So you have a ebook device. When will you upgrade?

[NatCh]

Huh. I don't remember having that happen with RTFs either.... but it has been a while since I loaded one.

[VillageReader]

I'm hoping to get 5 years out of the Iliad (year one is nearly gone). Things are changing quickly, though, so it is hard to say. Also, other factors (screen contrast for one) could drive an earlier decision. I like the size of the Iliad. If something were available in that size, more battery life, color, faster screen turn, & some web capability (even if limited) an earlier upgrade might be in order, particularly if volume starts driving the price down.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Personally, I'd want:

• 4x6" screen, EXPANDABLE to 7x10"
• color screen
• 300dpi minimum
• enough internal memory to hold hundreds of graphic novels, in full color at 300dpi, as well as hundreds of books
• XML-based text system, not proprietary
• wireless web access
• included solar recharger
• hand-winding or pump recharger
• $250 or less

And as a peripheral, I'd want a fast color scanner, to get all those comics and GNs from my collection in there!

(Now you know why I still read e-books on my PDA.)

[Xenophon]

My top issues with the Sony reader match up almost exactly with the features that would get me to upgrade. Imagine that!

1. Higher screen resolution. I'd like at least double the resolution of the Sony Reader. 4x would be better. Sony reader is ~180DPI. I want 360. Or 720DPI. Or... (More. More! I'm still not satisfied!)
2. Better physical ergonomics. I'm certain that the people who designed the Sony Reader never tried reading from it for hours at a time. After a few hundred page presses, those teeny-weeny sharp-edged buttons are a true pain in the fingers! And the buttons are poorly placed for many users. AND it can't easily be rotated for use in the other hand. And... They should learn from the RCA 1100 device, which was ergonomically great (but lousy screen, and orphaned).
3. Faster screen update with higher contrast. 10x on both would be great! 2x on both would be enough to get my attention.
4. Better support for large libraries. I want to be able to find a specific book without paging through 50 to 100 pages of titles. At a minimum of 1 second per page. Yuck!
5. A somewhat larger screen would be nice. It's not critical though.
6. Faster connectivity for moving books. It takes a while to move 1GB of books at USB 1.1 speeds.
7. Built-in lighting (defaulted to OFF, so I only pay a battery penalty when I use it). A built-in Light-wedge equivalent would be lovely! It would both provide lighting for night-time use AND protect the eInk display. A win-win feature.

Some things I really don't care much about: Color. Much larger screen (at least, not for use with reading fiction -- for professional use, I'd want an 8.5x11" display so I could use other peoples .pdf files without having to re-format). Playing music? eh. If I want that I'll use an iPod. Wireless connectivity (not a big deal, although bluetooth would be cool for moving books around).

Anyway... Fix both of the top two issues (or four of the top seven) -- and price it under $500 -- and I'll jump on it in a heartbeat!

Of course, I would insist on being able to use it with my existing library of non-DRM books (all legal!). And to manage it with my Mac. Without those two it is a complete non-starter.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

When I started considering a dedicated reader, I realized that I wanted a lot more than just books in there.

I have a big library of magazines, comic books and graphic novels, many of which are boxed because I have no place to put them out (translation: My wife won't let me cover the house with bookcases!). And over the years, I've lost material to damage during storage, or just plain decay. So I would KILL to be able to get all that into a reader (or at least, stored electronically for easy porting into a reader on demand). And it must be color, and 300-600dpi quality, to be workable for graphic novels and comics.

Unfortunately, I realize that that desire has made me a pretty tough customer to satisfy. With a wish list like that, I may not see a reader in my future for quite some time!

[yvanleterrible]

There is a tacitus rule in collecting that goes for any mediae. It's that for every currency unit you spend on your hard acquired loot, you must spend the equivalent on organizing and storage.

Since Asia took most furniture markets a couple of years back, I've had to divert towards custom media storage. In doing so I've encountered the same story over and over. People having part of their collections harmed or destroyed until they think of doing something about it.

Advice: Always have an empty or partially empty shelf ahead of time. That will save you quite a bit of trauma. A boxfull of moldy paper is no pretty sight. So is a box of crunched CDs...

Coming to think of it, a burned drive is no better! Backup, boys! When's the last time you did?

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

When I started considering a dedicated reader, I realized that I wanted a lot more than just books in there.

I have a big library of magazines, comic books and graphic novels, many of which are boxed because I have no place to put them out (translation: My wife won't let me cover the house with bookcases!). And over the years, I've lost material to damage during storage, or just plain decay. So I would KILL to be able to get all that into a reader (or at least, stored electronically for easy porting into a reader on demand). And it must be color, and 300-600dpi quality, to be workable for graphic novels and comics.

Unfortunately, I realize that that desire has made me a pretty tough customer to satisfy. With a wish list like that, I may not see a reader in my future for quite some time!

While you're waiting, you could start with scanning all your stuff. In this case you will at lease have some kind of a back up when something gets lost again. And when the device does arrive, you will have the files all ready to go

[mogui]

Many people have wished for an A4 display rolling out from a pocket device. As electronics shrink, the screen will be the limiting factor. Can anyone envision a screen that folds in two directions without wrinkling? Then once we unfold it (e.g. 2"x3" unfolds to 8"x10") does it have fold marks? There are probably materials that will accommodate folding in two directions, but can we make screens out of them? Then we have the problem of how to hold the flexscreen flat while it is unfurled. It is enough to give a mechanical engineer bad dreams.

The PicoP projector is a small laser projector that can fit in a pocket device like a cell phone or, uh, a reader. It would project a perfectly focused screen image onto many different surfaces at a range of distances. But we have a similar problem. How do we keep the screen image from joggling about as we hold the reader?

I can envision a projector mounted on the headboard of the bed and projecting onto the ceiling. But the projector must be fixed. Maybe the reader is a device that looks like a pocket-sized game console and has a wireless connection to the projector. Maybe it has a small screen for reading when the projector is not available or when it is not practical to use a projection surface from which to read.

My masculine intuition tells me that when somebody markets a reader with a larger screen it will not be a flexscreen. It will either be fixed in size or contain a projector. The flexscreen will be limited to unfurling in one dimension and so will be limited in height or width to pocket size.

A really good solution to the big screen problem would capture some of my money.

[kovidgoyal]

I remember watching/reading about this technology for directly painting images on the retina using lasers...sounds scary but if it worked it would be the perfect solution.

[mogui]

In Hawkins' book On Intelligence, he talks about how adaptable the brain is in terms of pattern recognition. He mentions a technology that puts patterns of vibrating nodes on the palate. In a short (?) time the brain learns to recognize the patterns as images. Something close to this might give is an auxiliary neural input that, by training, we can optimize for reading.

Imagine a reader you put in your mouth!

Edit: I tried to track this down. There is a technology for enhancing speech recognition called "Tadoma". In following leads regarding a visual-tactile input display I found this article (PDF warning) which describes two way tactile communication using the tongue and palate. It has pictures too. Here is a good (but long) article on this technology. If you have had the urge to put electronic devices in your mouth, you might be interested in a couple of articles on electropalatography: here and here.

[HarryT]

One of my friends has a gadget for his Pocket PC which projects a laser image of a keyboard onto a desk and detects "typing" on the image. It works amazingly well!

[astra]

Are you kidding or have you really seen you?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mogui

Can anyone envision a screen that folds in two directions without wrinkling? Then once we unfold it (e.g. 2"x3" unfolds to 8"x10") does it have fold marks? There are probably materials that will accommodate folding in two directions, but can we make screens out of them? Then we have the problem of how to hold the flexscreen flat while it is unfurled. It is enough to give a mechanical engineer bad dreams.

That one had occurred to me, too. But I think the folding aspect would be its downfall. The best you could do would be to create a very thin hinge at the fold, but I can't imagine it not being visible, and bisecting your images.

An idea that occurred to me afterward, was a series of screen-layers, one atop the other, that could be selectively slid outward. Imagine a set of four playing cards: At default, they are piled on each other, and create a screen the size of one card. Now, slide one over until the edges touch, and you have a screen the size of 2 cards. Now slide two up, and one of those two over... you have a 4-card-sized screen. This would hopefully give you a hinge-less surface, or at least, eliminate the concern for folds.

I've also imagines various forms of hinged arms that would stretch the screen between the hardware and the arm... the act of folding the arm outward would pull the screen to a larger size, potentially doubling its surface. This could either pull on a flexible screen, or sliding screens (like the cards described above).

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Are you kidding or have you really seen you?

I've seen such a device on a gadget show on cable. I think they retail for about $300.

Ah, here's a link.

[astra]

WOW!!!