Odds of Sony Staying in the Ebook Business?

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Robertb

Dear Eowyn:

There are numerous good eBook strores for US publishers...

Yes, now read what he actually said. The agency cartel's idioticy means that some books are now legally available only from one or a very few stores, in this case Sony....

[MikeFromHC]

Originally Posted by Robertb

Dear dmaul:
E-Ink gives you weeks of battery charge life, no eye strain, can be left on for weeks with no drain of power, and reads perfectly in bright sunlight but is awful in the dark..

All true but I couldn't sleep last night. (What, you want more?)

So I "solved" one of the problems with eInk. I gave it a rapid refresh rate.
30 FPS, fully capable of watching a video.

7000 page turns at 30 turns per second = 233 seconds, round up to 240.
Today's eReader could show about four minutes of video.

I don't believe the physics of the device will allow it but even if it used ten times less power, 40 minutes would be about the maximum.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by MikeFromHC

All true but I couldn't sleep last night. (What, you want more?)

So I "solved" one of the problems with eInk. I gave it a rapid refresh rate.
30 FPS, fully capable of watching a video.

7000 page turns at 30 turns per second = 233 seconds, round up to 240.
Today's eReader could show about four minutes of video.

I don't believe the physics of the device will allow it but even if it used ten times less power, 40 minutes would be about the maximum.

Nice drill.
Of course, you realize that you are assuming that the video-capable device would be fitted with the same dirt-cheap tiny battery now used in the text-only readers, right?

Next time your insomnia kicks in, compare the size, price, and capacity of a typical ebook reader battery (say, a Hanlin V3) and compare it to the battery in a typical netbook. You might find out why you only get 4 minutes of video.
(You might also want to see how much video-processing power you can get out of a dinky 200MHz ARM processor with 64MB of RAM.)

Conversely, you'll find that the fact that such a tiny, cheap battery can deliver weeks of reading is *precisely* why eink is so useful a technology.

eBook readers are devices optimized for reading. They are built with components that do the needed job as cheaply and as efficiently as possible.
Check this: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/22/i...net-says-shhh/
It's 18 months old, but it shows just how cheap most ebook reader components are.

Regardless of what fans of sporks and multi-function devices may think, ebook readers are not crippled media players or PDAs or webpads.

They are reading devices; they are designed to do one job and one job only so they are built with components that are adequate to their mission, regardless of whether they would be equal to other missions: the CPUs they use are only as powerful as needed to decrypt ebooks. The batteries are only as big as needed to drive the super-efficient bi-state eink displays and the CPUs. On some designs, the CPU is in sleep mode most of the time and only wakes up *after* the page turn button is pressed. If the same device were built with LCD panels, which draw power constantly, battery size (and weight) would go up or usage time would go down. (Even the best LCD-based readers get 20-40 hours of usage, vs weeks with eink.)

Its a nice exercise you did, but frankly, meaningless; you might as well complain that a SMART car can't tow a trailer like a RAM truck. It's true, it can't. But its not designed to do it, in the first place. That's not why it exists.

When it comes to ebook readers, we're approaching a fork in the road that will make things clearer; by next year there *will* be eReaders that can do color and video. And there will still be b&w readers that don't. The former will sell for hundreds of dollars, the latter will sell for less than $100. The latter will keep on going down in price until they show up on blister packs in pharmacies and supermarkets.

Both will do well.
It's not a zero-sum game.

One size does not fit all; there is room in the market for both gold-plated sporks and plastic spoons, iPads and webpads and netbooks and eink readers. Which is good; it allows for choice. Those that want a do all multifunction device can get one. Those that just want an ebook reader can get one.

And some of us might actually get one of each.

[MikeFromHC]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Nice drill.
Of course, you realize that you are assuming that the video-capable device would be fitted with the same dirt-cheap tiny battery now used in the text-only readers, right?

A less powerful battery in most cell phones will stream video for quite a while.
However the intent was to show that eInk is not and almost certainly will never be suitable for anything but a dedicated reader.

When it comes to ebook readers, we're approaching a fork in the road that will make things clearer; ...
One size does not fit all; there is room in the market for both gold-plated sporks and plastic spoons....

In the short term I agree with what you say, but the long term may find not enough demand for an e-ink based reader.

While it is true that you can find cell phones that only work as a telephone and have B&W screens, they are very rare and getting harder to find.
In the not to distant past the dedicated word processors (Displaywrite et all), essentially disappeared long before most PC based systems caught up with their power. They were not versatile enough. Some people may indeed want to carry two or three devices when one will do but that will be a small minority and may not support the industry.
E-ink as it exists today will never show video and the power requirements will always be high.
LCD displays as they exist today can show considerable reduction in power requirements according to Jepson. Her method of using existing infrastructure points to the idea that the pixel qi screen costs less than an existing eInk screen even at this stage of the game.


I think that the price difference between the gold plated sporks and the plastic spoons will be small and people will go for the gold.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by MikeFromHC

However the intent was to show that eInk is not and almost certainly will never be suitable for anything but a dedicated reader.

Thanks for reminding me of Clarke's first law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's first law

Never is a very long time.

I'm thinking that the folks at eInk (nee PVI) are working very hard to debate that conclusion. Leaving aside the various signage applications (http://www.motiondisplay.com/) and the existing eInk watches (http://www.seikowatches.com/press/20...ls1003-06.html and http://www.google.com/images?q=seiko...ed=0CDYQsAQwAw) which already prove your assessment overly broad, there is the fact that there is a lot of research going on to produce fast, high-saturation, color bi-modal displays. What was true last year is not true this year and won't be true in the future.

LCD is king of the hill now but there are physical limits to what its light-valve approach can achieve in terms of energy efficiency and saturation. Sooner or later, it's reign will end. Maybe at the hands of eInk, maybe at the hands of quantum dot displays, maybe something else.

Check this:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/h...-of-the-future

I rather like the concept of the electrofluidic displays, myself.

If anything, LCD provides a nice fat target because of its reliance on glass substrates, polarization, *and* backlighting. With incremental tweaks it'll be around a long time but a long time isn't forever.
My guess? A decade.
And whatever replaces it *will* be more like eInk than LCD.
Toodles!

[J. Strnad]

I think you're missing the point of a bistable display. The value lies in the fact that it uses no power when it isn't changing. That's what makes it desireable for ebooks and signage...things that stay the same more than they change.

Video is constantly changing, so where's the advantage in using a bistable display? Is it only to graft on a function that it isn't designed for, to make the dog walk on two legs?

Doesn't it make more sense to concentrate on doing what e-ink does well and making it better at that, rather than trying to make the bear roller skate?

[Mary McDonald]

Wow, I hadn't thought about Sony's e-reader in a long time, but just read this thread today, and not an hour later, came across a blog that said that Sony was lowering their prices. I'll go dig up the link.

http://www.tabletpcreview.com/defaul...+daily+edition