Why is there no e-ink innovation in the USA?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I completely agree with you.

But then I want page turn buttons and others don't care for them.

Some of those people are concerned about shelves and collections, whereas I don't care about those.

I think the Kobo Aura HD and Aura H20's screens are too big, yet they have their fans.

The same goes for people who want to save quotations or do research on the book their reading.

It's easy to say "I just want to read books on my e-reader" and get lots of agreement. Until it comes down to discussing what exactly that entails.

Yet we have no shortage of options, do we?
Between the major players and the hobbyist toys everybody can find what they want, depending on their priorities.

Variety is more than adequate.

[leebase]

I'd say it's because Amazon has the US market locked up and doesn't allow other eInk devices to work with it's content. I think the ebook/book store tie up makes a lot of sense to Americans. So Amazon has it's kindle line, B&N came out with it's Nook, and Borders teamed up with...was it Kobo?

Anyhow, there just isn't a demand for a "buy a device from company A, shop around to various sources B,C,D FOR your content" in light of the excellent/subsidized pricing that Amazon launched with it's Kindle and ebooks.

Unfortunately, the book stores did not do nearly as good a job as Amazon.

So to launch an ebook reader is to also launch an ebook store that has to be able to compete with Amazon who willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells. Even Apple wouldn't touch the ebook market without the business model of Amazon being changed. And yeah, that turned out to be illegal.

So, there you have it. It's tough to foster new entrants into a market owned by a monopoly with the funds to use the product you hope to make money on as a loss leader for their other businesses.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by leebase

I'd say it's because Amazon has the US market locked up and doesn't allow other eInk devices to work with it's content.

Nope, it is the publishers and their insistence on DRM that do that. And it is every platform, not specifically Amazon.

So to launch an ebook reader is to also launch an ebook store that has to be able to compete with Amazon who willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells.

That false claim is often touted by BWM and Apple apologists as though it means something. Sadly, the Justice department proved it wrong.

Amazon has never lost money selling ebooks, and the loss-leaders have never AFAIK been "every popular book it sells".

Even Apple wouldn't touch the ebook market without the business model of Amazon being changed. And yeah, that turned out to be illegal.

No, just the way they went about it.

So, there you have it. It's tough to foster new entrants into a market owned by a monopoly with the funds to use the product you hope to make money on as a loss leader for their other businesses.

Amazon does not use ebooks as a loss-leader for other products -- where did you hear that from???

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leebase

So to launch an ebook reader is to also launch an ebook store that has to be able to compete with Amazon who willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells.

Do you have any evidence to support that extraordinary claim?

[Fat Abe]

Honestly, how much technology is contained in an e-ink display? Americans would rather devote their attention to biotech and microprocessors. We are world leaders in the first field. The second field is also a multibillion dollar U.S. industry, with many applications, including high speed computer architectures, digital signal processing, etc. There are very few new breakthroughs awaiting e-ink technologists that would motivate most people to ditch their existing readers.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

There are very few new breakthroughs awaiting e-ink technologists that would motivate most people to ditch their existing readers.

There's one very obvious one: a high-quality sunlight-readable colour display.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I wonder what innovation people want. Do that want the exciting buttons for turning pages? Would that be innovation. I want to read books. I can't imagine a big innovation that I want to pay for. I don't need color. I don't want a 8x10 inch screen and certainly wouldn't want to pay for one. I don't want sound since I have a cell phone that I can use for audiobooks. But, a bigger screen, page-turn buttons, and sound aren't innovations. They're things Kindles had and abandoned. Oh, the amazing innovation of a mechanical keyboard, perhaps.

I'm admittedly not a technically savvy as some so let me know what innovations we're waiting for.

But why assume that this generation is the pinnacle of ereaders, the perfect intersection of features and price? With every new generation of Kindles many people have said "Now, this is it, now it is perfect, everything I could ever want in an ereader", while others have said "Now they've gone too far, added things I don't want, taken away features I loved".

For me, adding the frontlight was the giant step forward, the feature that made me prefer reading on an e-ink ereader to reading on my phone.

My current favorite ereader is the Kobo Aura H2O but there are still features I'd like to have -- color (and more storage for the color images and covers), and wireless charging and data transfer to eliminate the need for the port cover.

Or possibly, if e-ink readers are to become obsolete, there could be tablets that are lightweight, have improved battery life and some sort of new screen with the best characteristics of both e-ink and LCD.

I'm only seventy-one; I expect to have many more new toys.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's one very obvious one: a high-quality sunlight-readable colour display.

Yes, that would do it. Although I must admit that if it came to a choice between a good but lower-res colour screen and a higher-res greyscale one, like the Triton 800x600 that becomes 1600x1200 greyscale without the colour layer, I'd still pick the greyscale one. For me, for an ereader, resolution beats colour until it gets into the region of 300 dpi or so; after that, it's pretty much gravy.

Not that Triton is good, mind, but you get the idea.

But yes, an LCD-quality colour Kobo H2O would have me flash my credit card faster than you could blink

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

There are very few new breakthroughs awaiting e-ink technologists that would motivate most people to ditch their existing readers.

How do you know that? We only know what we have currently tried or thought about.
Maybe more investment in eInk would find something completely new.

It may not be a breakthrough, but I'm still wondering why there is still no real foldable display.
eInk is foldable, isn't it? Why not make use of that. Make the screen as large or small as is currently useful.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

How do you know that? We only know what we have currently tried or thought about.
Maybe more investment in eInk would find something completely new.

It may not be a breakthrough, but I'm still wondering why there is still no real foldable display.
eInk is foldable, isn't it? Why not make use of that. Make the screen as large or small as is currently useful.

I forgot about that one! I'd love it to be foldable. Right now I have to switch from my H2O to my Aura when size/weight is an issue.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's one very obvious one: a high-quality sunlight-readable colour display.

You left out affordable. I seriously doubt I would pay the price for one. The books I read are in black and white. I have books with color photographs but they are also much larger than I'd want for an ereader and I'd probably keep the books.

[fratermus]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Because the US market doesn't want technological diversity. It wants integration. It wants innovation only if it comes in the form of an upgraded version of a device already in widespread use.

Exactly so.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Maybe more investment in eInk would find something completely new.

.

And...
...we've circled back to the beginning.
Eink is a niche technology.

Investment in a given technology is perforce proportional to its market size, current or projected.

Eink displays and the dedicated reading gadgets they go into are low-price low-volume devices. That is a bad combination for investment, especially in "revolutionary" developments. Throwing lots of money at a product that will sell cheaply in small quanties is a good way to turn "lots of money" into "not so much money".

The thing is, all display techs new and old are niche technologies these days, except LCD. If anybody is going to invest big money in new display tech, that money will go into refining LCD not into tiny markets. Small markets will attract small investments. Which is what Qualcomm and Amazon (american companies, both) are doing. Note that asian companies are investing in LCD and Oled and european companies... well, their biggest investgents are in dual use aerospace like Galileo.

As it stands, Amazon is working on a dual layer Liquavista display that overlays medium resolution color layer atop a high resolution grayscale layer. So those that want an outdoor readable color ereader may be getting one soon... if they can stomach buying from amazon.

Finally, there already exists a low-power, fast and highly saturated, outdoors readable tech that is not too expensive to deploy. All the support electronics are widely available, too. No expensive investment needed. Several asian manufacturers stand ready to deliver screens as soon as they receive enough orders to ramp up the production line.
Vendors are not standing in line to use it.

The tech is 15-year old Transflective LCD.
Widely used in Pocket PCs and industrial tablets and instrumentation.

And vendors are not standing in line to use it because they don't see a big enough market to throw money at it. Even the companies that have money to throw.

Just because we can conceive of a cool feature or product we'd like to have doesn't mean there are enough of us that would pay a fair price to get it.

Look at Kickstarter and other crowdfunding services to see how those usually play out. Everybody hears about the success stories like the Pebbles watches but more typical are the Earls or the outright failures that never get funded.

Wanting is not getting.
Not when you live in a niche.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

How do you know that? We only know what we have currently tried or thought about.
Maybe more investment in eInk would find something completely new.

It may not be a breakthrough, but I'm still wondering why there is still no real foldable display.
eInk is foldable, isn't it? Why not make use of that. Make the screen as large or small as is currently useful.

Originally Posted by disconnected

I forgot about that one! I'd love it to be foldable. Right now I have to switch from my H2O to my Aura when size/weight is an issue.

Or they could give us unbreakable substrates and screens.

http://m.phys.org/news/2015-04-appli...l-ceramic.html

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's one very obvious one: a high-quality sunlight-readable colour display.

That would be the big game-changer, that and a truly flexible paper-like e-ink display. But I've seen no hint nor sign of the current tech approaching either.