So, for the homework, a little more detailed summary (of the part I was present for, i didn't stay for dinner) of this very friendly evening of discussions.
A few remarks and a few conversations I took part in about e-ink devices.
There is no ideal liseuse.
• The Sony 505 and the Cybook Gen3 (from Bookeen) are relatively slow and their ergonomy is mediocre (very mediocre for the Cybook). Very good visual quality for both (normal, it's the same electronic paper) but big difference in weight, the Cybook is incredibly light.
• The Sony 700 is faster, the tactile interface is outstanding, but the display of text is really inferior to the preceeding ones because of the touch and light layer (photos don't really show the sort of light blur on the text). Drawback of the touchscreen : fingerprints on the surface.
• the Digital Reader 1000s from iRex, because of its size (10" instead of 6 for the others), is suited to numerous other types of documents than novels (on the sony and Cybook, you must reformat your pdf documents if you want them to be useable) and therefore more uses. Drawback : it won't fit in a large pocket like the Cybook. It takes a long time to turn it on, 40 seconds (!) and the energy consumption is rather high for the moment (a new firmware should correct this problem). It has a touchscreen using a special stylus.
According to several accounts, the iRex reader is rather fragile.
Plastic Logic
A lot of anticipation about PlasticLogic whose launch has been pushed back to 2010 (but an announcement is expected the 9 february). Small drawback, the OS will be Windows CE.
DRM
All the people with whom I discussed the subject are against DRM. This will be one of the key points to develop rapidly and properly the sale of ebooks : they must be copiable with no problem.
I brought an epub document with me which went from a USB flash drive to a Netbook to an SD card to eventually be read with no problem on a 505. Would such a path have been possible with DRM ?
Format
As with every new technology, several file formats are available. If none are perfect for the moment, two get the highest marks : pdf and epub. The first gives the best result for formatting when the pdf is prepared specifically for the liseuse (so you must generate one pdf for the Cybook and another for the iRex, given their respective sizes).
The second is the most promising because (among other reasons) the text adapts to any size display like html.
Let's point out the interest (for specific cases) of a third solution used by some people : plain text with no formatting.
Calibre seems to be the most complete solution, even if sometimes it generates errors, to shift from one format to another.
The format will no doubt be one of the greatest battles of e-ink.
In conclusion, we all are conscious that we are participating in the beginnings of a new (for the general public) technology which will revolutionise many domaines over the next several years.
Ah yes, and I would evaluation the geekitude of the evening at a level of 8-9 (out of 10)
