aha...if it has not been decided yet, then I suppose the launch is not as near as we would have hoped...a real pity actually...this means that my dream of taking the Iliad along on the 5th of june is not going to come true...

Can't really say i know everything that has happened in the last minutes :)

last minutes?

Damn you Henrycat...you are really being cryptic today...^^
Are you getting paid to lead us on a merry chase here or are you doing it just for something fun to do on a holiday...:-)

It's a holiday in Portugal too? :-)

I'm sure Henrique has his reasons for being cryptic.

Let's just say i "heard" a date, but cant divulge it, because it wasn't final...

Thats actually the reason I had guessed at. ;)

Let's just say i "heard" a date, but cant divulge it, because it wasn't final...

hello henrycat..

do you "heard" a date in may ?

andreas

well...you could at least give us a hint...^^
say, the week it's supposed to be out (though if iRex is planning on keeping their May release promise, then it can either be this week or next...).

From the way you talked about it here, it sounded like a pretty close-by reelase date, but it it isn't fixed yet, it can't be that close so the mystery is still a mystery...

He's already given us a hint.

If he had heard a date in the far future I'm sure he wouldn't have said anything at all.

I still suspect we will hear more on Monday or Wednesday by the latest. And Henrique isn't going to annoy the people that gave him his permanant loaner by giving out info that he was given in confidence.

Sure.

I don't have much doubt about Henrique...more about iRex and the accuracy of their statements...:-)

Well...if it arrives on monday and ships quickly I still have a chance of taking it along as a "time-passer" for my trip to Murnau on the 5th...but it's getting close.
Let's wait and hope, there is little else we can do...^^

My pessimistic prediction of a product launch is going to be mid June, which is going to slide to the end of June. Sorry there Commander, I don't think that it will be available for your trip though I certainly wish that it would be. I myself would like to see the device at my house before the end of the month. I will be in Europe/Middle East/Far East in June, it would have been nice to have it on this trip. I would have been able to check out the newspaper feeds though I don't think that there are any in English just yet.

After release and delivery of the device websites like this will be flooded with discontented rhetoric centered around poor battery life, slow load times of pdf's, lack of the ability to read numerous file types, and who knows what the full myriad of maladies that would be addressed.

All this discontent would be for a premium price. Right now with the recent exchange rate, shipping costs and the unresolved VAT issue for North American customers, I am looking at the cost bumping the lower edge of $1000.00 USD! Yeow! That's a lot for a dedicated device.

3 months after the initial launch of the device iRex will release another more capable, reliable, and less expensive unit. All the initial customers will feel cheated and betrayed.

This is the life and times of techno-geek, "early adaptor"!

I hope I am wrong on all this and iRex will change the status quo of most electronics companies.

Ouch, that is pessimistic, firekat.

I join you in hoping you're wrong, I'm trying real hard not to think about your being right. :uhoh2:

All this discontent would be for a premium price. Right now with the recent exchange rate, shipping costs and the unresolved VAT issue for North American customers, I am looking at the cost bumping the lower edge of $1000.00 USD! Yeow! That's a lot for a dedicated device.



VAT shouldn't be an issue for anyone outside the EU. It is a tax applied locally, not to exports. In fact, when vacationing in the EU, you can clain a refund on product purchases when you leave (provided the value is above some amount, maybe 50 or 100 Euros, I can't recall exactly) ie, excludes services consumed locally like hotel & restaurant charges.

Well...we can worry about that when we get a chance to actually buy the product...^^

I sure hope it'll happen soon and happen with enough availability to satisfy the early adopters market.
I'd really love to know how many people iRex have on their "notification list"...

Yeah me too.

Again I still can't see a mid-week launch. So as today is out I would guess Monday.

Which is a National Holiday here.

Monday would be okay for me...I'm busy in the morning and the evening, but I could find time to order during the afternoon...^^
I just hope they are not planning on making a mid-june launch. Apparently they were working yesterday, so maybe they finalized stuff then.

Activity on a public holiday can be taken either as a good or bad sign.

However given the recent reports (and mails from Loeki which have been reprinted here) I would take it as a good sign that they are busy due to the launch date being close.

I would be very surprised if they were unaware of this forum even if they are not replying directly. And thus will be aware of the mood of their prospective customers. TBH I can understand them not wanting to make statements that "We will launch on this date" or "We will have news by this date".

As they have failed to make those self-set targets in the past and they won't want to be seen to 'fail' again. However they risk being seen as uncommunicative (certainly they havn't replied to either of my emails) which can be just as bad for a company which is marketing a communications product (of a form).

Anyway as I said with luck Monday, or at least by Wednesday. If it's not out by then we can start worrying.

They know about this forum...I mentioned it several times during my email correspondence with iRex....:-)

As I said "I would be very surprised".

Heck I am sure Henry has pointed them here (in hopes that if they post. We will stop bugging him).

Three more days.

Are we there yet?

Let's see what tomorrow might bring.

I'm really hoping it'll happen...^^
The question is: on launch day, whenever that might be...will they open the webshop straight away in the morning, or just anytime during the day?

Henrique can you tells us if the illiad already has, or is planned to have .odf (opendocument ) format support, (if in doubt try creating something using openoffice to test it (this would be a major feature since odf is being proposed as an international standard , including a eu directive

(oh and on a sidenote im also from portugal (I would be asking this in portuguese but if think that would be rude to all the non-portuguese speaking people in here ) do you know if any arrangements have been made for a portuguese distribuitor for the illiad (its not just for the ordering but I would like to have a nice close place to go to should I ever need the warranty (that and I have gut feeling fnac is not exactly going to start canibalizing their book sales by selling the illiad and chip7 is usually dog slow on getting the newer stuff (well not so much as slow as expensive as hell )

Obrigado por qualquer info ;)

I don't think that such a reader is available at the moment, but with openoffice being open source, developing one shouldn't be a problem.

As soon as the Iliad is actuall available I suggest we open a new subforum tagged "Developers corner" where we can have request and release threads concering new software for the Iliad.
Or maybe we should wait until the linux OS on the Iliad is at least beta-worthy...^^

But first iRex has to release the device...and that brings us full circle back to where we started... :rolleyes5

To bring up a minor yet vital issue...

I live in the US - if I order my Iliad from Belgium, will I be able to
charge it from a US power outlet? Will there be power plugs that
fit? Adapters? What about current? Does anybody know?

I live in the US - if I order my Iliad from Belgium, will I be able to
charge it from a US power outlet? Will there be power plugs that
fit? Adapters? What about current?
You will need just need an adapter [US & Europe have not the same connectors]. Transformators can handle different frequencies.

Henrique can you tells us if the illiad already has, or is planned to have .odf (opendocument ) format support
I would be nice to have native support for .odf, but at least we can use the great PDF exporting capabilities of openoffice to read such documents with the iLiad.

actually I would assume (and hope) that if they intend to sell to other countries they will provide the right cords and connectors to allow people to charge it without having to buy yet more stuff.

To bring up a minor yet vital issue...

I live in the US - if I order my Iliad from Belgium, will I be able to
charge it from a US power outlet? Will there be power plugs that
fit? Adapters? What about current? Does anybody know?

Probably you will only need a connector. Usually the modern transformers such as cameras, mp3 players can deal with 100-240 V, so i'm assuming this will be the case with iLiad too.
So a cheap connector will do (hopefully)

Hello,
I maybe missed this in the (numerous) posts on this exciting device, the Iliad. In the reader software available, is there some that can reformat the text according to the zoom factor (i.e. re-wrap the text nicely) ? And is there a way to use the device in landscape mode ? That would be just nice to gain some font size (well, I'm young, but my eyes are damaged by all the books and screen I stared at during my life ;-)

Aurelien

I don't know about zooming. But I do remember seeing a demo-shot with the Iliad in landscape mode.

I'm sending some more questions to find out if everything is going along ok, and about the power outlet question.


Henrique can you tells us if the illiad already has, or is planned to have .odf (opendocument ) format support, (if in doubt try creating something using openoffice to test it (this would be a major feature since odf is being proposed as an international standard , including a eu directive

(oh and on a sidenote im also from portugal (I would be asking this in portuguese but if think that would be rude to all the non-portuguese speaking people in here ) do you know if any arrangements have been made for a portuguese distribuitor for the illiad (its not just for the ordering but I would like to have a nice close place to go to should I ever need the warranty (that and I have gut feeling fnac is not exactly going to start canibalizing their book sales by selling the illiad and chip7 is usually dog slow on getting the newer stuff (well not so much as slow as expensive as hell )

Obrigado por qualquer info ;)

The portuguese publishers don't think the public wants a greyscale ebook reader. The price is also a big letdown although there ways to bring it down, they just aren't interested.

Se fores da zona de Lisboa ou Sintra diz qualquer coisa ;)



Hello,
I maybe missed this in the (numerous) posts on this exciting device, the Iliad. In the reader software available, is there some that can reformat the text according to the zoom factor (i.e. re-wrap the text nicely) ? And is there a way to use the device in landscape mode ? That would be just nice to gain some font size (well, I'm young, but my eyes are damaged by all the books and screen I stared at during my life ;-)

Aurelien
The html reader allows zoom and re-wrapping of the text. It will depend of the viewers if they can use landscape.

The screen is quite big, and you can easily create a page layout with really big fonts (12-18points) and still have a good quantity of text.

Just make a word doc with the page size of the Iliad screen (12-16cm) to get a general idea ;)

Thanks Henrycat!

Indeed. Thanks for all the info. It's a shame Irex isn't so forthcoming.

yep sou de lisboa, anyone else from lisbon here, maybe we could get together to do a bulk order of illiads or contact a distributor to place a group purchase for us (chip7 while expensive does offer the bonus of an anti-theft insurance wich I have had the misfortune of having to use recently for my mp3 player but it still prevented an inconvenience from becoming a complete disaster, wich may be worth the extra money for a piece of equipment as expensive as the illiad (or my 500€ mp3 player )

I am pretty sure this has not come up. Henrycat do you know if the illiad comes with a warranty? This would be reasuring since the illiad will cost a lot.

I'm sending some more questions to find out if everything is going along ok, and about the power outlet question.

Hey Henrycat, can you add in one for me? I just want to know if there's going to be a notetaking application and how it's going to look/work? Will I be able to take notes like a sheet of paper and somehow get them off the device? That's the deciding point for me!

Thanks!

Hey Henrycat, can you add in one for me? I just want to know if there's going to be a notetaking application and how it's going to look/work? Will I be able to take notes like a sheet of paper and somehow get them off the device? That's the deciding point for me!

Thanks!

In the near future i don't think there will be any specific notetaking application.

If i understand correcty the user will be able to write notes on the various readers, simply take off the pen and the device will allow for writing (if the reader supports it).

Once the device is "finished" they should start working on the various add-ons, one of them the refinement of notetaking, so i think before the end of the year it should be done.

Or maybe some of the users here in mobileread could create their own application :D

... Although it's readable on the screen the text is tiny. When the viewer can rotate the page to only show half the screen it will be a lot better for A4/Letter page PDFs :p
Henrycat, is iLiad pdf viewer able to rotate the page 90 degrees to display half of A4 page or it were just your thoughts that it would be good the have this feature?

Thank you,
Paviko

Henrycat, is iLiad pdf viewer able to rotate the page 90 degrees to display half of A4 page or it were just your thoughts that it would be good the have this feature?

Thank you,
Paviko

It's one of the features of the "final" pdf viewer. If everything goes ok it should be available in the next update, or by the end of September.

till some unsolved software issues. The company who does the embedded Linux OS hasn't delivered a final version yet.
Has anyone got the name of the company? Henrique, is it in some "About..." box in the firmware?

Hey, I was not aware that the iLiad USB is a master! This means, it is possible to attach directly the Nokia 770. And funnier, it is possible to attach a Librie as secondary screen.

The starting point is the slave display application by Dan,

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/ccg//people/dan/software/librie.html
http://www.sven.de/librie/Librie/SoftWare

So we have a new reason to ask for a SDK or at least a backdoor to the iLiad OS.
http://ilimas.com.sapo.pt/s_IMG_1424.JPG

I got his info from iRex:

"We are going to publish the source code soon (although you will not find it very interesting cause we can not published the part under license) and we are doing our best to speed up with the SDK."

I got his info from iRex:

"We are going to publish the source code soon (although you will not find it very interesting cause we can not published the part under license) and we are doing our best to speed up with the SDK."

Well, we only want an entry point :cool: (and source for the framebuffer driver and keyboard, according linux kernel license, if the i/o is not X-based). I do not worry about a licensed pdf-reader or DRMthings.

The A-USB thing is a great move! Any PDA can be attached to the Irex, making the slowness of the display a non-issue.

Using the Iliad as host? That's great.

Attaching a keyboard. If i want to work outside this combination would be way better then my laptop. Imagine running a text editor and pdftex.
Attaching a mouse and playing quake with 0.3 fps.
Attaching a USB lamp so you can read in the darkness. (i guess that would cause a horrible battery drain)

Attaching a keyboard. If i want to work outside this combination would be way better then my laptop. Imagine running a text editor and pdftex.

I plan to run a TeX editor and pdftex. Mi initial idea was to run on the Nokia 770 and use wifi to send it to the Machine.


Attaching a mouse and playing quake with 0.3 fps.

You can use the pen. A wacom pen does not need to hit the screen, just wand it about 1 cm above.

Also, VMSCUM should run in any Linux environment. Thus Monkey Island 0.3 fps black on white. Hmm.


Attaching a USB lamp so you can read in the darkness. (i guess that would cause a horrible battery drain)
Hey, but it is actually a good idea.

Attaching a USB lamp so you can read in the darkness. (i guess that would cause a horrible battery drain)Hey, but it is actually a good idea.
... a purpose-designed one with low-draw LEDs might just do the trick. It would shorten the battery life, true, but perhaps not too badly as you'd only use it in the dark ... this merits some thought.

... a purpose-designed one with low-draw LEDs might just do the trick. It would shorten the battery life, true, but perhaps not too badly as you'd only use it in the dark ... this merits some thought.

Okay, I've looked around a bit, and there seem to be a large number of USB LED lights available these days. I couldn't find any power-draw specs on any of them, save for one that said it uses "2 minutes of battery life for each hour of use" -- whatever that translates to. However, knowing that LEDs usually draw 10~30 mA (on the upper end for "bright" ones), these commercially available devices look like they might be a viable solution. I guess the only way to be sure would be to have someone try one and note how much faster the battery drains during use. If we had a number on the battery's mAh capacity, that might get us a better idea.

Hey, you actual iLiad OWNERS -- do the product dox reveal this elusive detail?

we will try as soon as we have it :)

Anone know, where to get a USB Lamp with an LED that uses little power and has large light emission.
The best i found so far is an LED, warm white, 12000mcd, 18mA, 20°, 5mm, 3.4V.

But thats not attached to anything yet.

I can very much recommend this light:
http://www.flashlightsunlimited.com/elitemax.htm
Now I know it is not a single led and you cant attach it directly to your Iliad.
It is even quite expensive.
But is beyond doubt the very best flashlight/lantern I ever had and very suitable to read a book by.
I bought 2 of these myself.

Anone know, where to get a USB Lamp with an LED that uses little power and has large light emission.

Why not make the ilIad a little bit radioactive by putting some Tritium in it? This way it would glow in the dark without draining the battery... ;-)

Actually Tritium lights don't emit beyond their casings, but I think they are nevertheless forbidden to use in Germany...

http://www.betalight.com

Why not make the ilIad a little bit radioactive by putting some Tritium in it? This way it would glow in the dark without draining the battery... ;-) Speak with e-ink and file a patent!

Speak with e-ink and file a patent!

I don't think that anybody would dare do that: Too much waste management trouble.

I don't think that anybody what do that: Too much waste management trouble.
I tend to agree. E-ink (well, or MIT?) did it, and we went carried to this low speed development status of the readers and this strange continental division (a reader for USA, another for Japan, another for Europe). All the benefits will go to the lawyers most probably.

Anone know, where to get a USB Lamp with an LED that uses little power and has large light emission.
The best i found so far is an LED, warm white, 12000mcd, 18mA, 20°, 5mm, 3.4V.

But thats not attached to anything yet.
Hey, Tribble,

try Googling "LED USB light" you'll find a good selection, and you can find someplace that's convenient for you. They seem to average 10~12 USD. You also might find them at your local computer/office supply store. If all else fails, Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/sluggyfreelance) seems to have them. :)

Nearly as I can tell, these lights are going to draw around 30 mA (the packaging may tell you more on that, but it may not -- lower mA is better!), which is not much. The real question is how much battery capacity the iLiad has, and what effect that extra draw will have on its life.

As a theoretical exercise, a 30 mA draw on, say, a 600 mAh battery will drain that battery in approximately 20 hours. Of course that doesn't count the juice to change pages, or access files, etc. (and we don't know the iLiad's battery's capacity, for that matter), but it does suggest that you might be able to get through an evening's reading by one of these lights without totally draining your battery.

I'm guessing that anything designed for lighting up a laptop's (usually dark colored) keyboard ought to be plenty bright for reading the iLiad's much smaller, lighter colored screen.

Another thing -- I realize that Laptops have really big, honkin' batteries compared to the iLiad, but I don't think a USB keyboard light that had a heavy power draw would work very well for laptops either, so that, again, suggests that we may have a workable solution.

You could always just get one of those "bookreader" LED lamps that they sell for regular printed books. After all they are made for books! The iLiad is just not made of paper products but is in fact a "book". These lights are small, have their own internal (cheap & easily replaced) battery, will free up the USB port for other purposes, wouldn't drain the power out of the iLiad, and they are relatively inexpensive. In addition to all of that they are manufactured for reading books! I am sure that you could find an easy way to attach it to the iLiad with a little ingenuity. A small square of Velcro is a low tech way that might work effectively. Why re-invent the wheel?

so are people gonna use theirs straight away?, i'm tempted to hold off on full time use until powersaving is added considering the non-user changable battery.

i am going to use it right away. If the battery dies, i will drive to eindhoven myself, if necessary, to make them change it :D

Not using the Iliad is like not driving your new Ferrari until they put in a larger gastank.
Nah, if it'll ever arrive, I'll go flatout past all the high-speed camera's. :cool:

I'll use it straight away.

In the near future i don't think there will be any specific notetaking application.

If i understand correcty the user will be able to write notes on the various readers, simply take off the pen and the device will allow for writing (if the reader supports it).

Once the device is "finished" they should start working on the various add-ons, one of them the refinement of notetaking, so i think before the end of the year it should be done.

Or maybe some of the users here in mobileread could create their own application :D
Thanks for the answer Henrycat, let me know if you hear anything else!

I find this move unfortunate and strange since the features page of the iliad says
"Use the iLiad as your notepad."

I mean, there's not much to adding it if it already supports annotation. Well I'm not buying it if it doesn't have that. It's got to replace my pad of paper and at least some of all the magazines I carry in my laptop bag to be of any use to me. Hopefully they'll add it to the consumer version. Otherwise the touchscreen is just a waste of time and money.

HenryCat's answer was before the current version of the iLiad, it now has notetaking abilities, and several templates (such as lined paper). I used it to think out the design for its own cover. :D

HenryCat's answer was before the current version of the iLiad, it now has notetaking abilities, and several templates (such as lined paper). I used it to think out the design for its own cover. :D


Cool! Care to share any interesting tidbits you may know about the notes application? Does it do a good job of filing large amounts of notes? Is it fast? Can you easily take multipage notes? Screenshots :)?