Eink Carta, what's next?

[androidlad]

With the lack of competition (I guess), Eink seems to have gone through very few iterations, from Vizplex, Pearl to Carta, which has been around for many years and has no successor yet.

Did Eink just stop at Carta and shift R&D focus to other industries?

[David Munch]

They announced Advanced Color ePaper a year ago now.

For black and white displays, one would assume that they could announce something new anytime now, since it's been 3 years since the Carta technology, and 2 years sine the Carta HD technology..

[AnemicOak]

I'd have thought we'd see more Mobius use by now, but apparently not (I think I saw a 10" device coming out soon). I don't know if it's cost (since Sony helped develop it they may get $$$ when it's used causing an increased price), lack of interest, or perhaps problems in the manufacturing process.



Perhaps they're spending their innovation/R&D money more on the signage & architectural aspects they've introduced.

[rkomar]

Why isn't there more competition? Because it's hard, time-consuming and expensive to come up with new technologies. Based on how E-Ink's technology works, I'm impressed with how well they got it working. I think that people frustrated with E-Ink are seriously underestimating how difficult what they're doing is. I certainly don't think they're not trying to further improve things just because they have no competition.

[barryem]

If color doesn't interest you, and it doesn't interest me, it's hard to see what could be done to improve a lighted e-ink display. i don't read paper books anymore but I did buy a couple of used ones because there was no other way to get those old books. They came in excellent condition although the paper is very slightly yellowed. Emphasis on "slightly". I haven't read them yet but I have compared them to my Voyage and the Voyage looks a lot better.

Given that mono e-ink is already as good or better than paper, and given that e-ink devices aren't particularly big sellers these days, I don't see where they'll be very motivated to spend a lot of money improving it. And I find it hard to care.

Maybe if the signage thing takes off that'll change. But at the moment I suspect e-ink is just what it is.

Barry

[fjtorres]

The core tech is what it is and there isn't much they can do to "improve" it.
Where the changes have come in the panels is in how they use the display film; different substrates, backplanes, lighting modules, sealing...

The biggest gain and hardest thing to implement is the plastic substrate. At some point they'll figure out how to do it affordably but it's one of the grails of tech and nobody has really, ahem, cracked the problem.

That they managed mobius is impressive enough.

[crossi]

When's the next improvement to paper going to be out? It's been centuries and it's pretty much the same. Why this insistence on constant "improvement"? If something is good enough for the job that's good enough for me. In fact some "improvements" I would have preferred to do without. I would rather Amazon had stuck with the old Mobi format which was good enough for my purposes instead of AZW3 much less it's latest so called improved format.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crossi

When's the next improvement to paper going to be out? It's been centuries and it's pretty much the same. Why this insistence on constant "improvement"? If something is good enough for the job that's good enough for me.

eInk film looks to be as optimized as it's going to get.
eReaders could stand some improvement but not in the "sexy" specmanship places. What we have is about as good and cheap as the mainstream needs.
We see no real changes because good enough is good enough.

Durability, which is where plastic substrates come in.
The electronics could go to even lower power, maybe enough to be powered by transparent solar cells at some point. (Would likely require ditching wifi).
Bezzle-less designs to accomodate larger screens in the same form factor.
Lower cost? Not a great priority with current volumes.
Larger screens? Not without significant weight reductions which brings us back to plastic substrates. Glass is fragile and heavy or expensive and heavy.

What else does a dedicated reading device really need?
Most of people's wishlists are software features anyway, not hardware.
And even there it is techies and enthusiasts pining for fancy features. Plus academics pining for big pdf-worthy screens but that's a different market anyway.

[rkomar]

I think the people with the most gripes about the display are those that want something as responsive and clean as an LCD or OLED screen because they actually want to use them as general purpose tablets or computer monitors rather than semi-static reading devices.

[pickyaxe]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I think the people with the most gripes about the display are those that want something as responsive and clean as an LCD or OLED screen because they actually want to use them as general purpose tablets or computer monitors rather than semi-static reading devices.

Well to be fair, being able to read PDF is a huge use case. Especially for academics.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by pickyaxe

Well to be fair, being able to read PDF is a huge use case. Especially for academics.

Is the Carta screen not good enough for that right now? What new E-Ink-related developments are necessary for that if that's not the case?

[JSWolf]

The next step would be Readers with a plastic backed screen instead of glass.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Is the Carta screen not good enough for that right now? What new E-Ink-related developments are necessary for that if that's not the case?

The big issue for PDF reading on E-Ink is display size.

Most of the PDFs I own are large-format RPG rulebooks, and ideally I'd want a 13-14" device to read them easily.

That's the advance I'm looking for.

[AnemicOak]

There are 13.3" devices out now for such a use case (with the Mobius screen). Unfortunately they are quite expensive.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by pickyaxe

Well to be fair, being able to read PDF is a huge use case. Especially for academics.

I think the problems with PDF are more due to limitations of the format than of the reading device.

Barry