Quote:
Originally Posted by snipenekkid
hehe...just busting yur stones for fun, I getwhere you are coming from but guess what, it's incongrous(sp?) with the existing tools you are using to communicate with the enire globe. Thing about that for just a moment, what are you saying with you pooh-poohing then entire idea and potential of companies at least exploring color EPD technology?
|
Hmmm. (Dennis looks in the mirror, and notes the hair is mostly grey, then recalls the first computer he ever used, which was an IBM mainframe at a bank in the late 70's, when the
original IBM PC running Lotus 1,2,3 was first displacing the venerable Apple II running VisiCalc on everyone's desktop, and thinks back over 3 decades of active technology involvement...)
I don't claim that age brings wisdom, as I've seen too many cases where it did quite the opposite. But it
does bring a sense of perspective, and a certain amount of pragmatism.
I'm
not pooh-poohing it. I was impressed by the demo - I hadn't thought the refresh rate on e-Ink screens could be fast enough to make video playback realistic. Likewise, I'm not opposed to color e-Ink. But PVI announced a prototype 12 bit color e-Ink screen in 2006 that they claimed would be in volume production in 2007. It took till now, with Hanvon sampling a device using it, for it to become available.
You might ask why. I did, and the answer I could see was some combination of problems ramping from prototype to production, costs higher than manufacturers were willing to pay for the units, and unsatisfactory display quality. I covered Amazon and Sony launch events for MR, and color support was a question asked of both vendors. Both said they were aware color was desirable, and keeping an eye on developments, but did not see technology then available they thought would give a satisfactory customer experience. (Translation: they didn't think the market would find the color offered by color e-Ink acceptable, and the other low-power color solutions weren't there yet.)
Well, maybe they were wrong. Or maybe they were right back then but the tech has gotten good enough recently to merit a second look. I don't know. I know it wouldn't meet
my needs, but I'm an ex-designer who is fussy about color values and wants better color reproduction than what color e-Ink can currently offer. I don't assume I'm representative, and there may well be enough people for whom it's acceptable to constitute a profitable market for for a manufacturer to address. (Hanvon obviously thinks so.)
It's why I advise people who are interested in a color e-Ink device to see one in person, and preferably test on material they might like to read in color, to see if they find it acceptable for daily use.
The bigger question for both video and color is use cases: why do you
need either?
For video, the answer I can see is "enhanced" ebooks, including audio and video. That's a hot topic, and there's a lot of development going on. The question is what books actually
need multi-media. I think most efforts along that line will fail because the content
doesn't really need it, and would be better offered as a normal book.
I have similar questions about color. What content really
needs it? Is the color reproduction offered by color e-Ink sufficient to properly present that content? That may depend upon who you ask.
So no, I'm not pooh-poohing this stuff. I suspect my feelings can be summed up as "Just because you
can do something, it doesn't mean the you
should." I'll watch with interest to see what appears that uses these capabilities, and who will buy it when it does. But right now, I don't see the Next Big Thing.
______
Dennis