I'm away from internet for a day and this much happens!!

Yesterday i ended up not having time to post anything because i was constantly pulled from the computer every time i finally opened the forum :p

Anyway there are too many threads so i will start another just for my answers. What i find out i'll post here.

About the release dates

From what i've seen so far the company "policy" was divided among two tendencies:

- Release the device now, and run the risk of being swamped with emails, phone contacts, etc, about people complaining of problems, missing functions, whatever.

There's also the risk that an initial negative impression of early users could kill the device sells.

- Wait and guarantee the device (OS) is stable for consumers, and concentrate in the creation of added benefits (viewers, wifi connection to PC, calendar, notepad, etc)

Seems my emails made a dent, and although they still want to wait, they are posting the final release dates (no specific day unfortunately).

They know that all the delays are annoying the possible costumers, but the feedback from the beta testers (always one more bug), has forced them to delay until the OS works by iRex minimal standard.



About buying the device

There is no shortage of devices, the delays are related to:
- the device OS and viewers
- website difficulties (seems they are almost finished there)
- Organizational, they want to be sure they can answer any questions/doubts of the users. This is a big issue because if they release the device "unfinished" the need for technical support will escalate.

I was told the first users that registered in the webshop would have the possibility of buying the devices sooner than September (500 to 1000).

They will probably receive an email detailing the device status, and asking for confirmation they are willing to buy it has it is.

They will also give preference to european users, mainly to guarantee swift exchange of devices in case of some "major" problem.

I also gave them a pointer to mobileread users since you guys have stated to be willing to go along ;)

Also i don't think there will be a different version of the device for B2B and Consumers.

The difference would reside with the access to different contents (I think).



Release of development tools

The release of the tools for the community is planned for the beginning/middle of July. The main difficulty seems to be they need a "final" version of the OS to create this tools :p

The device will be able to load programs from the internal memory, but the users won't be allowed to "format" the device by erasing system memory.

So i think you can:
- create the executable program
- copy it to the device/CF/SD
- browse (in it?) to the file and read it

Hope i didn't get anything wrong it this -_-'



Questions and Answers


"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?"

From Belgium you have to use the webshop.
Yes, it will charge off 120V 60Hz.. Belgian device will have Belgian plug, but with a simple plug adapter it will run in US.




Any chance of using the Iliad has a card reader for CF and SD with the Iliad connected through USB?

Not at his moment. It should be possible to add that function later



I'll keep adding the questions/answers in this post.

Sorry but i don't have time to go around every thread to post there :p

Thanks for yiur statement Henrycat!

Be glad you weren't here yesterday...
Now what I still don't understand is how us "early-adopter" are supposed to buy our devices.
The webshop will go online in september if I understood corrdctly, so how are we supposed to buy? A secret webshop or something???

btw...I thin irex shoudl pay you for doing their Public Relations work...^^

A lot of things make sense from the Irex point of view.
Bad reviews can and will indeed kill an otherwise good device.

On the other hand I don't think the Iliad will be a 'consumer' product for at least one, maybe even two years.
Just look at the reaction of the general public to the Iliad in the one or two short newsitems that we watched sofar.
The general peasantry won't have an Iliad high on the wishlist.
All the early-adopters will mostly be geeks like us :) who don't mind fiddling about with devices, having a crash or two(hundred) an occasional explosion and/or permanent braindamage.
I would certainly and absolutely love to have an Iliad even without all the do-dahs that are still to come.

It is good thing that delays are not because a shortage of devices.
(Hard workers, those Phillipinos) :)

Too bad that things seem te rely on the OS and other software.
Software-bakers are notoriously slow..

And indeed, CommandeROR, Henrycat should be payed as official PR spokesgeek. Well done Henry!

Thanks for the info Henry!

From a marketing point of view it is right, that iRex dont sell their units to the everyday customer. But as mentioned before, here are quite a few willing beta-testers, who would even pay to do the betatesting ;) I at least would.

I would be happy with the version you got so far. And since every OS upgrade will probably lead to more battery life and more usefulness, i wouldnt mind the unfinished product. I even would like to get an SDK to check that out.

Well, i still want an iLiad as soon as possible, so get them to invite us all as betatesters ;)

Thanks again for your information on whats going on. We appreciate your effort. And while we are at it. I wouldn't mind to see a few more videos of the iLiad while we wait ... :)

I just talked to iRex by Phone.
It wasn't Loeki this time but some other lady...and she told me there is no way a provate customer can buy a single device before september and the b2b customers will be served in July...???

Now I'm thoroughly confused...Henrycat...can you shed some light on this newest statement???

give me some time and i'll try to ask Alex for more details...

sure thing...no rush...^^

Damn I thought by "recommended" they meant that you can buy it now but it's better to wait until September. :bigcry:

Yeah. Same way I did. It's bloody annoying that they are so vague.

The release of the tools for the community is planned for the beginning/middle of July. The main difficulty seems to be they need a "final" version of the OS to create this tools :p The device will be able to load programs from the internal memory, but the users won't be allowed to "format" the device by erasing system memory.
Hi Henrique! Did I understand correctly that the development tools will be made available to consumers, too? That would be great, though I thought from earlier reports it'll be kept to a close developer circle for hiding details about the internals of the iLiad.

I distinctly remember it being mentioned that they were going to release it to the public to allow people to come up with their own home-brew applications/readers/etc etc

I just talked to iRex by Phone.
It wasn't Loeki this time but some other lady...and she told me there is no way a provate customer can buy a single device before september and the b2b customers will be served in July...???

Now I'm thoroughly confused...Henrycat...can you shed some light on this newest statement???

It seems iRex will use this month to discuss details with their B2B partners and only actually start shipping in July.

Probably to have the latest OS version available (the one with 10 hours or more), and the tools for the B2B to mess around :vulcan:

It seems iRex will use this month to discuss details with their B2B partners and only actually start shipping in July.

This situation reminds me one funny story:
One businessman phones to another one and asks: I have a train full of sweets!! Very cheap! Would you buy it?
- Yes of course, says this businessman, how much does it cost?
- $150.000
- Ok, I buy it, it's a good price!

And both of them start looking for.... One - where to find a train full of sweets, the second one - where to find money :D

This situation reminds me one funny story:
One businessman phones to another one and asks: I have a train full of sweets!! Very cheap! Would you buy it?
- Yes of course, says this businessman, how much does it cost?
- $150.000
- Ok, I buy it, it's a good price!

And both of them start looking for.... One - where to find a train full of sweets, the second one - where to find money :D

Variation on this is the old Soviet guy going to the butcher shop to by sausage. He asks how much and the butcher says "five rubles per kilo". The buyer gasps and says "the butcher across the street has sausage for three rubles per kilo". Butcher "well, go across the street and get your sausage there"
Buyer "but he is out of sausage"
Butcher "next time I'm out of sausage the price will be three rubles".

A bit outdated, but if Iliads were sausage...

2 VillageReader:
Sausages for 5 rubles per kilo - it's too much, really :D
I remember the prices ;)

In a couple of years we will remember Iliad's price ($700-800 for ebook device) as a nightmare :D

To me this looks mighty strange...
iRex is already behind schedule again, only 2 days after they put up the schedule...I just don't get it.
This is one of those infuriating cases where there are people with money who want to give it to a company that has devices to sell...but the deal can never be made.

I would like to buy a device, you have devices...yeah...so no deal...right you are...

I really hope the chinese do a better job...the V8 device seems to be okay (looking forward to your review TaKir) so the V2 should work out well.
My only concern is that they have to market through local "resellers" that might mess up the deal with long delays and bad pricing...

Err CommanderROR, I don't see how that makes then further behind schedule.

They said that they were only goin to invite their B2B partners to place orders in June.

Doesn't say when those orders will be shipped.

well who know when they will actually start shipping...^^
the lady on the phone just said that they'll be deaöing with b2b customers in July...and they wrote that they'll be contacting their b2b partners individually in june...maybe it was a simple misunderstanding...I'm getting a bit...paranoid...about their statements.:-)

I'm getting a bit...paranoid...about their statements.:-)

Take a deep breath ... hold it ... let it out, now isn't that better, Commander?

I don't think we'll get any movement out of them at least this month, maybe we need a break after all the (self-induced?) hype of the last month or two to get a bit of perspective.

I don't think they set out to deliberately deceive anyone, but it's appears that they held the "line" for some time after they knew it wasn't going to happen that way. That certainly moved them into the realm of the dishonest, but at least it wasn't premeditated deception.

I think they're probably doing the best they can ... on everything except (prospective) customer relations. 'Course it's entirely possible that they've been completely forthcoming with their identified B2B customers, and we little people have just gotten left out, possibly due to a feverish focus on delivering for the B2B's. (I get the impresion that they don't have a very large staff -- and possibly no means to hire one without actual revenue)

I do agree that it shows a lack of interest, if not disdain, for the individual person customers, which I don't think serves them well. However, it may be more of a comment on the current (presumed) misplacement of their attention than on their fundamental business practices and reliability.

In any case, since we don't seem to have any choice but to wait, I guess I'll just wait. Maybe Phillips will bring out its roll-up device before the rest of these folks get their acts together. Wouldn't that be nice?

*drools*

Yes please

I do agree that it shows a lack of interest, if not disdain, for the individual person customers, which I don't think serves them well. However, it may be more of a comment on the current (presumed) misplacement of their attention than on their fundamental business practices and reliability.



I have sent a request as a rep. of a company, didn't get any answers. Looks like their customer service is completly overloaded or very bad - or both.

I agree that there are definitely A LOT of people whom are willing to buy the unfinished product. We are used to mess around with things and since updating is possible, no problem at all. I mean they could even put it on Ebay and it would sell out in a flash. Irex wouldn't be losing out since this would only produce good publicity (if they declare it's not complete, us geek buyers are used to crashes.) We wouldn't be losing out (DUH), and it would even get more buyers since it's like knowing that you are before other people(heh you know what I'm talking about.) Not a lot of buyers except commercially supported uses; rich buy-everything-expensive-people and us geeks (lol) would buy it for such a high price, anyway.

Henrycat: Does the iLiad read SD Cards or just MMC?

Thanks for the info.

I feel that I am the resident pessimist here. I am not usually that way but I am very disappointed in status of this device. I think that it will be the peverbial carrot that will forever be dangled. I think that iRex seriously over-estimated this device, and now are putting patches on it to keep it afloat. The concept of it is from the sentiment on these forums very appealing to the gadget hounds which still represents a very large consumer base. The ball has been solidly dropped by iRex.

I see the company unable to address the issues of the device, interest in it from the "consumer" end will wane due to the slipshod and unprofessional manner in which the company has been marketing and communicating to their potential clientele about the device. Their B2B customers will be solidly disappointed in the performance, the "consumer" version will NOT have "enhanced capability" and will possibly be stripped of the features that appeal to us now. One thing that I find and enigma is that the IDS newspaper feeds does not seem to me to be much of a B2B function as much as a consumer one, but yet that appears to be dropped from the "superior" consumer product.

By the time they get the device out to the open market it will be this time next year. It will be woefully obsolete and another device will trump it on the market. That or the device will be relegated to the junk heap and the company sold to other markets before the close of next year.

I really wanted to get one of these things in my hot little hands, but I at this point doubt that it will ever come to fruition.

I hope I am wrong or that another better device will bowl us over and be readily and cheaply available.

I see the company unable to address the issues of the device, interest in it from the "consumer" end will wane due to the slipshod and unprofessional manner in which the company has been marketing and communicating to their potential clientele about the device.

I seriously doubt if there even is a consumer market for this device.

Further more, the B2B market is no more than a re-sale from businesses that will be selling devices to individual customers in the next months.
Businesses that will find out that the average Joe customer isn't the least bit interested in an ebook device.
As long as an ebook device needs a manual, people will be buying their newspapers and books in paper 'format'.
And as long as you need a pc, lan or any kind of modem to download books in your device, you have instantly lost about 80% of any kind of customer market.

Irex should realise that there is no safe market for this device other than first wave gizmo lovers and a small group of fanatic book readers.
Hey...that's us isn't it? :wink:

Irex should realise that there is no safe market for this device other than first wave gizmo lovers and a small group of fanatic book readers.
Hey...that's us isn't it? :wink:

LOL!!

Well, there is one way Irex, or any other e-book maker could get millions of people using the devices. They could cut deals with texbook publishers and school districts. They can offer discounted units to hold all of their text books on them. Perhaps make them a bit more rugged. Not only would they be saving kids backs from those oversized back packs, but they would have a whole generation of kids used to reading on e-ink devices who would probably continue reading on them long after their school days are over.

Indeed.

Use in schools is one of the scenerio's shown in the promotional photo's on the Irex site.

I can't see it happening for a while. But it will happen.

Sorry for the delay but i've been busy -_-'


Henrycat: Does the iLiad read SD Cards or just MMC?

Thanks for the info.

Alex confirmed the device can read both SD and MMC cards. Since i only have CF i can't say how they work.


Also i think this might interest some of you ;)

"If the California mobile- and tele-readers are near san Francisco: the
iLiad is on display and being demonstrated in the "Moscone north"
convention center until Thursday noon. (SID conference)
Flipside: a $10 admission. Upside: huge display technology show,
including 100" LCD."

We're in the "e ink" booth

thanks Henrycat.
Wish i could quixkly visit that convention ;)

Sorry for the delay but i've been busy -_-'



Also i think this might interest some of you ;)

"If the California mobile- and tele-readers are near san Francisco: the
iLiad is on display and being demonstrated in the "Moscone north"
convention center until Thursday noon. (SID conference)
Flipside: a $10 admission. Upside: huge display technology show,
including 100" LCD."

We're in the "e ink" booth


Great news, provided it is still true next week. I'll be there for a conference. Maybe I can sneak one in my briefcase to come home with me :wink:

Great news, provided it is still true next week. I'll be there for a conference. Maybe I can sneak one in my briefcase to come home with me :wink:
Woow... would your briefcase be big enough for another device or two? ;)

It seems you guys have an inside track on some of this stuff. My questions are fairly straight forward as someone who wants this technology, has money to spend now, have an immediate need to read in many different locations:
1. What will the cost be when they finally ship (final number not some range)
2. Probability of getting a unit prior to September 2006?
3. What is the probability of shipping to consumers in September 2006?
4. What is the probability of shipping to consumers in December 2006?
5. Who are the B2B partners (besides those mentioned on the website) to attempt to circumvent the consumer route delay?
Evaluating a Micron tablet PC and will go that route if the answers to my questions above are not satisfactory, will just bite the bullet on cost, reading stress and low battery life. Gotta have an answer by end of June!

1. What will the cost be when they finally ship (final number not some range)
iRex gave the price as 549,- Euro + VAT + shipping might change though
2. Probability of getting a unit prior to September 2006?
I would say very slimm unless you are a customer of their B2B partners.
3. What is the probability of shipping to consumers in September 2006?
I would guess about 75%. Since the devices are done, and its enough time to update the OS. On the other hand i think they wait and see how it goes with their B2B partners. If it doesnt, they might just not sell to consumers at all because of warranty issues.
4. What is the probability of shipping to consumers in December 2006?
If its not done in September, then it probably wont ship ever. so 1%
5. Who are the B2B partners (besides those mentioned on the website) to attempt to circumvent the consumer route delay?
Other than the mentioned ones. I dont know.

5. Who are the B2B partners (besides those mentioned on the website) to attempt to circumvent the consumer route delay?
Cannot answer for sure, but check out this thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6642) for participating publishers, including those who are going to launch further trials with the iLiad.

by the way...

what is the feeling for reading pdf files in a4 fornat ??

andreas

by the way...

what is the feeling for reading pdf files in a4 fornat ??

andreas

Actually it's A5 :p

Just print the pdf to the screen size of the Iliad to see how it would go ;)

Just so say that tomorrow is a holiday here in Portugal, and so i'll finally have some free time to make the videos, take more pictures.

Just post what you would like to see, and when i come back on friday i'll upload them somewhere. :D

I'd like to see some screen refresh action mainly...but actually the vids aren#t too important for me...
But thanks anyway...

Did you receive any new sotware updates for your Iliad? How's battery life now? Those are questions i'd be much more interested in...^^

I'd like to see some screen refresh action mainly...but actually the vids aren#t too important for me...
But thanks anyway...

Did you receive any new sotware updates for your Iliad? How's battery life now? Those are questions i'd be much more interested in...^^

Not yet.

The "final" OS should be released in the last week of this month if everything is going ok.

I'll have to send an email to see how things are going...

Finally lose the notepad to keep track of the pages i'm reading :p

Too bad the software companies took this long just to implement these features...

can you use your finger for the touchscreen, or do you have to use the stylus?

btw, Id like to see some notetaking ;)

I suppose you'll have to use the stylus since its a wacom penabled...the tech is in the pen, not the screen which makes the screen a lot more resistant than a normal touchscreen bu also prevents you from using your finger...^^

can you use your finger for the touchscreen, or do you have to use the stylus?

btw, Id like to see some notetaking ;)

Yep, you need to use the stylus. In the beginning i wondered if using the fingers wouldn't add value, but using just the stylus is "cleaner" :)

Henrycat, can you ask, if 4GB SD and CF cards are supported, since i'll need a new card abyways, and this way, i could always have all the papers and manuals with me? I would do it myself, but i guess, i wouldnt get an answer ;) Thanks

Hi tribble - nice avatar! I see you swapped the accordion for something slightly different...!! :)

Hi tribble - nice avatar! I see you swapped the accordion for something slightly different...!! :)

Yap, (thanks for the appretiation for all the work i put into making it :D )thought it would fit me more, than the accordion. ;) Cant wait, till this is reality. Well, about three weeks to go.

Hi Henrycat, i know some one asked about the note taking capability, but i was wondering how drawing works? I npticed a "Building plan" sort of picture that some one drew on the iliad web site, and since the touch technology is made by Wacom, that does some of the finest drawing tablets out there, what is your opinion? is it pressure sensitive with greyscale? is it fast enough to feel good sketching on?

THanks for everything... and maybe this is because i'm new.. but what is the link to your pictures and videos? I'm having a hard time finding it...

hehe, Henrycat didnt post any vids yet. Hope he had time to do some yesterday and finds the time to upload them here today.

Most of the other images he took you can find here:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6392&page=2&pp=15
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6392&page=5&pp=15

Sorry but my motherboard died last tuesday, probably from a current spike (there was a big storm in portugal at the time). Hope thats the only thing that went dead :|

Today i shouldget the new motherboard, and then i only have to save the videos from the camera, and tomorrow upload them somewhere.

Anyone know some place where i can upload by http, since i can't use ftp here at work, and i still dont have internet working where i live...

Anyone know some place where i can upload by http, since i can't use ftp here at work, and i still dont have internet working where i live...
I'll get something ready for you, Henrique.

Anyone know some place where i can upload by http, since i can't use ftp here at work, and i still dont have internet working where i live...

What about Google Video (http://video.google.com)?

Sorry but yesterday i forgot the cd in my computer at home :p

Anyway, i have upload the files in a rar to rapidshare.

http://rapidshare.de/files/23860907/films.rar

If anyone wants a video from something specific just let me know. now that i have everything ready it shouldn't take so long -_-'

About the videos:

berserk pdf.avi - opened the pdf with 4 volumes of berserk, 819 pages, about 120 megabytes.

honor keyboard.avi - Close up to the keyboard.

honor pdf.avi - Open Honor 9, 991 pages, about 2,5 megabytes.

links in htm.avi - Close up to the links in the 1632 from Baen in htm. (hard to "click" on the numbers)

open htm and change font size.avi - Open 1632 from Baen in htm, and

change font size (the viewer doesn't change page)

open htm change font flip page.avi - Open a chapter htm, change font, and change page.

writing.avi - writing speed on the Iliad.

I'm sure Alexander will organize them very nicely and orderly :D

The weird videos are because i rotated the videos from landscape to portrait, i hope the videos work ok for everyone :p

oh boy.

In those videos, page flips take 4 to 5 seconds. That's ridiculous. .9 seconds are in the specs, and already the 2 seconds that were discussed earlier were generally considered too slow.

FIVE SECONDS?

I mean ... FIVE? I can boil coffee, drink it, die from a heart attack, get medical treatment and return to my desk in that time. FIVE?

I already ordered one. There's a chance there'll be one iLiad on eBay soon.

oh woe.

imagine reading "And then Henry's cat got entangled in the power cable, pulling the hair dryer slowly towards the bath tub, when all of a sudden" *click* twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five *snooooore*

Nice videos Henrycat. Thanks.
You can see, that iRex should definately implement a caching function for following pages. Page flips take too long ;)
The notetaking seems quite fast. Thats nice.
Cant wait to test it for myself.

Ali:.9 seconds is for the actual image flip. the other four to 8 seconds go into the rendering time for the page. I hope they can eliminate that time by prerendering the following page.

Ali:.9 seconds is for the actual image flip. the other four to 8 seconds go into the rendering time for the page. I hope they can eliminate that time by prerendering the following page.

Seems precaching won't be working in this month update, but should be ok in September.

They are finishing the "final" pdf and htm viewers (the current are only conversions of open source viewers if i remember right).

Look for the blinking light. The time between it stops blinking and finishes the refresh should give an idea of the real refresh time.

I'm used to the Librie refresh so i don't really mind, i suppose my mind shuts down and waits till the next page pops up (ot 5 secs if the power goes out) :D

First of all:

Nice vids Henrycat! Actually I should be cursing you now because you have reawakened my interest for the Iliad after I had sworn not to buy anything from that shoddy company...^^
The text-layout looks good, navigation looks good and everything is nicely designed.

BUT:

The time it takes to load files and especially to flip pages is ENORMOUS! I have seen the vids of the Hanlin V8 that uses a 48Mhz processor and almost 0 RAM and it's alot faster at page-turning thatn the Iliad is althugh the actual screen-refresh is about the same. You can view the vids at youtube if you don't believe me or can't remember...

Is iRex working on these issues? How is battery life at the moment? Oh and btw...it the load takes so long because of the device reading from the CF card...will a fast card make a difference? does it load faster from onboard memory?

Thanks for all the good work you are putting in for us Henrycat!
Now if only I coul get an invite, I could start seriously fretting about which device to get. I like the Hanlins because I like the company and the devices (at least the V8) seem to be working well (and adaptation seems to be improving), but the Iliad has a strong attraction because it's very...geeky and also doens't look so much like cheap plastic... :uhoh2:

First of all:

Nice vids Henrycat! Actually I should be cursing you now because you have reawakened my interest for the Iliad after I had sworn not to buy anything from that shoddy company...^^
The text-layout looks good, navigation looks good and everything is nicely designed.

Maybe you could send them an email to let them know what you think :)

BUT:

The time it takes to load files and especially to flip pages is ENORMOUS! I have seen the vids of the Hanlin V8 that uses a 48Mhz processor and almost 0 RAM and it's alot faster at page-turning thatn the Iliad is althugh the actual screen-refresh is about the same. You can view the vids at youtube if you don't believe me or can't remember...

Like i have said before, this time is do to no page caching, and use of the "non-final" viewers. It seems the viewers available now really aren't optimized, and so take a lot of extra time.


Is iRex working on these issues? How is battery life at the moment? Oh and btw...it the load takes so long because of the device reading from the CF card...will a fast card make a difference? does it load faster from onboard memory?

Yes they are working on the new viewers, including the encrypted format viewer that will make everyone real glad :)

Next week there should be a new update, that will give me the 10-20 hour battery life.

The loading time is mainly due to the viewer. The Berserk video was loaded from internal memory. The rest from the CF card. It really doesn't seem to make any difference.


Thanks for all the good work you are putting in for us Henrycat!
Now if only I coul get an invite, I could start seriously fretting about which device to get. I like the Hanlins because I like the company and the devices (at least the V8) seem to be working well (and adaptation seems to be improving), but the Iliad has a strong attraction because it's very...geeky and also doens't look so much like cheap plastic... :uhoh2:

Just ask Alexander, it seems he knows of a way to get an invite :p

@ Henrycat:
Thank you for your videos; you saved my day! You published "irex-in-action"-videos what irex should have done months ago.
@ all:
# Time of fliping pages could be better, but is not so annoyiny as i thought before seeing it "live". [problem of viewer as said]
# Notetaking looks great.

I've sent numerous emails to them over the last months and only ever received a reply when my mails were routed via www.ebookmedia.de (jörg Wrobel). But apparently he isn't recieving replies from iRex anymore either...although his role is b2b...somethig is still very wrong with their communications.

About Alexanders way...I thought that stopped working?

Sorry, but no, precaching does not solve this problem, at least not for me.

If you actually look through a pdf page by page and spend time on each page, it will work.

However, if you skim through something - say, a scientific paper - it doesn't help at all. I read papers not in linear order, I'm jumping all the time.

So obviously there is something needed that uses pre-rendered images instead of letting the pdf rendering happen on the device. That should be possible (no zoom though), and it will not affect storage size: a 900x700 16-grayscales gif should be around 60k.

@ali I wonder how long page-jumping takes in a .wol book on the Hanlin V8 or in a PDF using the V2. Page-turning from one page to the next in a .txt or html document seems to be rather fast on the V8 (the V2 isn't out yet so no way to test that) but i'll have to ask TaKir about page-jumping in books.

@ali: I know what your getting at, but that would need a complete prerendered book, as you said. I guess, you could add that to the viewers. On the other hand, page flipping like in real books will not be an option with the e-ink image refresh times that are available now. That will probably take a few more years, because i havent seen or heard of a prototype thats working with fast page updates yet.

I personally yould like to see prerendering options an especially prerendered indexes and fast search algorithms which should render quite fast.

Well, all e-ink device owners in the next few month will be pioneers anyway, so dont expect a perfect product. The good ones will show up in about two years. Then i will ditch the iLiad and get the iLiad 2.0 or a device from Plasticlogic or the reading design study from philips. ;)

according to TaKir the V8 does a good job of page-jumpimg even in 7-8MB .wol books. Sometimes however it takes longer
He had a laarge .txt file that took 15-20 secs to jump to page 600 from the beginning.
This file alos took 3-4 minutes to load in notepad on the Pc, so it's probably an exception.
normal books under 1000 Pages apparently take about 3 sec. to jump between pages that are further apart. (like 100pages) and about 1 sec. to turn pages.

i'd love to see a vid of this, but I think TaKir doesn't have the equipment.

@ali: I know what your getting at, but that would need a complete prerendered book, as you said. I guess, you could add that to the viewers. On the other hand, page flipping like in real books will not be an option with the e-ink image refresh times that are available now. That will probably take a few more years, because i havent seen or heard of a prototype thats working with fast page updates yet.

I guess something below 2 seconds is absolutely sufficient for a paper - and it should be possible using prerendered stuff. I guess i'll think about that once the sdk is there. Generating such books should be dead easy - ghostscript and imagemagick provide all you need.

(Besides: Hanlin's "wolf" format is produced by a tweaked printer driver, right? They're probably doing exactly that)

I guess something below 2 seconds is absolutely sufficient for a paper - and it should be possible using prerendered stuff. I guess i'll think about that once the sdk is there. Generating such books should be dead easy - ghostscript and imagemagick provide all you need.

(Besides: Hanlin's "wolf" format is produced by a tweaked printer driver, right? They're probably doing exactly that)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you saying caching the whole book to memory, so it would only flip to another page when i jumped?

I suppose with text books it could work... my pdfs have been between 2-4 megas.

But my Beserk mangas in PDF are 120 megas (size of my CF), so how would you do it for that?

When i jump from pages it doesn't seem to take that long compared to just fliping to next/previous...

you can create wolf books either through a printer driver (large files, no zooming) or through a software (still buggy for english text, no support for PDF at the moment but small files and you can use zoom).

If they made a better version of their book conversion software (or the rusians made one, I thin they're working on one) then using .wol could be an alternative for some...although i must admit that I prefer using normal file formats like txt and html.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you saying caching the whole book to memory, so it would only flip to another page when i jumped?

I suppose with text books it could work... my pdfs have been between 2-4 megas.

But my Beserk mangas in PDF are 120 megas (size of my CF), so how would you do it for that?

When i jump from pages it doesn't seem to take that long compared to just fliping to next/previous...

Nope, that's not what I meant. From what I saw in the vids, I'd say the slow page flip is mainly caused by the actual rendering of the pdf - neither accessing the filesystem nor updating the eink screen. This "caching" other's are talking about would essentially mean that while you read page 5, a background process would render pages 4 and 6 in advance, and possibly remember rendered pages once you leave them. Of course, this doesn't improve anything if you jump from page 5 to 700, or if you spend no time on page 5.

So the idea is to render everything on your desktop pc and create one grayscale image per page. 1024x768 pixels with 16 colors is uncompressed(!) 384kbytes. So instead of storing a 15-page pdf on the iliad, I'd store a format that holds 15 images. That should reduce rendering time to nothing, with no visual difference (you can't zoom tho). Page flipping would just be reading the correct portion from the file and copying it directly into the framebuffer.

It doesn't help at all with your 10-billion-pages monster pdfs, and it will probably not work for novels, where every page is about ~1k text in a single font. The pdf's I have use lots of differents fonts on every page, have diagrams and such. Sometimes they take multiple seconds to render a page on my 2GHz processor - what will this be on a 400mhz cpu without fpu?

Hi,

This is exactly how I read pdf's/scans on Nokia 770, except that I use jpg's 480x800, embedded into blank html (Fbreader reads those files) and rendered at lower quality so I have about 20-50kb per image. For all fiction books it works page to page, for technical books, sometimes 1-1, sometimes 1-2. It is unbelievable fast since you access an image at a time, but you cannot jump between pages. I guess that you can insert chapters inside the html, but I have not tried. I have books up to 2000 images (100MB) and it works nicely.
I guess the same should work on any eink with appropriate size images. It depends I guess on size and quality of screen.

Liviu



So the idea is to render everything on your desktop pc and create one grayscale image per page. 1024x768 pixels with 16 colors is uncompressed(!) 384kbytes. So instead of storing a 15-page pdf on the iliad, I'd store a format that holds 15 images. That should reduce rendering time to nothing, with no visual difference (you can't zoom tho). Page flipping would just be reading the correct portion from the file and copying it directly into the framebuffer.

It doesn't help at all with your 10-billion-pages monster pdfs, and it will probably not work for novels, where every page is about ~1k text in a single font. The pdf's I have use lots of differents fonts on every page, have diagrams and such. Sometimes they take multiple seconds to render a page on my 2GHz processor - what will this be on a 400mhz cpu without fpu?

The pdf's I have use lots of differents fonts on every page, have diagrams and such. Sometimes they take multiple seconds to render a page on my 2GHz processor - what will this be on a 400mhz cpu without fpu?

I am using the Picsel Browser for Zaurus (VGA clamshell PDA with Linux OS and ARM CPU). It all it needs to render my monster PDF (science and educational stuff, with hires photos you can zoom into without loosing details and lot's of drawings) is enough memory.

While I am thinking that there are really smart coders at work at Picsel, I am therefore hoping that the handling of huge PDF files will be without problems on E-Book devices with a similar computing platform.

My picsel browser video review can be viewed here:
http://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12436&hl=

I've tried in vain playing Henrycat's vids on 3 different computers, each with WMP, RP, and QT. In the cases where I don't get an error, all I get are song "visualizations," but I've never had problems playing AVIs before. What codecs are people using? TIA.

I've tried in vain playing Henrycat's vids on 3 different computers, each with WMP, RP, and QT. In the cases where I don't get an error, all I get are song "visualizations," but I've never had problems playing AVIs before. What codecs are people using? TIA.

They use XviD; you need to install the codec (http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/).

They use XviD; you need to install the codec (http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/).
Or try Videolan VLC, which doesn't require any Windows codecs to be installed and still plays XviD just fine:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Hmmm rapidshare keeps coming up with invalid session for me so i can't download them.
Would anybody care to upload them to google video for me?

Hmmm rapidshare keeps coming up with invalid session for me so i can't download them.
Would anybody care to upload them to google video for me?
You may try this link for now:
http://www.mobileread.com/upload/custom/films.rar

Thanks for the help, Ali and Alexander. Both approaches worked fine.

The page turn delay is annoying, I'm sure it will be resolved soon. I'm relieved that writing on the Iliad doesn't look as sluggish as we were lead to believe. It's probably never going to be the tool of choice for stenographers, but the Iliad should be fine for casual notetaking and brainstorming.

The virtual keyboard for searching is a nice feature. It's too bad the Sony Reader lacks this, since it could still be implemented without a touchscreen, albeit more slowly, using the device's directional controls.

The viewers look like they still need some work. I'd prefer at least a little whitespace at the margins. Hopefully, that's a parameter that can be user configured.

Thanks for the videos, Henricat!

@ali: .... The good ones will show up in about two years. Then i will ditch the iLiad and get the iLiad 2.0 or a device from Plasticlogic or the reading design study from philips. ;)

Great. So in two years I sell my Cassiopeia A-20 to a museum and get one of the first iliads for peanuts ;-)

Great. So in two years I sell my Cassiopeia A-20 to a museum and get one of the first iliads for peanuts ;-)

I let you know, when i put it on ebay ;) :D

The viewers look like they still need some work. I'd prefer at least a little whitespace at the margins. Hopefully, that's a parameter that can be user configured.

Thanks for the videos, Henricat!

The Honor book is a pdf i made. I'm used to little white space since the Librie, so i make them with just 1 cm for the top, left and right, and enough space for the menu in the bottom.

Obviously in the pdf viewer, you can just create the pdf with the white space you want :)

Hey Henrycat! Your in the quarter finals :) Damn this is soooo OT.

When did you receive your last OS update? When is the next one due? Any noticable change in battery life? BTW, is there a way to check the battery status?

Thanks
Falk

@Henrycat

Just a brief reminder...you wanted to test something for me...^^
It's no hurry...just so you don't forget altogether.

Answers

@Henrycat

Just a brief reminder...you wanted to test something for me...^^
It's no hurry...just so you don't forget altogether.

You forgot the rename the txt to htm, and i didn't notice it till i was taking the pictures. Since it is the same viewer it should be similar for both files :p

I'm also considering making another pdf that doesn't have the line breaks. Just clean the txt and convert it to pdf, dont want to give wrong impressions :D

I should do the pictures this afternoon and up them tomorrow.

Edit: pdf and htm open ok, although the pdf has small letters...


Hey Henrycat! Your in the quarter finals :) Damn this is soooo OT.

When did you receive your last OS update? When is the next one due? Any noticable change in battery life? BTW, is there a way to check the battery status?

Thanks
Falk
The new update should be released this week, i'm waiting for Alex to tell when it's online.

Right now theres no way to see battery life, but Alex told me some time ago that they have added an indicator to the new update (not the one of this week tough :()

Thanks Henrycat!

I'm not sure what you mean by the "haven't renamed to .htm"?
I just checked and there are three files on my webspace, always the same content only with different file-formats. PDF is the file as I got it...good or bad, that's the way it was offered on the website. Then I used PDF-to-HTML and PDF-to-TXT to convert it.
I have used a different software to do it again and found the results to be a lot better for the .txt but just as problematic for the html (hard line breaks).
I uploaded the screenshots of the .txt and the html as displayed by the Hanlin V8 and just wanted to compare how they llok on the Iliad.

Thanks Henrycat!

I'm not sure what you mean by the "haven't renamed to .htm"?


I think i have mentioned before that txts are being handled by the normal htm viewer. But they need to be renamed to htm for the device to read them :p

I think i have mentioned before that txts are being handled by the normal htm viewer. But they need to be renamed to htm for the device to read them :p

But you also mentioned, that this will be fixed with the next update ;) That tells us, there hasnt been an update so far.

But you also mentioned, that this will be fixed with the next update ;) That tells us, there hasnt been an update so far.

Like i said the new update shuld come out this week, but so far Alex hasn't told me anything yet.

Henrycat,

Thank you for all your work on supplying us with this information.

The videos answer all the questions of the sliding release date. This device is nowhere close to release unless the newspaper feed function works "seamlessly" and that certainly negates a lot of utilization. Even then all the functions that you show in a marketing perspective are in the "prototype" realm and are in no way ready for "primetime".

At close to $900.00 USD landed in the USA, this makes the iLiad a very expensive toy if the page turning, refresh rate, battery life is not improved - substantially. It would take in total a shorter time for me to start up my laptop, and navigate through my documents and manuals than it would be for me to use the iLiad. The whole purpose of using it would be convenience - very low start up times, document navigation & long battery life. By the videos shown here iRex still has a way to go. Hopefully the latest revision will be a marked improvement.

One question I do have (as hope springs eternal that this device will be improved) is there a table of contents, index, or bookmark listing available in PDF's? How can you navigate through documents to specific pages? I would be utilizing PDF's for reference and would need to jump to specific parts of the manuals efficiently & effectively without using the slider control or numerous page turns. Any possibility of a search function forthcoming?

I did think that the handwriting function appears to work well.

I am beginning to think that the e ink technology may not be up to the e reader task. I think that it will be relegated to signage and low refresh rate displays.

I am still holding out a lot of hope for this device. I have been mostly pessimistic about the iLiad, and this would be a product of iRex not being forthcoming or honest in their communication.

Overall I am optomistic that e ink could work, though I think that realization of that is still a way down the road.

I fear I have to agree with everything firekat says. Though I'm an eternal optimist what these videos show is a painfully slow experience. Even if the price were a fifth I would probably stop using it after a couple of days. Though the Nokia 770 has a much smaller screen, with FBReader, page turns are instantaneous and it will have to do for me until eInk technology matures a bit. My only hope is that Henrycat's videos show particularly unrepresentative files struggling with a particularly hobbled OS and/or application software. It is now up to iRex to release some footage to show us a "properly" functioning device. The delayed release date is indeed beginning to make sense!

@Henrycat

Something I forgot...

Is the Battery of the Iliad user-replaceable? I already ordered so i'm chaught now, but it would be nice to know anyway...^^

Is the Battery of the Iliad user-replaceable? I already ordered so i'm chaught now, but it would be nice to know anyway...^^

No, its not. Thats one concern iRex noted somewhere, that they do not really know how to handle battery replacements.

The battery is a specially for the iLiad customized Li-Ion one, as far as i know.

well...we'll jsut hope it doesn't break then...

Oh by the way tribble...did you read the line
"Products will be shipped from our Stockpoint in Dueren - Germany"?

I just checked and found that it's about 330km from where i'm sitting...time is calculated as about 3 hours...so if they actually have stock there anytime soon it at least won't take a long time to deliver to Wuerzburg...^^
The trouble is that my order numer is 470...and I have no idea how many they are expecting by June 30th...does anyone know that?

I think Stockpoint in Dueren is because they have a company there, that does the OS updates to the iLiads. But thats just a wild guess. I dont think you can go there and pick up your order. Wouldnt be a cheap way to save 20 bucks anyway ;)

I wasn't planning on going there...it's just good to know that it's not too far and at least the delivery time should be 24 hours once it's ready...

well...we'll jsut hope it doesn't break then...

Oh by the way tribble...did you read the line
"Products will be shipped from our Stockpoint in Dueren - Germany"?

I just checked and found that it's about 330km from where i'm sitting...time is calculated as about 3 hours...so if they actually have stock there anytime soon it at least won't take a long time to deliver to Wuerzburg...^^
The trouble is that my order numer is 470...and I have no idea how many they are expecting by June 30th...does anyone know that?

#270ish and Dueren something around 20 min away from my homeplace ... Yeah

pretty sure at delivery i wont be at the office to get the package hehe or something like this

Henrycat,

Thank you for all your work on supplying us with this information.

The videos answer all the questions of the sliding release date. This device is nowhere close to release unless the newspaper feed function works "seamlessly" and that certainly negates a lot of utilization. Even then all the functions that you show in a marketing perspective are in the "prototype" realm and are in no way ready for "primetime".

I downloaded the newspaper ( De Tidj) when i made the last update, and it worked just fine.


At close to $900.00 USD landed in the USA, this makes the iLiad a very expensive toy if the page turning, refresh rate, battery life is not improved - substantially. It would take in total a shorter time for me to start up my laptop, and navigate through my documents and manuals than it would be for me to use the iLiad. The whole purpose of using it would be convenience - very low start up times, document navigation & long battery life. By the videos shown here iRex still has a way to go. Hopefully the latest revision will be a marked improvement.

I tought the Iliad would be almost the same price in the US because it doesn't have the VAT issue... Maybe i'm remembering wrong, can't really say i'm keeping track of the selling price :p

Alex assured me the next update will have much better performance, mainly because power management will finally be implemented.

It seems the new viewers are working ok, but are still being tested so i don't know when i'll be able to use them :(

I still don't care about the "slow" performance, because i prefer slow and confortable with eink, is better than quick and "painfull"when reading with lcds :p


One question I do have (as hope springs eternal that this device will be improved) is there a table of contents, index, or bookmark listing available in PDF's? How can you navigate through documents to specific pages? I would be utilizing PDF's for reference and would need to jump to specific parts of the manuals efficiently & effectively without using the slider control or numerous page turns. Any possibility of a search function forthcoming?

Internal linking doesn't work in the current pdf viewer although it appears to be working in the final viewer. I asked about this some time ago and it seemed to work ok.

I just hope that the ones who create the pdfs will make it so the links are easily "clickable". Its a little hard "clicking" on text links with the pen :p

You can always just input the page number you want to jump to :)


I did think that the handwriting function appears to work well.

I am beginning to think that the e ink technology may not be up to the e reader task. I think that it will be relegated to signage and low refresh rate displays.

I don't think so, and everyone who has seen the device agrees that it works well enough to do some reading.


I am still holding out a lot of hope for this device. I have been mostly pessimistic about the iLiad, and this would be a product of iRex not being forthcoming or honest in their communication.

Overall I am optomistic that e ink could work, though I think that realization of that is still a way down the road.
It has been working since the Librie :)

We just need a device that answers well to what users need.

If iRex has taken this long, it's only because they want to give that device ;)

Just a question Henrycat:
Can you get a definite statement on the SD card thing? It used to say CF and SD/MMC and now it only says MMC/CF. I know it was talked about somewhere here before, but I think there was no definite answer about the change.

i'd like to use an SD card, but if it isn't sure whether that'll work i'll rather order a CF.

Actually this has already been answered:

Henry said that Alex, had confirmed that SD cards would work, however as Henry doesn't have one he hasn't tried it for himself.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=29602&postcount=28

Thanks my english friend...helpful as always..^^
I remebered that there was a mention somehwere but couldn't find it/was too lazy...^^

I'll go ahead and order a SD card then...

Always glad to be of help.

With the ammount of posts round here, it's always easy to miss one.

Always glad to be of help.

With the ammount of posts round here, it's always easy to miss one.


While we are revisiting the card issue, was the max size ever settled? If I remember right, Henrycat said 1GB worked, but some others (me included) wondered whether 2 or even 4GB would also work with the iLiad. Any new/old-but-I-missed-it :uhoh2: information on this?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you saying caching the whole book to memory, so it would only flip to another page when i jumped?

I suppose with text books it could work... my pdfs have been between 2-4 megas.

But my Beserk mangas in PDF are 120 megas (size of my CF), so how would you do it for that?


You could do using the networking capabilities of the iLiad, if they work as promised. The cached book can be stored in a main computer nearby.

On the other hand, one should do the strategy I already tried in my librie bash script for reading of .DJVU files: the previous page was kept just in case, and the next one was calculated and cached while the user was reading the current one. In this way the only delay is the one from e-ink driving, but no CPU-originated delays.

Something I noticed in the videos, the Sylus looks to be fairly short. Is it comfortable to use? Could you ues anyother wacom stylus with this?

I think it looked short too, but I think that for normal usage it would be ok. i'm pretty sure any Wacom pen should work because the iliad uses the "Wacom Penabled Standard".
i'm not sure however...^^
I wonder how useful the Wacom could become with the right software. You're limited to A5 size and grayscale, but with the amount if sensitivity (255 pressure points) and stuff you could even consider using the Iliad as a graphics tablet.
My girlfriend would love that (she's a desgin student and is thinking about buying a Wacom Tablet).

How about a software that translates the input on the Iliad directly into the computer, just like a graphics tablet? That should be possible if somebody can do the right driver for the PC and/or MAC (shouldn't be a problem) and the Iliad receives a program that routes the Pen-input out through the USB port (should also be fairly easy).

What do you think? It would even be better than a normal graphics tablet because you could see the lines you are drawing on the Iliad and could thus judge your strokes a lot better!

While we are revisiting the card issue, was the max size ever settled? If I remember right, Henrycat said 1GB worked, but some others (me included) wondered whether 2 or even 4GB would also work with the iLiad. Any new/old-but-I-missed-it :uhoh2: information on this?

The closest I can remember to an answer on this was:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=28321&postcount=124

Which said that 1GB did work, and that 2GB "should"

I regards to the stylus question.

As Commander said it usestheir standards so presumably any wacom stylus should work... However, the touchpad function isn't on if the stylus is in it's niche. So to use the touchpad you will still need to remove the stylus (or am I mis-understanding something fundamental.

I guess you are right about the stylus having to be removed, but whether this can be easily circumvented remains to be seen.

@Henrycat

Just a brief reminder...you wanted to test something for me...^^
It's no hurry...just so you don't forget altogether.

Finally got some time to up the files and i forgot your pictures on my portable hard drive (had to take take them out of the CF for more space).

Anyway, here are some videos i made of the Iliad outside in the sun/shadow. Also some pics to showing your files opened.

files (http://rapidshare.de/files/24379044/files.rar)

I'll send you a link with the final pictures (indoors, so no flare), when i have the time, so you can see more clearly the text.

Thanks Henrycat!

Don't bother about the other shots if you don't have the time...my Iliad should arive during the next 2 weeks (if they don't run out of supply before Nr. 470..^^)

Sorry, but no, precaching does not solve this problem, at least not for me.
(...)
However, if you skim through something - say, a scientific paper - it doesn't help at all. I read papers not in linear order, I'm jumping all the time.

Hmm, besides precaching, if you are reading .tex papers then a typical xdvi reader could be developed, in principle.

Has anybody got insights about how to crack into the OS? I would like to see a table of running processes, memory usage, etc.

Has anybody got insights about how to crack into the OS? I would like to see a table of running processes, memory usage, etc.

Check up on embedded Linux in general: there are several books to read. Yaghmour's book is often recommended.

The best way to get binaries in there will be by standard SDK methods, and I suspect that means generating a bootable diskimage (or part of one), and loading it to flash memory over USB.

But how are you going to start the binary? And how are you going to see the output? Will the kernel even have the syscalls you know? No shell here, I don't think. Do you have the appropriate header files, libraries and cross-compiler to generate the binary? (In short, do you have the SDK?)

Once you do, you may have to enable some debugging mode to make it work, or run a special debug-version of the OS, and perhaps even use a special development iLiad device to ensure you can't bypass DRM too easily.

But I suspect you knew all that already.

Hmm, besides precaching, if you are reading .tex papers then a typical xdvi reader could be developed, in principle.

Papers are usually tex, but distributed as postscript or pdf. Ps->pdf conversion is dead easy, so I just need the described viewer. Which means, I need the SDK.

Papers are usually tex, but distributed as postscript or pdf. Ps->pdf conversion is dead easy, so I just need the described viewer. Which means, I need the SDK.
Not for physics. The original texfile is provided in the ArXiV for more than 95% of the papers. So it is possible to reprocess almost any of them for a 1024x792x16 display without margins.

For pdf/ps it could be more sensible to move them to pnm images, then pnmcrop to get rid of the margin, then recompress with algorithms of compression designed for b/w text pages, as in some pdf formats or in the dejavu format.

Also depending of the pdf, it could be possible to play with the boundingbox limits to wipe the margins; sure it can be done with acrobat, and perhaps with some unix utility.