Over at the fictionwise group on yahoo we have been kicking around the idea of a revised or new eb1150 style unit. I thought I would share some of it here. I have collected most of the update ideas on my web page: http://users.cwnet.com/dalede/eb1150.html

The idea is that the current new products are all too expensive and have no backlight. There is a demand in the mass market for cheaper devices and many who still want a device with a backlight to use in bed or in the evening. The goal is to stay under $150 for the full device or $100 would be even better. There is no need for a multipurpose device but it must be a good ebook reader. The eb1150 was chosen as a starting point as it is the cheapest device available today. Many folks find that it is the reader they most like but it is getting behind the curve in technology.

Two approaches have been explored so far.

1. Replace the firmware and support software with new releases that adds new needed features and replace the backcover of the unit with a cover that has a replaceable battery (20 hour min life) and a modern memory card. This would hopefully be upgradeable to existing units.

2. Using the idea of the eb1150 as a model come up with a new replacement device that has a touch screen, a LCD or equivalent display, with a backlight and more resolution in a box that is about the size of the current eb1150. The eink technology is rejected due to its high cost, its lack of a touch screen, lack of a reasonable light, and the low value of gray scale.

Any ideas you might have would be appreciated. I will update the wish list on my site for ideas that I think are workable given the size, cost, and other goals. One big idea is to use the 7 inch display currently proposed for the cheap laptop effort which can achieve 200 dpi in grayscale mode.

We are hoping to interest ebook technologies, maker of the eb1150 in pursuing this.

Dale

Why is it that people cannot get it that EINK IS NOT ABLE TO HAVE A BACKLIGHT and just get over it?

That seems to be what they're trying to do, JSWolf -- accept that they can't have e-ink and a back-light at the same time, and get on with figuring out the best arrangement they can have without e-ink. :shrug:

One minor nit to pick, while I'm in here: you can do touch screen with e-ink, either as wacom or as actual touch (like a Palm) -- I recall reading about it a couple of years ago on e-ink's site. :nice:

That seems to be what they're trying to do, JSWolf -- accept that they can't have e-ink and a back-light at the same time, and get on with figuring out the best arrangement they can have without e-ink. :shrug:

One minor nit to pick, while I'm in here: you can do touch screen with e-ink, either as wacom or as actual touch (like a Palm) -- I recall reading about it a couple of years ago on e-ink's site. :nice:

Yea, Illiad does this but at what cost! I have also seen units with a small touch screen at the bottom to control items on the display but again much more cost. Seemly can't be done cheaply.

Dale

Yea, Illiad does this but at what cost! I have also seen units with a small touch screen at the bottom to control items on the display but again much more cost. Seemly can't be done cheaply.

Dale

Have you thought about the V3 with Wifi and Wacom? Cost with shipping will be around $400.

:shrug: The cost comes from the same thing that makes the back-light unfeasible: the e-ink panel. A six inch one like the Reader's costs something like $200 all by itself. That should improve as they get better at making them ... and as PVI's manufacturing monopoly expires, whenever that is. Hopefully, it won't be too long before some wiseguy figures out how to build in an acceptable front-lighting device (a la Lightwedge), and that problem will be solved. (:shrug: again)

Have you thought about the V3 with Wifi and Wacom? Cost with shipping will be around $400.

sure, I am following them all. How close is $400 to the requirement to be < $150? Early adopters will pay whatever the cost but to main stream the technology you have to have cheap units. Then you move people up as the technology has proven itself and people see the value.

Dale

The eb1150 is a great product. My wishes for a follow-on product would be:
1/ replaceable batteries like the older Palm devices with a similar battery life.
2/ Reverse video option with backlighting like the older Palm devices.
3/ Support for SD cards and a filesystem manager to move and delete files.
4/ Lighter weight, if possible.
5/ USB 2.0 connection that makes reader appear as an external hard drive.
6/ Support for additional file types: TXT, HTML, ePub, RTF with images.
7/ Ability to run other reader apps like Mobipocket reader (thus DRM).
8/ An open source OS with published API.

I think a cheap monochrome LCD of the size of the Sony Reader is sufficient. Color eats batteries and increases cost. Audio is unnecessary.

PS, I wouldn't mind seeing Palm offer a reader-sized monochrome Palm device.

Why is it that people cannot get it that EINK IS NOT ABLE TO HAVE A BACKLIGHT and just get over it?

Why can't YOU realize that some of us don't like e-Ink and would like to have a backlit device? I believe you responded to me in much the same way when I stressed my feeling about having a backlight in another thread.

To the original poster: I've been all over trying to find a next generation LCD Backlit device and it seems like the only reading devices coming out are the e-Ink devices we are getting shoved down our throats. I would be willing to fork out up to $300 on a device that supported many of the features you folks have mentioned above. Just for reading. The closest thing to this right now is a small tablet PC which is expensive or a UMPC, which can also be expensive (and both of these options have far more features than I require).

I was wondering what the previous poster who mentioned older Palm devices meant by their backlight type. Is that the Palm with these greenish backlight? Didn't the Hiebook have a backlight like this and many folks considered the eb-1150 to be superior? Just wondering, I've only ever seen pictures of a Hiebook but I was thinking of buying one off eBay.

I really wish Palm would make an e-reading device that was the size of the eb-1150 with an LCD screen. That would be so nice.

The eBookwise-1150 (hardware-wise originally the REB-1100 or the GEB-1150; firmware-wise upgraded from the GEB-1150) [aka the eBook Technologies, Inc. ETI-2] was originally designed and manufactured in 2000/2001 and subsequently re-manufactured in 2002/2003. Due to the age of the design substantive hardware modifications are unlikely -- though, especially given it's price point, it remains a surprisingly functional and "non stale" device. However, one could envision certain hardware enhancements that would be possible (e.g. enlarging internal memory [currently 8MB NAND Flash] and replacing the internal battery with a higher capacity one).

Firmware (the software running inside the device) in another issue. The firmware has been updated numerous times since it was introduced in late 2004 as the eBookwise-1150. The firmware version that the current units are built with is 4.2f17 (we should/will make this generally available for server installation shortly). The 4.2f17 changes (from 4.1f43) are described at the end of this message. Such features as bookshelf sorting control were incrementally added during the 4.1 versions. Additional bug fixes and enhancements (to firmware and content tools) are likely.

Now a few comments about EInk screens. We have been doing some public prototyping work (http://www.ebooktechnologies.com/toureinkproto.htm) and have other non-public projects under way.

There are clearly technical and religious tradeoffs between LCD and EInk. EInk can not be back-lit. EInk (with smart software) can only use power when "turning pages." There are possible ways to think about "front lighting" EInk (with the power-use downside). No current EInk devices (except Irex, as far as I know) use a touch-screen with EInk. However, both use of Wacom-style below-the-screen and resitive on-top touch-screens are possible. Of course, LCDs are bright, are likely back-lit, can be read in bed at night, and use a lot of power.

I think the moral to the screen story is that far from all possibilities have been productized to date -- so there will likely be interesting new approaches taken in the coming years.

Best,
Garth Conboy
President
eBook Technologies, Inc.
http://www.eBookTechnologies.com

Changes from 4.1 to 4.2f17 EBW-1150/ETI-2 firmware:


The firmware now supports manufacturing-installed configuration settings. This allows site- or enterprise-specific capabilities or functionality to be configured using standard released firmware.
A problem on the grayscale eBook that could cause spurious lines to be drawn when inking with the screen rotated has been resolved.
If a book has an anchor of the form '<a name="TOC" />' the "goto TOC" shortcut will now (again) correctly find the page and switch to it.
Cross platform content viewing has been enhanced to support alignment adjustment without endian adjustment in certain 16-bit to 32-bit situations.
Fixed a bug that occurred when setting a bookmark such that the bookmark's page number was being calculated unnecessarily. Which wasn't really noticeable on small books, but was very noticeable on books with lots of pages (like, 10,000 pages, for example).
A problem with handling the "cellpadding" attribute of the "table" element has been corrected; right-hand-side spacing is now inserted correctly.
The "margin-left" and "margin-right" CSS properties now correctly calculate margins as relative to their containing block.
When rebooting to start the dial-up modem or continue after firmware installation, the devices now correctly retain the state of the previously requested operation: auto-wakeup, manual-auto-connect, manual trip to bookstore or bookshelf.
Get the status-spinner down when opening a title that contains 100's of markups.
After a page is rendered, save any markups made to the previously viewed page.
A potential crash when highlighting has been fixed.

I was wondering what the previous poster who mentioned older Palm devices meant by their backlight type. Is that the Palm with these greenish backlight? Didn't the Hiebook have a backlight like this and many folks considered the eb-1150 to be superior? Just wondering, I've only ever seen pictures of a Hiebook but I was thinking of buying one off eBay.
The first Palm I ever had was monochrome. The greenish backlight was really dim -- only really useful in the dark, but that was just fine. It was possible to turn on the backlight and then show the screen in reverse video so only the letters were lit. That made it very easy to read in the dark. I never noticed any eyestrain.

Now my Palm device is an M125. Normally it does not show reverse video, but eReader allows it. The M125 has the same dim backlighting -- good for the batteries. If you like to read in bed or in a darkened airplane, the monochrome Palm is perfect. As for screen size, how many of us prefer the narrow columns in newspapers and magazines? It is a little easier to read as almost no eye movement is required. The only difference between that and a large screen then is the frequency of page turns. A little exercise is beneficial.

Another big plus for the Palm is that the two AAA batteries last about a month and spares are easy to find. You can use the rechargeables too, if you like. Many readers are available for it. My M125 cost US$29 refurbished. It holds a 1G SD card too. And of course you can play games and tote your data and . . .

I've been all over trying to find a next generation LCD Backlit device and it seems like the only reading devices coming out are the e-Ink devices we are getting shoved down our throats.I get that the backlighting is more important to some folks than the greater readability e-ink affords, so I'm not trying to talk you out of that preference -- I may not share it, but you have a right to your preferences without having to defend them (as long as they're legal moral and ethical, anyway :wink:).

Okay, that said, I wanted to ask, do you think that an integrated frontlight (like a lightwedge type of approach) would work for your needs?

I've long thought that this would be the best solution for compensating for e-ink's opaqueness, and I don't think that it would have that much impact on battery life if it could be turned on only when needed. Besides it would have the advantage of giving some protection to the display. But I digress. :nice:

It's great to see someone from ETI stopping in. Welcome!

I was perfectly happy with my eBookwise 1150, except for its inability to read PDFs, and its lack of openness. (If I could have easily exported my notes from the eBw 1150, I might still be using it-- someone did figure out how to split PDFs into linked jpegs just after I bought the iLiad.) These were the reasons that I went for the iLiad -- more so than the e ink. The higher pixel density of e ink is nice, but not critical, especially considering how much it adds to the cost.

As something I could recommend to others, an updated ETI device would certainly be in the running. My requirements are pretty much the same as mogui's, especially the open OS, which would let community developers enhance the functionality of the device. The only other suggestion I'd have would be to look at bistable LCD, to reduce power consumption.

Thanks Garth Conboy for stopping by and letting us know that there is still a future for the eb1150. I for one had hoped so which is why I generated this thread and responded to the one in fictionwise outlining some things that people would like to see moving forward.

A lot can be done with changes to ebook publisher to allow it to work with some of the new items. By the way, I have generated an eb1150 book on ebook publisher by reformatting the help for the smaller book. Is it ok to post it in this group?

If there is any way I can help with the updates please let me know.

Dale

I get that the backlighting is more important to some folks than the greater readability e-ink affords, so I'm not trying to talk you out of that preference -- I may not share it, but you have a right to your preferences without having to defend them (as long as they're legal moral and ethical, anyway :wink:).

Okay, that said, I wanted to ask, do you think that an integrated frontlight (like a lightwedge type of approach) would work for your needs?

I've long thought that this would be the best solution for compensating for e-ink's opaqueness, and I don't think that it would have that much impact on battery life if it could be turned on only when needed. Besides it would have the advantage of giving some protection to the display. But I digress. :nice:

I would have to try and to know for certain but I think it would do just fine. I spend a lot of time reading at night, in bed, and my wife hates a normal light on. Other than that issue, I would love to have an e-Ink reader.

I would have to try and to know for certain but I think it would do just fine. I spend a lot of time reading at night, in bed, and my wife hates a normal light on. Other than that issue, I would love to have an e-Ink reader.I understand completely, I realized in the first place that you couldn't really give an informed answer, but only an opinion, since there aren't any such devices to really look at. :grin:

I more wanted to see what you thought of the idea than anything. :nice:

I also understand about the light thing. My wife isn't bothered by light when she's sleeping, but I don't have to try very hard to imagine that others would be, and how much of a challenge that can be to work out. :yes:

A lot can be done with changes to ebook publisher to allow it to work with some of the new items. By the way, I have generated an eb1150 book on ebook publisher by reformatting the help for the smaller book. Is it ok to post it in this group?

I certianly would have no problem with such a posting.

You might also want to check out the Beta Mac OS X Publishing tools -- drag-and-drop converters -- and such new features and OCF support and three zoom states. You can find these at: http://www.ebooktechnologies.com/support_publisher_download.htm

From a user's point of view I like both eInk and LCD screens. Both have their advantages. With eInk, I am content to use a lamp for night time reading. With LCD devices, I really want to have swappable batteries. Color is not important to me in a reading device, nor are audio and photos.

I was perfectly happy with my eBookwise 1150, except for its inability to read PDFs, and its lack of openness. (If I could have easily exported my notes from the eBw 1150, I might still be using it-- someone did figure out how to split PDFs into linked jpegs just after I bought the iLiad.) Actually, the REB 1100 (which I use as my main device) stores any annotations in a plain XML file. PDFRead (http://pdfread.sourceforge.net) works quite well for me on most of the books I read, I'm also planning to improve it a bit in the coming week or two.

The availability of native tools for linux (rbmake and rebcomm) and the ability to download custom TTF fonts is the only thing that makes the 1100 so attractive for me (compared to the 1150 or 1200).

As something I could recommend to others, an updated ETI device would certainly be in the running. My requirements are pretty much the same as mogui's, especially the open OS, which would let community developers enhance the functionality of the device. I doubt that would really be possible because I think a lot of 3rd party source code must have been used, which doesn't help making it open source (even if it was within their priorities) -- see the problems Sun has gone through to make Java open-source. Also, I suspect that making it open via "plugins" or something similiar would not be possible because the firmware would require a rewrite which is never a good idea (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html).

I love my GEB1150, but I would certainly like to see an update to this old venerated model.

Improvements like reduced weight/size (wasted border space), go back to a monochrome display if that will result in better weight/battery runtime, backlight is a *must have* for me as well. I'm pretty happy with current tools for importing all sorts of formats to the 1150, and that PDFRead software is really well done btw. One thing I would really like is the ability to make corrections/changes to the text which can be transferred back to the computer, be it by handwriting recognition or a simple pulldown keyboard. Removeable battery would be nice as well to increase the life of the unit.

BTW I wanna thank Garth again for helping me update the firmware on my GEB1150. 8) Hopefully they'll make it so easy for everyone soon.

I had an REB1100 (RCA-labeled). In most areas of physical ergonomics it beat the p*ss out of my Sony Reader... but I switched anyway. The REB1100 was more comfortable to hold. I could read with the device in any orientation. The next- and prev-page buttons fell naturally under my thumb when holding on to the device. Great! The only problem in this area is that using the stylus to jump around in the book never worked very well.

But the improved contrast and readability of the eInk screen on the Sony Reader trumped all of that!

What I'd REALLY like is a device with the contrast and readability of my PRS500, with a physical design much more like the REB1100. As long as I can still load my own content (and other non-DRM content!), it'll be good. I don't much care about the stylus or text entry or searching -- I read novels on the thing. Color really doesn't matter either -- unless it's so cheap to add that I wouldn't care about extra cost. I'd be happy to pay $300 or so for such a beast.

The one thing that would improve this hypothetical device even more would be a WHOLE LOT more DPI. At least double the current 160-180 DPI of the PRS500. 4x would be better still. Sadly, no-one makes that screen yet.

My co-worker has an eb1150 and I have the Sony Reader. She loves the Reader, the e-ink and everything. But she won't get a reader because of the light issue. Nothing changes her mind, not even if the Reader was CHEAPER than her eb1150.

She reads at night and doesn't have the lights on because her husband can't sleep with lights on. She doesn't want clip-on lights. She likes the screen to be lit up. Most people I talk to feel the same. She doesn't want to fiddle with add-ons, light battery changes or anything.

She wants to be able to curl up at night, with the bedside lamp turned off and her ebook screen lit up. I think most people know that there "is no backlighting" on e-ink. Frontlighting along the side or whatever is fine. The point is a lit-up screen. She wants it and won't buy something that doesn't have it. I think here are many people that feel the same

I tried to add a poll to this thread. The option is not there. Perhaps only the originator can do that. My questions were.
1/ I absolutely must have backlighting.
2/ I prefer the clarity of eInk screens.
3/ I can use either type of screen.

I tried to add a poll to this thread. The option is not there. Perhaps only the originator can do that.I think you have to be an editor or administrator do add them after the fact.

I've added one, but I modified your options to reflect discussion a bit more closely, I hope they're close enough to what you were trying to get at. :nice:

Thanks NatCh. I think I remember adding a poll to one of my threads. It is way back in long term memory storage somewhere and unclear.

I come down on the side of "don't care". I see most others do too. Maybe that will give a boost to the 1150 -- still a great reader and the cheapest one out there.

Silly question... How did those of you who have to have some sort of lighting get along with paper books when they had no lighting system? Did you just not read cause you felt you could not see when the lights went out?

The results of this poll make me very curious; I see that the majority of voters have said that they regard backlighting as "vital".

May I ask someone who voted in that way, how you managed before electronic bookreaders appeared? Do you never read paper books? That format has, I believe, been moderately successful despite the lack of self-lighting. My local town has a number of stores full of them!

Despite being an e-book fan, I still read a lot of paper books simply because many of my favourite authors aren't available as e-books. Eg, one of my favourite authors is R.F. Delderfield ("To Serve Them All My Days", "A Horseman Riding By", etc). None of his books are, to the best of my knowledge, available as e-Books. I would hate to deprive myself of the pleasure of frequently re-reading his wonderful books simply because they don't have built-in lighting.

Not an issue here! I can read pbooks in the dark because I went to night school.

But I quit reading pbooks when they closed my town's library. Somebody stole the book.

May I ask someone who voted in that way, how you managed before electronic bookreaders appeared?
This is a religious issue, like copyright or DRM: one feels a certain way, one is highly unlikely to change, and thus conversations on the topic tend to be pointless and not unoften snarky. Fully realizing the pointlessness of even trying to discuss the topic with an adherent of a rival faith, I'll yet waste a moment on it.

I want an ebook that is more than paper. Not a weak copy of it. If paper was supreme, I'd have no reason to bother with device-based reading. What I get from a device is large type (I format everything on my 1150 at the largest font size), having a score of books loaded so I can switch between the 3-6 I'm reading at any one time, occasionally making notes or doing searches, and having a unit with built-in lighting.

Why choose not to have self-lighting? Why waste light on a whole room when the text can easily handle that? Why fiddle with a booklight? It seems positively perverse. For battery life? I don't worship battery life. I get over 20 hours on an eBookwise charge. I don't find plugging it in twice a week burdensome. I do find reading by the light of the book at midnight cozy.

The supposed benefits of e-ink really aren't, exclusively. Battery life, dpi, sunlight readability tend to be what's cited. But those aren't inherent. The OLPC screen has a higher dpi than current e-ink and does sunlight fine. E-ink's lacks aren't inherent, either: an e-ink screen could have bezel lighting; it's just that no manufacturer has bothered to do the obvious.

We live in an imperfect world. We choose from flawed tech. I almost never read in direct sunlight, so the fact that managing it on an ETI-2 means angling the screen just so doesn't greatly inconvenience me. Charging the unit twice a week isn't a trial. A higher dpi would be nice, but not worth losing lighting for.

Do you never read paper books?
Not nearly as much as I now read on my eBookwise. I had to get reading glasses last year (so now I have distance glasses, closeup glasses, and prescription sunglasses; you'd think someone would make a container to carry multiple glasses around, but no; like so many things I want, they don't make it). Paperbacks tend to have fonts that are annoyingly small. I read the newspaper and a couple of magazines, but for books I've switched almost exclusively to my ETI-2. There's lots of stuff I can read, more than I'll ever live long enough to finish, so it doesn't matter if I can't find a particular book in an e-format: it'll likely show up one day.

This forum is actually funny to me, because I am trying to make the plunge towards and e-ink device, because I want to have weeks of battery, at the same time my wife has kept me awake by the eerie glow of her reb1100. She clings to this literary night light, as if it will grant her some magical power... She is in med school, about to give birth to twins, has been in the hospital for a little over 7 weeks (so the doctors can watch the twins in her belly) and she is keeping up a decent mood, so maybe it has.

I don't think anyone needs back light, but some light would be about at the top of my list if i ever want to pry that outdated brick from her amorous claws, and replace it, once it has eventually died of course. I think the real sad part of all of this is that no one in industry has realized that this is a MUST have feature for some people. I think that the other niche the 1150 fills right now is a sturdy ebook reader, at a reasonable price.

A few things I would like to see introduced by SOME vender:

parallel batteries (only needs one to work, but you can add a second, and take out the first, no problems)
reasonable low light lighting (even decently low back light is REALLY bright... still not as bad as a lamp.)
reasonable glare resistance (because sometimes we venture into the garish light of day... egads!)
a SDK to develop support for new formats, and alternate UIs
something (like an old palm) that can read e-books, even poorly for 50-75$ so we can start handing them out like free samples of crack! (please make the screen 5.5"-8" at least)


That last request is completely separate from the others, but if there was a standard format between the 2, or if you could "link" your accounts and download to each of them... wow! get the magazines to give out the little one with a 2yr subscription. The offer the e-book only version at half price for renewal... they would still make lots of money, and have much less in the way of costs.:smack::smack::smack:

Ok, I've communicated all that is relevant, and im about to get into my why am i the only sane person in the world... do you have to be crazy to get any power speech.... and this is not the time, and based on thread topic, its not the place either.:freak:

This forum is actually funny to me, because I am trying to make the plunge towards and e-ink device, because I want to have weeks of battery, at the same time my wife has kept me awake by the eerie glow of her reb1100. She clings to this literary night light, as if it will grant her some magical power... She is in med school, about to give birth to twins, has been in the hospital for a little over 7 weeks (so the doctors can watch the twins in her belly) and she is keeping up a decent mood, so maybe it has.

I don't think anyone needs back light, but some light would be about at the top of my list if i ever want to pry that outdated brick from her amorous claws, and replace it, once it has eventually died of course. I think the real sad part of all of this is that no one in industry has realized that this is a MUST have feature for some people. I think that the other niche the 1150 fills right now is a sturdy ebook reader, at a reasonable price.

A few things I would like to see introduced by SOME vender:

parallel batteries (only needs one to work, but you can add a second, and take out the first, no problems)
reasonable low light lighting (even decently low back light is REALLY bright... still not as bad as a lamp.)
reasonable glare resistance (because sometimes we venture into the garish light of day... egads!)
a SDK to develop support for new formats, and alternate UIs
something (like an old palm) that can read e-books, even poorly for 50-75$ so we can start handing them out like free samples of crack! (please make the screen 5.5"-8" at least)


That last request is completely separate from the others, but if there was a standard format between the 2, or if you could "link" your accounts and download to each of them... wow! get the magazines to give out the little one with a 2yr subscription. The offer the e-book only version at half price for renewal... they would still make lots of money, and have much less in the way of costs.:smack::smack::smack:

Ok, I've communicated all that is relevant, and im about to get into my why am i the only sane person in the world... do you have to be crazy to get any power speech.... and this is not the time, and based on thread topic, its not the place either.:freak:

I think you made some excellent points and captured the idea of an inexpensive ebook reader (Most are not!) that has the features people need. That is exactly the sentiment I was trying to achieve when I started this thread.

Dale

aapezzuto, good luck with the babies. It is a long time to lay in bed. I hope she has enough to read.

The idea of parallel batteries is a new one to me. Usually the batteries are chosen to provide the right level for the logic in the reader. One cell give about 1.5 volts so, for example the old Palms use two celsl to achieve 3 V. This method would entail having twice the number of batteries thus twice the weight. Alternatively they might use a charge pump circuit to enable use of only one cell. Interesting idea. I suspect though, that using one battery at a time vs using both at once will give you the same amount of reading time.

I prefer to be able to replace common AAA cells, and to use rechargables if I wish.

As for backlighting vs eInk and a lamp, my accommodating Chinese wife doesn't mind if I use a lamp to read in bed. She says, "You like? You do." I think that is the best solution :grin2:

:offtopic:
When using batteries in series the voltages add, when in parallel the current available is doubled. So having two batteries in parallel with no other electronics involved would cause them to balance their charge (one would charge the other) and then they should drain at a similar rate. My general idea was that one battery would be used before the other one, I'm pretty sure this is done with the power flow of one being used to control the use of the second through a transistor or two. But as far as reason and thinking... the reason why there are D cells and not just AAA is because sometimes you want a device to run longer or draw more power than a AAA battery can support.

If you are using a standard high end cellphone battery, the device is usable with just one, but if the person wants to buy 4 of them, and swap them out, quite literally more power to them. I believe that you would get the most use out of a battery in a slow discharge, because I know that standard NiCd batteries only yeald about 60% of their maximum mAh (miliamp hours) in a 3 min discharge (research I did for a friend who built a lightweight battle bot). But the ability to know what battery needs to be replaced when would be valuable. In fact using the segmented e-ink display from the lextor memory stick might be the perfect battery life indicator. http://www.everythingusb.com/images/list/lexarmercuryfront.jpg

What I was trying to address with the suggestion was a way to make the device have variable power life, and the user could decide how much money to sink into it.

ok my brief stint into almost complete off-topicness is over!

To answer the silly question of how we read books before we had backlights....

How did you manage without your e-Ink devices? You read paper books. Some of you with a light on. Well, so did we. Pretty obvious answer for a sarcastic question again from JSWOLF.

The fact is, we now read e-books on devices and it is our preferred method of reading. I don't need to go over the reasons WHY we read ebooks when they have already been discussed a million times elsewhere.

I think several of us have made it very clear why we ask for a backlight on an ebook device. So you folks have the device and technology that pleases you. That's great! :) According to 50% (at the time of this post) of the people who have answered the poll, most of us want a backlit device. Bringing up irrelevant questions about what we did before ebook devices were created does not further the discussion. The fact that the need remains in this market for a device with a backlight is obvious. Most of us are willing to charge the thing more often. Its simple. You walk over and plug it in. Personally, I think it is ridiculous that a reading device does not have at least some type of light attached. Many of us read in bed at night and use that feature on devices that are now old technology. You say, "Turn a light on." I say - put a light IN. Seriously, I am glad you folks are happy with e-ink technology - it really is a huge step ahead for people that read, but a large number of us are not happy with it unless it has a light. You can accept that or keep trying to find excuses to throw us back into the paper market.

From my point of view, a front-light of some sort* for my eInk device would be nice but its lack is not a show-stopper. But then, I hardly ever read in bed.

*This seems like a perfect application for a Lightwedge-like device. I've never understood how anyone who reads quickly could possibly use a lightwedge on a paper book. After all, switching the bloody thing from one page to another 3 or 4 times a minute would get old really really quickly. On the other hand, with eInk underneath it'd just be another push of the next-page button. But I digress...

My experience with various readers (including the REB1100!) has led me to care most about DPI and contrast. I'd kill (metaphorically speaking) for a reader with 4x better contrast than the Sony Reader and 600+ DPI! (Or more on both fronts, of course.) Physical ergonomics come second, with slickness of software UI a close third. Lighting is well down the list from there. Your mileage may vary, of course.

This thing is, a lot of people are complaining because eink devices cannot have a backlight, yet they bought one anyway. If we were to have a light wedge type add-on for our eink devices, I'd want it to run it's own battery. Would you like to see your device cut in 12 (maybe) if you turned on the light?

If a light source is that important, then don't buy a device that doesn't come with one r do what others have done and purchase a book light and use that.

If a light source is that important, then don't buy a device that doesn't come with one....I thought that was kind of the point of this thread. :wink2:

Thread titleLooking for a next generation eb1150

I thought that was kind of the point of this thread. :wink2:

Thread title

I know.. But it's silly to see people complaining about a light source AFTER the purchase.

I know.. But it's silly to see people complaining about a light source AFTER the purchase.But ... nobody on this thread is doing that, JSWolf (I had to look back to be sure). They're discussing the prospect of an updated device that incorporates the features they prized in the EB1150 -- including its backlight. They don't seem to care whether it has e-ink or not next to the greater consideration of the light. That evaluation is certainly theirs to make for themselves. :shrug:

Those of us participating who already have e-ink devices aren't really the target demographic for the thread, and I'm not sure we're actually being all that helpful. :smack:

Come to think of it, that probably sheds some light on the poll results being weighted more toward considering a light to be vital: most of the folks on this thread are here because they want a modern device with a built-in light. :shrug:

But ... nobody on this thread is doing that, JSWolf (I had to look back to be sure). They're discussing the prospect of an updated device that incorporates the features they prized in the EB1150 -- including its backlight. They don't seem to care whether it has e-ink or not next to the greater consideration of the light. That evaluation is certainly theirs to make for themselves. :shrug:


I take the view that you can add lighting to an eInk screen very easily, but you cannot improve the quality of a "pre-lit" LCD screen. It seems like a sensible choice, therefore, to go for screen clarity over lighting when it comes to selecting built-in funtionality.

I take the view that you can add lighting to an eInk screen very easily, but you cannot improve the quality of a "pre-lit" LCD screen. It seems like a sensible choice, therefore, to go for screen clarity over lighting when it comes to selecting built-in funtionality.

True enough but one thing the eb1150 has going for it is that it is 1/3 to 1/2 the price of any of the e-ink devices. You have to already be a dedicated reader to spend the price of e-ink for a reader you are not too sure that you will like. You can't main stream any of the current shipped units to the mass market or get market acceptance, lighting not withstanding.

With regard to lighting.Some of the front lighting add ons look fairly good but I have not heard of a single reader that has added one of those and found them to be as good as what the 1150 has.

There has to be a cheap solution to legitimize the market and so far this is not e-ink. Besides the light situation there is no touch screen and it is not clear how easy it is to annotate, bookmark, add notes, do dictionary look up, search etc. which the eb1150 excells at (although returning to a bookmark could be improved). Don't forget cheap in the equation.

Dale

There has to be a cheap solution to legitimize the market and so far this is not e-ink. Besides the light situation there is no touch screen and it is not clear how easy it is to annotate, bookmark, add notes, do dictionary look up, search etc. which the eb1150 excells at (although returning to a bookmark could be improved). Don't forget cheap in the equation.


Nobody would call it cheap, but the iLiad can do all those things. It, though, is basically an "eInk Tablet Computer" rather than a dedicated bookreader, and has a price to match.

Nobody would call it cheap, but the iLiad can do all those things. It, though, is basically an "eInk Tablet Computer" rather than a dedicated bookreader, and has a price to match.

There are lots of devices available if money is no object. The iLiad is actually pretty limited as tablet computers go. As I said "don't forget it has to be cheap"

Dale

If the poll is squewed because only folks interested in the topic would come to the thread and vote, then perhaps all polls on this website are squewed for the same reason?

Personally, I think the poll shows that there is a high percentage of people who want a backlight. Even if the numbers were reversed, with those who say it doesn't matter to them being the higher percentage, it is still quite obvious that a large segment of ebook readers want the backlight feature. Now, if the "I require a backlight" number was where the "Its not a dealbreaker" number was, then I would say that those of us who want a backlight might be a minority here. The poll says it all if you ask me. A backlight is requested by a large percentage of e-book readers who have visted this thread. Manufacturers should pay attention to this fact.

If the poll is squewed because only folks interested in the topic would come to the thread and vote, then perhaps all polls on this website are squewed for the same reason?
Yes, all the polls on this website (and, for that matter, any website) are skewed in a number of ways. They are probably still worth noting as possible directions to research, but I wouldn't consider basing product development plans on any of these polls. I know too much about the fallibility of polls, particularly in a self-selecting environment like an enthusiast website.

That being said, I think the request for self-lighting in a reading device is common and understandable, particularly in customers of the eBookwise 11xx line, who are used to this functionality. I expect the next generation of e ink readers to include a self-lighting option of some kind (probably a light diffuser like the lightwedge). But I don't think e ink in its current form will ever be all that popular as a screen technology, due to its cost and slow refresh rate. I like it, I use it, but I think it will be replaced by either improved e ink or other technologies (e.g. bistable LCD) rather soon.

Motorola sells the F3 Fone which has a sidelit eInk display. The phone is very cheap. But eInk is expensive, you say. True, but Moto has produced this display along the lines of the old segmented displays. It is not a pixillated display. See here for photos (http://www.mobilegazette.com/motorola-fone-f3-review-07x09x16.htm). I suspect that by restricting the built in electronics in this way, the display becomes much cheaper.
http://www.mobilegazette.com/media/motorola-fone-review/motorola-fone-f3-outside.jpg

I take the view that you can add lighting to an eInk screen very easily, but you cannot improve the quality of a "pre-lit" LCD screen. It seems like a sensible choice, therefore, to go for screen clarity over lighting when it comes to selecting built-in funtionality.And I happen to share your evaluation of that point, HarryT, I'm just pointing out that other folks evaluate it differently, and they have a right to do so. :shrug:

All us pegs don't have to fit in the same hole on this. :grin:

What would work very well with the Sony Reader is a front light that sits on the front held on by magnets with holes for the buttons. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do. And make it run on it's own battery and you've got a good deal there.

The magnets are on the right side and the buttons are on the left and bottom, so if you just didn't make it cover them you'd be golden. But, you'd probably want to use just steel plates rather than putting magnets into the front-light, as there seems like there may be some inconsistency as to the orientation the magnets are installed with ... I guess the light's magnets could be flippable ....

Anyway, I think that LightWedge's patents are broad enough that they might preclude anyone other than them doing such a thing commercially. :dunno:

I have the Sony and have been delighted with it since Day 1.

I'm a software developer with strong leanings towards open source/content. I do not have any DRM'd books nor do I use the Sony store or software.

My thoughts are as follows:-

Form Factor. Two sizes paperback and letter. Would allow for text books to be reasonably displayed with graphics etc. Keep it slim like the PRS but remove most of the buttons say leaving page turner. No MP3 player.

Screen. eInk, front lit, upgrade the res to 300dpi.

Connectivity. USB only. recharge through USB, make device emulate external disk. Access to complete file system.

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.

Battery life. Make it last 5 days.

I have the Sony and have been delighted with it since Day 1.

I'm a software developer with strong leanings towards open source/content. I do not have any DRM'd books nor do I use the Sony store or software.

My thoughts are as follows:-

Form Factor. Two sizes paperback and letter. Would allow for text books to be reasonably displayed with graphics etc. Keep it slim like the PRS but remove most of the buttons say leaving page turner. No MP3 player.

Screen. eInk, front lit, upgrade the res to 300dpi.

Connectivity. USB only. recharge through USB, make device emulate external disk. Access to complete file system.

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.

Battery life. Make it last 5 days.

The open format needs to be epub to keep with what is happening. It is opensource and deals with ebook issues. None of the ones above meet the needs well. However there are those folks who need to view documents without conversion and conversion is not adequate on some PDFs.

DRM is likely a fact of life. As readers we don't need it but we will never get publishers convinced. They are even more paranoid than the music industry if you can believe that.

The eb1150 that started this thread has a good feel to it, but you do need a scroll wheel of some sort if you don't have a touch screen. People are unlikely to buy two readers so the paperback one needs to handle the full size documents from time to time (using landscape and 2 page modes).

With good font choices 200 bpi is probably plenty good but 300 is better but likely very expensive. There has to be a limit to the cost of this thing somewhere. 4 gray scale doesn't really cut it for images unless there is good dithering to emulate 16 (high res helps here). Again the model for this thread is a 16 gray scale device.

No need for mp3. I certainly don't want to manage two complete sets of playlists, music loads, etc. and I am not going to take a reader jogging.

Front, side, back, light: whatever works.

As you can see I really agree mostly with what you say, just a little refinement.

Dale

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.


One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.

MobiPocket is the clear choice for a supported DRM format, because it's supported by multiple retailers resulting in a competitive market. Handling plain text, RTF and HTML makes life a lot easier for the "non-techie" user who doesn't want to have to be bothered with converting formats.

PDF is, IMHO, irrrelevent for a reader intended for the fiction market.

The open format needs to be epub to keep with what is happening. It is opensource and deals with ebook issues. None of the ones above meet the needs well. However there are those folks who need to view documents without conversion and conversion is not adequate on some PDFs.


I don't care what the open format is. It should allow me to view books I have and zoom in if I want and possibly intelligently re-layout the flow text.

If we want some candy, it should allow user annotations preferably tied to a certain place to a text. I don't care if it is provided by the reader only, and stored separately from the original document.


DRM is likely a fact of life. As readers we don't need it but we will never get publishers convinced. They are even more paranoid than the music industry if you can believe that.

Unfortunately. But I could live with that if every publisher made their books available as an ebook as well, not later than the time of making the paper book available, and preferably at a cheap (i.e. half or lower) price.

And of course it must not tie me to a single device and must not report personal or sensitive information to the internet.


The eb1150 that started this thread has a good feel to it, but you do need a scroll wheel of some sort if you don't have a touch screen. People are unlikely to buy two readers so the paperback one needs to handle the full size documents from time to time (using landscape and 2 page modes).

Agree.

With good font choices 200 bpi is probably plenty good but 300 is better but likely very expensive.

Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).


There has to be a limit to the cost of this thing somewhere.

As long as it alleviates the need of buying new bookshelves, I think we are well within the cost margin.


4 gray scale doesn't really cut it for images unless there is good dithering to emulate 16 (high res helps here). Again the model for this thread is a 16 gray scale device.


I don't have personal experience for this, but I tend to agree.


No need for mp3. I certainly don't want to manage two complete sets of playlists, music loads, etc. and I am not going to take a reader jogging.

Front, side, back, light: whatever works.

Dale

Agree.

Robert

From Robert.
Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).

Ah, IT books with small text in an image. This is not the typical use for an ebook reader but interesting non the less. Images do need special handling. There needs to be a way to make them full size and then pan them. This will solve your bpi problem and is even better since even 300 bpi won't solve the problem completely. The latest ebook reader from Microsoft actually has a special image viewer built in. PDF viewers typically have to deal with this as well. We haven't talked much about images and image handling as a requirement but it is certainly real for a lot of folks although fiction book readers don't see the need. I believe a hardware reader should address this in an effective manner.

Dale

Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).


Robert,

I've attached several images of what Bookeen's fonts look like at the smallest and largest - it does 12 different font sizes for each of the seven font families, btw - as well as what the font size menu looks like.

Derek
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/photobyderek/BookeenFontMenu.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/photobyderek/BookeenSmallestFont.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/photobyderek/BookeenLargestFont.jpg

One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.



Very good quote; one has to accept the reality that commercial e-books have been a major bust leading to big losses or bankruptcies for various companies.
One wonders why :)

Heh, yeah, I think the two are related too, Liviu_5. But a big part of the ebabel problem and the bankruptcies of various e-book concerns has had a lot to do with publisher/author disinterest/hostility. If all the publishers had jumped on the RocketBook at the beginning like ants on watermelon at a Sunday School picnic, the e-book landscape might be very different. :shrug:

Today, we have .epub looking like it might be ready to be the omni-lingual needed to break ebabel, and the pubs reportedly scrambling to get e-rights to their backlists. Well, it could mean nothing at all, and this current installment of e-book interest could become just that: the current installment. But it also could mean very good things. :nice:

Call me optimistic. :shrug:

Today, we have .epub looking like it might be ready to be the omni-lingual needed to break ebabel, and the pubs reportedly scrambling to get e-rights to their backlists. Well, it could mean nothing at all, and this current installment of e-book interest could become just that: the current installment. But it also could mean very good things. :nice:

Call me optimistic. :shrug:

Actually I am optimistic too. However the current model (multiple drm formats, high prices) is broken and that's a fact of life as the phrase quoted put it.

Considering that according to some unconfirmed rumors 70% of published novels lose money and selling 5000 hardcovers is viewed as an achievement for most of them, and also considering the big consolidation taking place in the publishing world with conglomerates with quarterly reports taking over, it's possible that the publishers are getting desperate enough to try to make some money with e-content, so they will reconsider the current broken model...

One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.

PDF is, IMHO, irrrelevent for a reader intended for the fiction market.

I see a much broader future for eReaders than just fiction, I want nothing more than the complete removal of the paper book. This would mean a revolution in publishing. It also means that the eReaders have to step up and provide the features without the crap. I think a thin letter sized reader will become the standard size, able to read fiction, tech docs and newspapers. eventually most ebooks will format for the size.

DRM is brain damaged. The only people it hurts are the law abiding customers. The publishing companies need to understand what is happening in the electronic media arena. Currently, they don't understand the tech, they do not understand the market and they sure as hell do not understand the customer.

The three formats I listed do not really on device fonts but on bit mapped displays. PDF is the most prevalent for read only documents. I use this as I have ocr'd a number of books to latex, I'm not tied to the limitations of the device fonts but the limitation of the display.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Liviu_5! Just adding to.

Your point on the state of publishing creating some pressure to reconsider the e-model is a good one, which I take as a good sign. :D

PDF is, IMHO, irrrelevent for a reader intended for the fiction market.
You might be right. But I think for the general fiction market any features that push the price over US$100 will also end up being irrelevant. I paid more than that for my iLiad only because I could also read PDF, which I need for grad school journal readings. I was pretty well satisfied with my eBookwise 1150 for fiction -- the only serious limitation that would have caused me to upgrade from a fiction point of view was the 128Mb memory limit, and even that was a limitation I could put up with because of the library software that allowed me to easily switch the books around.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Liviu_5! Just adding to.

Your point on the state of publishing creating some pressure to reconsider the e-model is a good one, which I take as a good sign. :D

There is again a lot of buzz about e-books in the air and I am very curious to see what the major book fair this month will bring - Kindle and Amazon's unveiling its e-book push maybe, maybe more, who knows.

I remember that at the last year's edition of the Frankfurt book fair there were whisperings about e-books, 2008 as a target date for major pushes and so on. I was skeptical, but it seems that things are starting to move....

I see a much broader future for eReaders than just fiction, I want nothing more than the complete removal of the paper book. This would mean a revolution in publishing. It also means that the eReaders have to step up and provide the features without the crap. I think a thin letter sized reader will become the standard size, able to read fiction, tech docs and newspapers. eventually most ebooks will format for the size.

But a device with an A4/Letter size screen is far too big to carry around with you everywhere that you go. There's certainly a market for such devices, but it's a different market to the one which will appeal to paperback book readers. An A5/6" screen device is far more convenient for reading fiction.

The three formats I listed do not really on device fonts but on bit mapped displays. PDF is the most prevalent for read only documents. I use this as I have ocr'd a number of books to latex, I'm not tied to the limitations of the device fonts but the limitation of the display.

PDF really is the worst possible choice for a general-purpose eBook because it's tied to a specific screen size. It was never intended for use as an eBook format - it was designed - and is good for - a portable reproduction of a specific size document.

The three formats I listed do not really on device fonts but on bit mapped displays. PDF is the most prevalent for read only documents. I use this as I have ocr'd a number of books to latex, I'm not tied to the limitations of the device fonts but the limitation of the display.
PDF really is the worst possible choice for a general-purpose eBook because it's tied to a specific screen size. It was never intended for use as an eBook format - it was designed - and is good for - a portable reproduction of a specific size document.

PDF is both a format and a container. I am beginning to believe the first poster has this very confused. He seems to not care about fonts but only a high resolution display which means he is using images rather than text. He might as
well be reading books in gif or png format. There are better containers than pdf for these kinds of tasks such as comic book formats.

PDF can be a choice for books if it contains text that is reflowable and if the reader supports reflow. Unfortunately most readers other than the ones from Adobe do not support reflow and even the Adobe ones require that the text be tagged for reflow. (There are ways to tag a file after the fact but this is beyond the scope here.)

While your statement about a general format that is page specific being a bad thing is true it is also true that most readers use a page specific format that is specific for their reader. This is one of the real problems that must be addressed before a universal format like epub can be used natively as a book format. Real books are pages. (This probably deserves its own discussion somewhere).

Dale

PDF can be a choice for books if it contains text that is reflowable and if the reader supports reflow. Unfortunately most readers other than the ones from Adobe do not support reflow and even the Adobe ones require that the text be tagged for reflow. (There are ways to tag a file after the fact but this is beyond the scope here.)

Not even all Adobe readers support reflow. Eg, the PDF code in the Sony Reader is licensed from Adobe, and it has no reflow support!

While your statement about a general format that is page specific being a bad thing is true it is also true that most readers use a page specific format that is specific for their reader. This is one of the real problems that must be addressed before a universal format like epub can be used natively as a book format. Real books are pages. (This probably deserves its own discussion somewhere).

Could you elaborate - I'm not sure that I follow you. When you load, say, an RTF or an LRF file into the Sony Reader, or a MobiPocket file into the iLiad, it doesn't have pre-defined pages; the reader "paginates" it when it loads. The pages are not defined in the file, as they are with PDF. Apologies if I've misunderstood you.


Dale[/QUOTE]

Could you elaborate - I'm not sure that I follow you. When you load, say, an RTF or an LRF file into the Sony Reader, or a MobiPocket file into the iLiad, it doesn't have pre-defined pages; the reader "paginates" it when it loads. The pages are not defined in the file, as they are with PDF. Apologies if I've misunderstood you.


When you're right, you're right.

On my Dell Axim, eReader Pro has no problem 'remembering' which 'page' it is on and jumping to new 'pages' on the fly. As I re-size the text, the 'pages' re-flow and if I choose to jump to a new 'page' eReader recalculates where that is in the file.

Derek

When you're right, you're right.

On my Dell Axim, eReader Pro has no problem 'remembering' which 'page' it is on and jumping to new 'pages' on the fly. As I re-size the text, the 'pages' re-flow and if I choose to jump to a new 'page' eReader recalculates where that is in the file.

Derek

I may have been too general in my comment. I know my eb1150 paginates and I know MobiPocket and some others do not. I do not have a Sony so I am not sure whether it paginates or not. However here are some issues in pagination.

MobiPocket has a terrible time with pagination. You never know how many pages there are in the book nor how close you are to the next chapter. If you jump to a chapter ahead and backup you will find the pagination is not the same as you would have if you read the same page moving forward instead of jumping. This is certainly not like a real book. (The problem in MobiPocket is one of user control. The user can redo the font at any time which totally messes up the pagination)

Digital Editions does paginate but does it on the fly the first time the book (and every time the book) is opened. This makes it horrendously slow when opening any long book.

How does the Sony reader deal with pagination issues if the format doesn't impose them?

Dale

Regarding pagination, I actually need to maintain it for some of my purposes. When I'm quoting a journal article, I need to quote the page as it appeared in the original journal.

But that's not what most folks would buy an 1150 for. ;)

MobiPocket has a terrible time with pagination. You never know how many pages there are in the book nor how close you are to the next chapter. If you jump to a chapter ahead and backup you will find the pagination is not the same as you would have if you read the same page moving forward instead of jumping. This is certainly not like a real book. (The problem in MobiPocket is one of user control. The user can redo the font at any time which totally messes up the pagination)

That's interesting - pagination works fine on the iLiad MobiPocket Reader. It paginates the file when you load the book and again if you change the font size. The way that navigation works on the iLiad is that you have a "bar" along the bottom of the page representing the book, with page 1 at the left side and the last page of the book at the right side (it displays the total number of pages). Tapping the bar at any point takes you to that point in the book. You can also set the bar to show individual page numbers if you want finer control. All works perfectly.

How does the Sony reader deal with pagination issues if the format doesn't impose them?

It paginates when you first open the book - you get a "busy" cursor - and again the first time you select a given font size (of which there are only three - small, medium, large). Generally only takes a few seconds; the longest I think I've seen it take is about 30 seconds for an extremely long book.

That's interesting - pagination works fine on the iLiad MobiPocket Reader. It paginates the file when you load the book and again if you change the font size. The way that navigation works on the iLiad is that you have a "bar" along the bottom of the page representing the book, with page 1 at the left side and the last page of the book at the right side (it displays the total number of pages). Tapping the bar at any point takes you to that point in the book. You can also set the bar to show individual page numbers if you want finer control. All works perfectly.



It paginates when you first open the book - you get a "busy" cursor - and again the first time you select a given font size (of which there are only three - small, medium, large). Generally only takes a few seconds; the longest I think I've seen it take is about 30 seconds for an extremely long book.

Very interesting. So it is like digital editions. I am surprised that Sony paginates on the fly since it only has 3 font sizes. My 1150 only supports two user choices (zoom) and it simply paginates them both when the file is built thereby offering instant swaps of zoom levels. The author/publisher of the book is responsible to check both zoom levels to ensure that pagination doesn't do anything stupid. For example, ib tables I find that I occasionally use the soft hyphen to make the table work with the larger font. Sometimes I even move an image so that it shows up reasonably in both sizes. But the user experience is instant, no matter how big the book is.

I am also surprised that MobiPocket hasn't backported this solution into their standard offering. It is a big complaint among MobiPocket users.

Dale

Regarding pagination, I actually need to maintain it for some of my purposes. When I'm quoting a journal article, I need to quote the page as it appeared in the original journal.

But that's not what most folks would buy an 1150 for. ;)

If you are reading the original journal on a ebook reader you will only have the same page numbers if it is in PDF format. Even the 1150 repaginates the numbers when the book is built. Actually it repaginates twice. Once for the normal size and once for the zoom size (if the author or publisher allows both sizes). If you are referencing a paper or pdf book the you can just type in the correct page number of course. This is one reason that many technical documents actually number the section headings so that a reference can be made to the section rather than the page number. This way if the book is reformatted it can still be referenced ok.

Dale

FBreader on my 770 has an interesting solution for pagination based on a fixed number of bites per page, so with my settings the same page appears about 3 times.

FBreader on my 770 has an interesting solution for pagination based on a fixed number of bites per page, so with my settings the same page appears about 3 times.

It also has an interesting feature where you can turn on the chapter boundaries and they will show up in the slider bar at the bottom of the screen. This is very useful when you are wondering it you are about done with a chapter.

With variable width fonts it is difficult to assume a fixed byte count and get the page size consistent. There are always tradeoffs.

Dale

If you are reading the original journal on a ebook reader you will only have the same page numbers if it is in PDF format.
Yes-- I read journal articles as PDFs on my iLiad. That's why I got an iLiad instead of sticking with my trusty eBw 1150 (right before the PDF->1150 tool came out!)

Very interesting. So it is like digital editions. I am surprised that Sony paginates on the fly since it only has 3 font sizes. My 1150 only supports two user choices (zoom) and it simply paginates them both when the file is built thereby offering instant swaps of zoom levels. The author/publisher of the book is responsible to check both zoom levels to ensure that pagination doesn't do anything stupid. For example, ib tables I find that I occasionally use the soft hyphen to make the table work with the larger font. Sometimes I even move an image so that it shows up reasonably in both sizes. But the user experience is instant, no matter how big the book is.

I am also surprised that MobiPocket hasn't backported this solution into their standard offering. It is a big complaint among MobiPocket users.

Dale

Connect does sort out the formatting when the book is loaded onto the reader using Connect.

Connect does sort out the formatting when the book is loaded onto the reader using Connect.

Sorry, I do not know what connect is. Are you now saying that my original supposition was correct and the pages are pre-defined before reading?

Dale

Sorry, I do not know what connect is. Are you now saying that my original supposition was correct and the pages are pre-defined before reading?

Dale

It depends.

"Connect" is the Sony Reader's desktop PC software. It acts as a "Library Manager" and also allows you to buy DRM-protected books from Sony's on-line store.

If you transfer your books to the Reader using Connect, the pagination is done by Connect and downloaded to the Reader along with the book. If, however, you transfer the book directly to the Reader using a memory card, the Reader itself does the pagination.

It depends.

"Connect" is the Sony Reader's desktop PC software. It acts as a "Library Manager" and also allows you to buy DRM-protected books from Sony's on-line store.

If you transfer your books to the Reader using Connect, the pagination is done by Connect and downloaded to the Reader along with the book. If, however, you transfer the book directly to the Reader using a memory card, the Reader itself does the pagination.

Thanks for the explanation. Does this mean that it only happens the first time you do a zoom and after that the zoom is fast?

Dale

Yes, pagination needs only be done once per zoom level.

If you transfer your books with "Connect", pagination for all three font sizes is done by Connect itself. If you transfer the books directly, the Reader itself paginates for each font size the first time that font size is chosen. Selecting that font size subsequently is instantaneous.

Robert,

I've attached several images of what Bookeen's fonts look like at the smallest and largest - it does 12 different font sizes for each of the seven font families, btw - as well as what the font size menu looks like.

Derek



Hi Derek,

I don't really see how the font menu relates to small characters in images in the book.

However, let's see a real-world example:

Could you please download the following (free) pdf from the Manning website:

http://www.manning-source.com/books/tate2/tate2_ch06.pdf

post a couple of hi-resolution photos of the book page 183 which show how the page looks like when showing the entire page (so that I need not scroll back and forth during paging) and what is the best display achievable for the picture on the page?

Thanks in advance,

Robert

Yes, pagination needs only be done once per zoom level.

So we are finally all in agreement. Pagination is done and stored in some sort of file that is book specific, just like the eb1150. The only difference is that the reader is capable of creating this file on the fly if it is not done by the connect program. This was my original supposition that got challenged.

Dale

My misunderstanding, Dale. I thought that we were talking about the differences between file formats in which the pagination is defined by the document - eg PDF - and formats in which it's defined by the reading device (practically everything else).

Hi Derek,

I don't really see how the font menu relates to small characters in images in the book.

However, let's see a real-world example:

Could you please download the following (free) pdf from the Manning website:

http://www.manning-source.com/books/tate2/tate2_ch06.pdf

post a couple of hi-resolution photos of the book page 183 which show how the page looks like when showing the entire page (so that I need not scroll back and forth during paging) and what is the best display achievable for the picture on the page?

Thanks in advance,

Robert

Robert,

I would, but your link keeps bringing me to the main Manning menu, not the free link to the chapter in question - and as I cannot determine which book you mean, I can't download the right PDF file.

And I can see where the confusion lies. No, at this time PDF files on the Cybook can be opened and paged through, but they can't be selectively zoomed or re-flowed. Nor can the Cybook alter the size of text that is integral to an image file, such as a jpeg.

Derek

[QUOTE=HarryT;99477]The results of this poll make me very curious; I see that the majority of voters have said that they regard backlighting as "vital".

May I ask someone who voted in that way, how you managed before electronic bookreaders appeared? Do you never read paper books? That format has, I believe, been moderately successful despite the lack of self-lighting. My local town has a number of stores full of them!

I have been using a number of reading lights at night when I read books in bed. Since getting my GEB 1150 I discovered backlighting and less eye strain so I prefer a device that uses backlighting, not another book light.

The results of this poll make me very curious; I see that the majority of voters have said that they regard backlighting as "vital".

May I ask someone who voted in that way, how you managed before electronic bookreaders appeared? Do you never read paper books? That format has, I believe, been moderately successful despite the lack of self-lighting. My local town has a number of stores full of them!

I have been using a number of reading lights at night when I read books in bed. Since getting my GEB 1150 I discovered backlighting and less eye strain so I prefer a device that uses backlighting, not another book light.

I think I got the end quotes in the right place. Harry, it is just a matter of being spoiled by convenience. I really like backlighting. But when I am in the west I read paper books from the library like crazy. Here in the Middle Kingdom my Sony Reader is in my hands every day. When I travel, my monochrome Palm M125 with backlighting is very portable and convenient. What do I prefer? All are good. It is a wonderful world!

Robert,

I would, but your link keeps bringing me to the main Manning menu, not the free link to the chapter in question - and as I cannot determine which book you mean, I can't download the right PDF file.

And I can see where the confusion lies. No, at this time PDF files on the Cybook can be opened and paged through, but they can't be selectively zoomed or re-flowed. Nor can the Cybook alter the size of text that is integral to an image file, such as a jpeg.

Derek

Hi Derek,

What you described seems to be the Manning webserver checking for links to the free content from other web pages (if it finds a non-Manning Http-Referrer header it redirects to the main page).

Please copy the link by the "Copy link location" context menu item (not by a text copy as the text of the link is abbreviated by the forum engine), open a new browser window and paste the copied link to the new window. It works for me that way.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, anyway.

Best regards,

Robert

My misunderstanding, Dale. I thought that we were talking about the differences between file formats in which the pagination is defined by the document - eg PDF - and formats in which it's defined by the reading device (practically everything else).

We were just coming from different experiences. I was really worried about devices that don't paginate at all or don't save the pagination and can't reuse it. My experience with multiple readers is on PDA's and PC's. I only have one dedicated reader, the eb1150. On PDA's I have seen problems without pagination at all on MobiPocket devices, although I now understand that this is fixed on the iLiad. I also have experienced poor pagination performance on the digital editions on a pc.

Even PDF files are repaginated on the device is reflow is supported. Only the non-reflow implementations insist on original page sizes, although for reference purposes original page numbers have their uses, particularly if you are reviewing a document and want to reference a location for another user on another different device.

It is this kind of pagination issues such as no permanent pagination and need for original pagination and pagination performance that I was originally wanting to talk about.

dale

I think I got the end quotes in the right place. Harry, it is just a matter of being spoiled by convenience. I really like backlighting. But when I am in the west I read paper books from the library like crazy. Here in the Middle Kingdom my Sony Reader is in my hands every day. When I travel, my monochrome Palm M125 with backlighting is very portable and convenient. What do I prefer? All are good. It is a wonderful world!

Certainly, how many of us would say I really want to read by candlelight because it was around years before the electric light bulb. Just because it has been around for years and centuries doesn't make it the preferred solution one you have seen Paris. (to mix a metaphor)

Dale

The idea is that the current new products are all too expensive and have no backlight. There is a demand in the mass market for cheaper devices and many who still want a device with a backlight to use in bed or in the evening. The goal is to stay under $150 for the full device or $100 would be even better. There is no need for a multipurpose device but it must be a good ebook reader. The eb1150 was chosen as a starting point as it is the cheapest device available today. Many folks find that it is the reader they most like but it is getting behind the curve in technology.
Dale

The original post seemed to me to be addressing the whole issue of obsolescense in eBook readers using the eBookwise-1150 as a starting point. These are the issues I want to have addressed to avoid eBook reader obsolescense:

1. eBook readers are machines and machines always fail, so how long will you be able to get replacement parts and repair service for the ET_x_ or any other eBook reader? (The SmartMedia external memory used to store books on the EB-1150 isn't made anymore, making an excellent device seem obsolent right now.) So I think purchasers will need to know

2. Will repairs be possible, for how long, and where can you go to get it fixed when it breaks. Apple's iPod is sent back to an Apple repair center even to replace the battery, so can an owner find a ready source of routine maintenance if they buy an ET3? I think this information should should accompany the warranty information. But savy consumers--including anyone who ever owned an iPod--will look for this information right up-front: where the device is advertised.

3. I think that most of the people who care enough about books to buy a reader, even at the $100-$150 price, will want to keep their books. Those of us who love books soon have more invested in content than in the cost of the reader. So what happens to my eBooks when the device I bought them for is beyond repair? I think that most people will feel that if they must buy their favorite books all over again then forget it. Myself, I don't have any problem with DRM. The way I see it, I expect to be paid for my work so it seems fair to pay authors and publishers for their's, as long as the price is reasonable (that is, the price of eBooks for any particular reader has to seem fair: justice is a two-way street after all). Related to this, every eBook reader should answer the question

4. "if I buy an ET3, in 10 years, after it quits, will an ET5 still read my old books?" Many posts in this thread spoke of the importance of new devices supporting a universal markup standard, but reasonable as that request is, it adds a new demension: if the ET3 supports epub 2.0, in 10 years will the ET5 support epub 3.4 and still read my epub 2.0 eBooks? These two problems are also interelated issues. It's the same problem public libraries have: their customers have a variety of eBook readers and they need some common stardard that they all can read right across several generations of both readers and eBook formats, while at the same time preserving the copyrights across every platform. I thought perhaps, if it's possible, an important feature in an eBook reader would be support for flash up-grades allowing the device to display emergant eBook markup protocols.

I think we shouldn't have to worry about the obsolescence of our eBooks. Every device should support the reading of text (.txt) files as a minimum. Every file format should allow the extraction of the text to a text file. That way, if I spend money for a book, I know I can keep it forever and read it as many times as I wish. eReaders may change, but they will always read text files.

I know: This is somewhat of an idealistic fantasy. Text files are not perfect representations of what everyone wants in an eBook. We need 16-bit character formats for some languages. Not every eReader allows reading text files. Text is not always extractable from DRMed files. Pinocchio was a fictional character.

We should insist on a baseline functionality. All readers should support text files. All books should be either convertible to text files or obtainable as text files. We can include 16-bit character encoding in this standard. The people at Project Gutenberg understand this.

In Asia, one can pick up a cheap Mp4 player with a fairly big screen that will display text files for reading. Maybe I have to re-format the files to compensate for the fact that Asian engineers think word wrap is an extravagant frill. But it is quick and easy to do. So I can have an OK reader for about US$100. You can find them on eBay.

Anyone who wants to rent eBooks by buying them in a DRMed format should be allowed to do so without criticism. Whenever I take a driving vacation with my family, I rent a car. I like to put the high mileage on someone else's vehicle, and I like a new car for a road trip. Buying DRM is just a small extravagance -- like ice cream on a hot day.
:thinking2

Word wrap a frill -- I know there are often no spaces between words in Asian languages. Mogui, do you happen to know if Chinese multi-character words can be broken and written on two lines? If so, there would be little point to word wrap.

It has never occurred to me to wonder if multicharacter Hanzi words should or shouldn't be split. When I write Chinese on my phone the splits happen wherever the line ends. I suspect there is no standard for this. Punctuation is placed with no spacing.

When I have occasion to teach or to do English copy editing, one of the hardest things to get across is the discomfort westerners feel with regard to the abandonment of spacing conventions. We really like to have one or more spaces after a punctuation character and none before them. We gag over signs like firextinguisherbox and cautionbrakesonhill and speedradarfield. I put in punctuation spacing when I write Chinese, but I have never asked anyone how they like it.

I had never really thought about it either, but now that I do think of it, the Chinese text samples I have ready access to appear to be full-justified, but there is no variation in spacing per line. So I think multi-character words must break in the middle. No wonder the engineers regard word-wrap as a frill!

There is a different sort of understanding about space here too. When walking on a crowded sidewalk you will see people march boldly into spaces that do not yet exist. When the people meet head-on, instead of the crash you expect, each person deftly twists his body sideways and disaster is avoided. Unfortunately for this foreigner, turning sideways does not diminish my stature. It has taken me several years to learn how not to bump into people when walking. I cannot explain it -- my body knows.

One day my wife and I were walking down a deserted alley which was about three meters wide. A man came riding toward me on a rickety old iron bicycle. As he approached me, he chose not to veer to either side. Rather, he came to a screeching halt right in front of me and stared at me as if he didn't believe I could possibly exist.

On buses and in other crowded places there is no taboo about bodies touching. People press into whatever space is available. One day a man put his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. The strange thing was there were many other seats available. Somehow he ended up sitting in the aisle. :)

The people are very friendly. it is common to see friends of the same gender walking holding hands or with their arms around each other - pairs of men too. It stressed my western sensibilities the first time a "buddy" put his arm around me when walking. I am still uncomfortable with it. But it warms my heart the way a lovely girl will seek contact when we are walking together. Yes, it is a very different culture.

Is the spaceless writing a metaphor for social interaction? Does the diminished or nonexistent boundary between characters reflect that between people?

Is the spaceless writing a metaphor for social interaction? Does the diminished or nonexistent boundary between characters reflect that between people?
That's a great metaphor. I have no idea how well it would hold up as a theory, but I like the image a lot.

On reflection, though, it seems that this sense of low personal space is fairly common in Mediterranean countries as well, and they do put spaces between words. (That still doesn't impair the fineness of the metaphor.)

That's a great metaphor. I have no idea how well it would hold up as a theory, but I like the image a lot.

On reflection, though, it seems that this sense of low personal space is fairly common in Mediterranean countries as well, and they do put spaces between words. (That still doesn't impair the fineness of the metaphor.)

Of course alphabet systems first existed without spaces. They were added fairly lately along with upper/lower case and punctuation. It is a maturing of the system to make it simpler to interpret.

Dale

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_%28punctuation%29
Spaces were not used to separate words in Latin until roughly 600 AD – 800 AD. Ancient Hebrew and Arabic did use spaces, partly to compensate in clarity for the lack of vowels. Traditionally, all CJK languages have no spaces: modern Chinese and Japanese (except when written with little or no kanji) still do not, but modern Korean uses spaces.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interword_separation
The early Semitic languages—which had no vowel signs—had interword separation, but languages with vowels (principally Greek and Latin) lost the separation, not regaining it until much later.

Much of this latter article seems to be unreferenced, but this particular quote is tied to Saenger, Paul (2000). Spaces between Words. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4016-X. This is a fascinating subject. I've always liked learning about writing systems.

Thanks Neko and Dale. Again, you work while I sleep!

I am thankful for our modern conventions. The lack of spacing makes me uneasy -- like reading is more of a puzzle than a pleasure.

It makes me wonder if there isn't a fundamental difference in cognitive processes while reading. Firstly, one transforms the hanzi images into meaning without going through any auditory decoding. Of course, we so so in English as well if we sight-read, but it is fundamentally a two-step process -- especially while learning. It is not quite saying the Asian languages are representational rather than symbolic, but it verges on it.

In Asian languages a sentence is still an idea. But having everything jammed together seems like it would lend ambiguity and require a more complex sorting and categorizing process during the decoding phase. Ambiguity is more of a problem in Chinese, I think, as there are many homophones and meaning is often sorted out from context. Additionally the general taboo against ending a syllable with a consonant so reduces the code space of the language that to represent all of the meanings required, homophones are needed.

My Chinese friends tell me the idea of "story" is different for them. Where we summarize at the beginning and tend to presage conclusions, they will literally leave you in the dark until the final paragraph (assuming there is such a thing) whereupon they draw together all of the loose ends and present the idea it its totality. This is probably more exciting intellectually for the reader, but it make it much harder for a poor waiguiren to teach English composition :)

I am thrilled to have stumbled onto this forum, and I'm even more thrilled to see Garth at ETI jumping into the fray.

I have a bit of a unique perspective because I am primarily concerned with using the eBook devices for commercial applications.

My company uses the ETI-2 extensively for newspaper delivery. Newspaper carriers download their route delivery lists onto the ETI-2 device, and have the device mounted in their vehicle.

This is vastly safer than any paper or E-Ink system. People are driving around in the dark while trying to read and tossing projectiles out of their vehicles... *shudder*. There's no 100% safe way of doing this, but the ETI-2 solution is by far the best and safest in the industry.

These photographs really illustrate the point regarding backlighting:
eBook Devices used for night time newspaper delivery (http://www.mydistrict.net/Default.aspx/118/Articles/eBook_Integration.html)

I echo the thread author's desire to see a next generation backlit device with most of the features he requests.

Whether ETI decides to tackle this by retrofitting ETI-1 or ETI-2 technology, or by developing a next-generation ETI-3 device, I'm confident that they'll come up with some good solutions.

ETI has some brilliant minds. Personally, I'm excited to see what they could produce if they put their minds to a next-generation ETI-3 device.

Rob Hudson
rob@mydistrict.net (mailto:rob@mydistrict.net)
MyDistrict.Net - Newspaper Circulation Software (http://www.mydistrict.net/)

Hi Rob

Thanks for sharing your unique use for the ETI-2. What a great application of technology to solve a real life problem. Interesting that email is also included in the product as well as the custom route lists. The screen display would seem perfect for you in your application.

Dale