to the internet or do things like check your email in addition to downloading ebooks and periodicals via the wireless feature.
Kindle DX is a pretty obvious winner here, but only if you live in the US.
Touchscreen:
- iRex DR800SG uses technology similar to a Wacom Tablet and a magnetic resonance stylus to avoid the glare and poor contrast issues of more conventional touchscreen technology. The iRex’s touchscreen is meant to be used with the stylus and not your finger.
- Based on what we’ve seen with the Sony PRS 600, the Daily Edition will have glare and contrast issues. The newer Sony ereaders seem to have less of these issues than the PRS 700 had, but they are still there. You can use either your finger or the stylus on Sony’s ereader touchscreen.
- Kindle DX of course has no touchscreen.
Probably the iRex will be the winner here. Glare and poor contrast are too distracting when you are trying to get lost in a good book. We will have to wait and see how well the touchscreen controls are implemented.
Content:
- It appears that the DR800SG ereader will be at home with Adobe Digital Editions as well as Barnes and Noble DRM’ed ebook formats. This would mean that you would have the same ebook sources as the Daily Edition ereader plus Barnes and Noble’s eBook Store. This gives you another outlet to shop for your desired titles and hopefully find lower prices. Newspapers and periodicals can be purchased from NewspaperDirect, which has 1140 newspapers from 87 countries in 41 languages in their original layout.
- Sony Daily Edition allows you to buy DRM’ed ebooks using Adobe Digital Editions. This means you can shop from several online ebook stores in addition to the Sony eBook Store. However, many of these shops seem to have pretty much the same titles at similar prices.
- The Kindle DX, of course, with access to the Kindle store offers many more titles (if you don’t count Google’s public domain titles at the Sony eBook Store and B & N), and in most cases offers Kindle format ebooks at a lower cost than you will find the same title in ADE format for.
I think the Kindle store makes the Kindle DX
Brand Recognition:
The average American shopper walking into Best Buy has probably never heard of iRex. However they have heard of Phillips Electronics, of which
iRex is a spin off. If said shopper has done any prior research into ereaders they will of course know that iRex has been making a series of higher end ereaders targeted primarily at the business user for some time and sold mostly in Europe. Also, I think that over the past couple of decades we have become increasingly used to finding our electronic devices made by new and upcoming manufacturers. Nevertheless, Sony no doubt has the advantage here, followed by Amazon.
In the end I think that Sony has the most to worry about with the introduction of the iRex DR800SG, but it should help make for an interesting holiday season in ereader land. I am looking forward to having a closer look at the new iRex ereader.
