Video: 20-minute Interview with Eink at IFA 2011

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by din155

thanx a lot Charbax. Very interesting, just wondering when are we going to see these color Eink devices.

The Jetbook Color is available but only for educational institutions. Hopefully it will hit mass market soon!

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Papi

ok still I find it weird that only iRiver came up with a higher resolution display. Maybe the others are waiting for the next generation of controllers for even higher resolution.

The Pocketbook 360+, Pocketbook's second 200 dpi 5" display has been out for months before the iRiver HD. The Pocketbook 360 has been out for a couple of years.

There is also a 5" 200 dpi Sony that has been out for a while.

There is a Chinese reader with an approximately 10" 200 dpi display that is supposedly available in China now and about to be available elsewhere.

iRiver is nowhere near the first.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

If I understand mister Peruvemba correctly, a 300 dpi reader would have a lower contrast than a 167 dpi reader, just like we recently observed that the iriver 200 dpi reader has a slightly lower contrast than the Kindle 3. Or can we expect some progress on the contrast front ?

As a general rule, higher dpi will give lower contrast, but the 200 dpi Pocketbook 360 has better contrast than the 167 dpi Kindle 2. Both have non-Pearl Vizplex displays. The Pearl screen on the 167 dpi Kindle 3 is a bit better than the Pocketbook display.

So 300 dpi might have less contrast, but it might be good enough. It might be worth it to trade some contrast for resolution. It will be very interesting to see. 200 to 300 is a much bigger step than 167 to 200.

[Barty]

What I want more than higher dpi is a white backplane. Hate that grayish thing.

[cHex]

I loved that video! For those that didn't take the time to watch it, some highlights:

• A 7" display with 800x600 pixels has "dozens" of microspheres per pixel--imagine what resolution COULD be achieved!
• E-ink draws such low power that batteries can be recharged by RF (radio frequency)
• The color screens (Triton) are the same as monochrome, with an added layer that (a) filters colors on a RGB basis, and (b) draws virtually no power, so (1) color devices last about as long, battery-wise, and (2) color devices are easy to read (in fact, better to read) in bright sunlight.
• With most of their current sales going to leisure reading devices, they are targetting textbook reading devices next.
• The thickness and weight of e-readers is a function of protecting the glass backing of e-ink screens; when people start manufacturing plastic-backed screens, this can drop significantly.

Good stuff, thanks!

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by cHex

I loved that video! For those that didn't take the time to watch it, some highlights:

• E-ink draws such low power that batteries can be recharged by RF (radio frequency)
  
  
• The thickness and weight of e-readers is a function of protecting the glass backing of e-ink screens; when people start manufacturing plastic-backed screens, this can drop significantly.

Good stuff, thanks!

I Also noted that bit about RF recharging, Im trying to find out which device is doing that.


The thickness descriptions are always incredible to me. right now b&w displays are less than half as thick as lcds because of only one glass layer. plastic will get rid of that leaving it about 1/4 as thick or less.

but he said Triton is actually only about half as thick as Pearl so that would make a Triton plastic backed display 1/8 the thickness of an lcd.


And you saw the CC. I've seen that in person. Blows me away that there is a logic circuit, display rfid chip and battery that will last for over two years in there and the card is really no thicker than a regular CC

[cHex]

My impression was that the battery in the credit card/smart card was the type that might be recharged via RF.

Also, while the Triton is half the thickness of the B&W Pearl e-ink (100 microns vs. 200 microns), I believe the more significant thickness is the backing, glass or plastic. So going from grayscale to color, with backing, will not make a 25% reduction in width.

[Lbooker]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

As a general rule, higher dpi will give lower contrast, but the 200 dpi Pocketbook 360 has better contrast than the 167 dpi Kindle 2. Both have non-Pearl Vizplex displays. The Pearl screen on the 167 dpi Kindle 3 is a bit better than the Pocketbook display.

So 300 dpi might have less contrast, but it might be good enough. It might be worth it to trade some contrast for resolution. It will be very interesting to see. 200 to 300 is a much bigger step than 167 to 200.

I would prefer an improved contrast. I think that in the video mister E-ink exagerates when he claims that Pearl is better than the average paperback, and that Vizplex is better than a newspaper. I noted that he does not promise hardback quality in the future.
Charbax is too tender when faced with marketing talk. A real journalist would try to be critical once in a while to maintain some credibility. Instead, he is perpetually as enthusiastic and fanatic as a child in Disneyland, whatever the product.
Anyway, the bad news is that E-ink faces the same physics limitation as the manufacturers of camera sensors.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by thinkpad

The best video I've seen in a long time. Very informative. Couldn't help to note that he said that the color e-ink screen (Triton) already is shipping to there plants for mass productions (11:05 into the movie)

Originally Posted by Joseph R

The Jetbook Color is available but only for educational institutions. Hopefully it will hit mass market soon!

Jetbook Colour does look very interesting — colour 9.7" display. I don't know if it's actually shipping yet.

Earlier reports said only a 600x800 pixel display, but their own web site says 1200x1600. Oh - I wonder if they're being very sneaky and giving the sub-pixel resolution instead of the colour pixel resolution. Given than I haven't heard of any black and white eInk displays above 200dpi, that would make sense of the numbers.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Earlier reports said only a 600x800 pixel display, but their own web site says 1200x1600. Oh - I wonder if they're being very sneaky and giving the sub-pixel resolution instead of the colour pixel resolution. Given than I haven't heard of any black and white eInk displays above 200dpi, that would make sense of the numbers.

That site doesn't look familiar, but a few days or weeks ago, there was mention of a 9.7" 600x800 color reader. I went to that site, and it was reasonably clear that there were two models. One 1200x1600 B&W and one 600x800 color.

[Lbooker]

Which means that in his interview, mister E-Ink forgot to tell us that the color filters lowered the contrast so much that they had to make the pixels larger, thus lowering the resolution. No wonder the new Sony reader offers no real improvement over last year's model : E-ink is in a dead-end.

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

That site doesn't look familiar, but a few days or weeks ago, there was mention of a 9.7" 600x800 color reader. I went to that site, and it was reasonably clear that there were two models. One 1200x1600 B&W and one 600x800 color.

From the official site:

"The jetBook Color is the only device in the world to use the extremely safe and eye friendly technology of Color e-Ink. The 9.68" PVI EPD screen with a display resolution of 1600 (H) * 1200 (W) is exceptionally crisp, clear, and fast. The touch panel uses Electromagnetic Resonance Technology which allows students and teachers to freely ..."

Where you talking about this one article?

But at 350$, it will be hard to aim at the general public, but it can find a niche amongst academics, engineer or scientist. the advantage of Eink display will be its resistance to shook and scratching, as demonstrated on the video, which makes it a good work tool over a tablet, laptop or anything else with a glass display(yes, even 3M's "Gorilla" Glass).

[Papi]

? As far as I understand, each color "pixel" is really composed of 4 monochrome pixels so 1200*1600 monochrome = 800*600*4 subpixels color

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

Which means that in his interview, mister E-Ink forgot to tell us that the color filters lowered the contrast so much that they had to make the pixels larger, thus lowering the resolution. No wonder the new Sony reader offers no real improvement over last year's model : E-ink is in a dead-end.

No, it is only a beginning for colour E ink. It is not meant to replace mass market LCD display; the refreshing rate being too slow for video but it can find a market amongst the workplace as the display is what of flexible plastic instead of glass. Resolution is not a big thing when it comes to reading books.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Joseph R

Resolution is not a big thing when it comes to reading books.

It might be a quirk of mine, but I would gladly trade various slab fonts and "display" varieties for good old fashioned serif favourites used in pbooks.