Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertb
Dear Pkovak and Community:
On January 2, I head to Storage Visions and then the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There we will be meeting with our own factories and eBook Reader factories from around the world. The key question on everyone's agenda is to find WHAT to add to the next generation or two of eBook Readers that we will develope. I already know there is a lot of interest in the Epson Controller (coming) amd the 9.7 inch size (sooner or later). This forum has some of the finest minds in the world regartding eBook Readers... yet most of you have jobs that are in entirely different fields.
I would like to invite you to tell me what you wish for both short term and long term. This can be as simple as "an LED light that is on a gooseneck and is retractible into the case" or a "solar charger" or plastic display or color screen (not yet possible in E-Ink but worth discussing) and anything else including snowflake finish). I cannot guarantee results but I can get you factual answers.
This THREAD needs to ramp up again. I know it is the holidays; but I invite you to put your thinking cap on and be as bold or far out as you want to be. Get some factual answers; or provide some answers to Astak!
Robert B  |
Robert B...
Thanks for asking us!
As you know, the very top of my list is out of your hands -- drastically higher pixel density and contrast. That's a problem for the eInk screen makers. 300 to 600 pixels per inch (as compared to the ~180 of current units) would be FABULOUS! Especially with further improvements in contrast.
Among the things you could make a difference to:
- Massively improved physical ergonomics! Play with the REB-1100/EBW-1150 device that you got a while back. Meditate on the fit in your hands, the support for left/right/top/bottom holding, the ability to load any TrueType font, etc. Then get out there and do EVEN BETTER!!
- Good support for large libraries of eBooks. You've seen how the Sony readers since the 505 allow one level of hierarchy in their lists. A-C, D-E, etc., like an old fashioned paper address book. Go for multiple levels. A simple branching hierarchy (select from choice for first letter of authors name; now select from ranges for second letter, etc.) should allow access to any of thousands of books with only a few user interactions. And anyone who's used a Rolodex (or a dictionary or a phone book) understands how to use this kind of interface.
- Better software support. There're a bunch of different items here:
- On the device itself you should support as many eBook formats as possible, at least in their non-DRM forms. ePub, microsoft .lit, Sony LRF, mobipocket, eReader, and on and on. I don't care (much) which DRM form you support, as I refuse to purchase any eBook with DRM unless I can instantly remove the DRM.
- On the user's host computer, you should support some kind of software that acts as librarian, file manager, converter, etc. Talk to Kovid Goyal about Calibre -- it's a great possibility, needing only some documentation to make it friendly enough to give to my Mom.
- Don't forget to support Mac and Linux as well as windows. Mac users, in particular, have proven more willing (per capita) to spend money on hardware and software than are PC users. They also average higher disposable income. A market you should WANT to tap.
- In addition to the hierarchical lists I suggested above, how about folder support? I recognize that users like my Mom wouldn't be likely to use this, but all the computer-geeks in your marketplace will scream at you if the feature is missing. If necessary, it could be turned off by default.
- Have a straight-forward, DOCUMENTED index file format so that programs like Calibre can pre-produce it when moving books around. If the index file included support for custom menus, the community gurus could experiment with a variety of options for supporting large libraries. That would make things like folder support and large library support into aftermarket add-ons that would not require work from you and your suppliers. (Imagine for a moment that a program like Calibre scans the contents of the unit while connected via USB, and produces an xml file representing a custom menu tree for navigating folders, or book lists, or author lists, or whatever. You'd only need to document the format and where the file should go, and build the hooks to display things into the firmware. All the rest would be effectively crowd-sourced!)
- Support for installing my own fonts on the device, two different ways -- first, as replacements for the default fonts; second as additional fonts.
- Decent hyphenation support. At least 'steal' the TeX hyphenation algorithm (it's open-source). Feel free to do better. Reasonable hyphenation makes auto-layout of text look much better.
- True italics! That is, use an italic member of the font family rather than synthesizing 'italic' by slanting a non-italic font.
- Full Unicode support for folks outside the western european languages. The Russian/CJK/etc. users will thank you.
- User-replaceable battery. I don't want to replace the battery frequently; the several week battery life of my PRS-500 is cool. But I also don't want to have to void the warranty to put in a new battery when the current one will no longer hold charge.
- Don't make me wait a long time for books to load! If you support a format like LRF that requires pre-pagination, document the pagination algorithm so that other software folks can build support for any OS that you leave out.
Some other posters suggested clever ideas like standardized attachment points for whatever case a user cares to build. That's a GREAT idea.
Xenophon