05:08 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Everyone is working on flexible paper-like displays these days, and this also includes Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone. The company hit the newswire today with an updated version of their quick-response liquid-powder display (QR-LPD) technology. According to Tech-On, the latest version is twice as bright as earlier prototypes thanks to special color filters developed exclusively for e-paper.

Bridgestone intends to expand its product lines and reinforce the supply system in order to start full-fledged e-paper business. To satisfy diversified needs, the company has prepared four types of monochrome models with sizes including A7, A5, A4 and A3 for evaluation. Three models with sizes of A7, A5, and A4 are on display at the SID exhibition.

Despite what the photos suggest, Bridgestone's current e-paper (which can be as thin as thin as 290 µm) is still black and white, with the possibility to add tints of color to partial areas of the screen. Full color is on the roadmap, but not before 2008 (Heise).

Related: Hitachi surprises with Albirey e-paper display, Hitachi joins the league of e-paper manufacturers

03:54 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Prime View International (PVI) joins the e-paper news craze by announcing what they claim to be the first flexible active matrix (AM) electrophoretic display made in a volume TFT fab. Sure, it's probably not the first "break-through" story we've heard of in the past few months, though let's not forget that PVI has a proven track record as the world's current sole OEM provider of E Ink panels.

PVI has demonstrated diagonal 9.7”, 6” and 1.9” AM electrophoretic displays. These flexible displays are based on PVI’s proprietary MagicMirror® Reflective Technology as well as the EPLaR process, developed by Philips Research, and for which PVI currently has an exclusive license. The MagicMirror® technology provides extremely efficient and high quality reflective TFT backplane manufacturing, while the EPLaR process allows most PVI’s proprietary a-Si TFT and module processes to be used for making flexible e-paper displays.

Features:

• based on PVI’s MagicMirror Reflective Technology and the EPLaR process developed by Philips Research
• uses PVI's proprietary a-Si TFT and ePaper module process
• enables volume production in the near term
• light, slim, unbreakable, "easy to handle" plastic displays

Thanks to Ebook lover and Jason for the hint!

11:21 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Until now e-paper technology has been as slow as a tortoise when it comes to updating the content of a screen. No good, thought the guys at E Ink Corp., and they came up with a plan to accelerate e-paper to video-switching speeds. The first results are being presented at the SID 2007 exhibit:

"Our research team is demonstrating here an ultra-bright ink that is approaching 50 percent reflectance of ambient light compared to 35 percent in shipping monochrome products," said Dr. Michael McCreary, vice president of Research and Advanced Development at E Ink. "Moreover, the advanced ink is capable of high switching speeds. We have put it all together and today we are unveiling our first-ever color research prototype that can play smooth color video."

Before you get too excited, keep in mind that the press (and that includes us) loves to write about new e-paper technologies as if they'll become available next month. Alas, according to E Ink, it may still require several years for e-paper with video switching capability to reach the market.

PS: E Ink also gave iRex Founder Dr. Alex Henzen an award "in recognition of his contributions to the development of electrophoretic displays and the integration of these displays into an innovative electronic-book product" for his work on the iLiad e-book reader.

04:40 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

There has been a new flurry of activity in the "Can technology replace paper" wars. How many different ways will we see it played out?

* Will the PDA replace paper and pencil?
* Are e-books better than paper? Will they replace paper books?
* Is a Tablet PC the door to real paperless offices?
* Can UMPCs finally replace the paper notepad?

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm fascinated with UMPCs, and that I believe I can benefit greatly from them, and that I am aching to get one as soon as I find one that justifies paying the price. But while technology answers do provide some significant benefits, it's not going to replace paper anytime soon, even for me.

So what is the new topic? With the rise of the UMPC, people are asking the following much more modest question: How much will I reach for my UMPC instead of paper? Here are some example thoughts recently shared - I grab my UMPC if I don't have to undock it, I used my UMPC because I couldn't find pen and paper, Can't beat pen and paper.

But maybe the point is that paper is a great tool in conjuction with a UMPC. In fact, I remember reading in the last day or two someone sharing that very point - it's not an either/or proposition. You see, the advantages of writing on a tablet have to do with using them after the input, not making them easier to write in the first place. You get to keep all the notes together in a small device, more easily file them and even do searching (e.g. with One Note).

So what kind of hybrid technology could merge the best of both worlds. You don't have to look any further than the example set with business cards. Neil over at PDA247 asked whether anyone actually beams business information instead of using business cards. Most of the answers seem to be "no", even in a pda forum! But I have seen people scan cards.

Now imagine if you write your notes on a notepad, but had an easy way to scan them into your UMPC so they can be integrated with the rest of your notes and information. The biggest problem is that you have to direct the notes to the right place, i.e. you have to do filing sort of like you would for paper that gets filed. If one could adopt a routine of electronic filing of scanned notes, you get all the benefits of tablet note taking, but the easy of writing on paper.

Is that a practical solution? Will there ever be a convenient paper scanner on the side of a UMPC, or that maybe even uses the screen surface somehow? I don't know. But it seems to me that it might be a great solution until our desks have screens and scanners built into them like the research desk at Microsoft that was demonstrated recently. (Sorry, you'll have to google for that video because I don't have the link.)

But for now, one thing is clear - paper is still the champion.

12:33 PM by NatCh in E-Book General | News

Should Software be Protected by Patent, or by Copyright?

I came across a column in the Manilla Standard Today discussing the relationship between Software and Patents vs. Copyrights. It's focused on encouraging resistance to allowing software patents in the Philippines, but I found it intriguing.

The writer, a fellow named Chin Wong, has some interesting and intelligent (a rare combination) things to say about that relationship, things I hadn't considered before. So I thought I'd drag it out in the middle here, and see what the rest of you think of the matter. You can find the full article here, as your interest leads you, but here are a few of the points I found most interesting.

Under a patent system, inventors could enjoy the fruits of their discoveries exclusively for a limited number of years in exchange for sharing details of their inventions with the rest of the world. This system, so the argument goes, encouraged inventors by giving them a time-limited monopoly but also guaranteed that others could eventually be able to build on and improve those inventions.

I found this interesting because a very similar point often crops up in our various discussions of copyright. Except here, the idea was to encourage technological innovation rather than cultural and ideological innovation.

Mr. Wong points out that this approach works well when the thing being patented has a lot of R&D time and money behind it, allowing the innovator to recoup his investment, during a period where he's protected from those who can copy the design far more inexpensively then actually developing it ever was. And while it occurs to me that something like an OS, or an involved application or game does have that sort of long, costly R&D and testing period (with the possible exceptions of new Microsoft OS's, of course), he points out that this isn't what software patents are being actually granted for:

Yet today, patents are being granted for commonplace notions such as selling goods online; electronic shopping carts; video distribution over the Web; credit-card payments on the Internet; and video streaming. None of these qualify as major innovations requiring state protection, so why give any one party monopoly rights over them?

Software has traditionally been protected by copyrights, which prevent others from copying a program’s underlying code. But software patents are much more restrictive and prevent all similar work from taking place, even if it is developed independently. Common sense tells us this does not encourage but inhibits innovation.

The article is relatively brief, and the bulk of it consists of a rather amusingly done supporting example Microsoft trying to enforce patent rights on a look and feel that was essentially copied (not to say 'pirated'), in turn, from both Xerox and Apple (who failed at suing Microsoft over more or less the same claims some years back). It got me thinking, more than anything, to what extent is software technology? To what extent is appearance function?

In some cases, form and function are largely the same thing, a scroll bar, for instance, is a scroll bar. There are only so many ways a scroll bar can be made to look, and still perform the function. Yes, it's really clever, and terribly useful, but is it really something that warrants a full-blown patent?

Is there a separate patent on the scroll wheel? That would be an interesting thing to know.

Anyway, I've found I learn far more around here from listening than I do from talking, so I'll close by asking again: what do the rest of you think on the subject?

12:56 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We are delighted to honor Astraware for winning an award from the UK government as a Passport Exporter of the Year. As the story picture shows, this was awarded at a black tie event, and is quite a big accomplishment for a mobile software company.

According to the team blog, "The reason we were there is that we take part in the UKTI's Passport to Export scheme, which is designed to help companies that are looking to expand into new international markets. It has allowed us to look at new business partners in the US, and also to go and investigate Australia and the Far East and see what prospects are there..." Well done!

And just for fun, here's a top ten lists of products sold at their site:
1. Astraware Soduku
2. Bejewled 2
3. Bejewled
4. Zap!2000/2016
5. Zuma
6. Chuzzle
7. Text Twist
8. My Little Tank
9. Crazy Daisy
10. Cubis

I bet almost every Palm owner has been addicted to Bejeweled at one time or the other!

Thanks to Alison at Astraware for sharing the news.

07:38 AM by HarryT in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

We now have quite a number of "Sony Reader" books available for download from the Reader Book Uploads sub-forum, and it may be reaching the stage where people find it a little difficult to see what's there.

To help people see what's available to download, I've added an Index of Downloadable Books sticky thread to the forum, which lists all the available books, sorted by author. I'll keep this updated to reflect new uploads, at least on a weekly basis (holidays, etc, permitting!).

If you spot anything missing from the list, please add it in a message at the end of the thread - I'll make the changes, and then delete your message.

Sorry - the items in this index are not hyperlinks to the appropriate threads. It would be a lot better if they were, I know, but I'm afraid it's just way too much work to make them all into hyperlinks. If anyone knows of any way to automate the process, I'd love to know .

As a matter of interest, as of this moment we have 177 files available for download. That corresponds to at least double that number of individual books, because many of the uploads are anthologies and omnibus volumes, containing several books.

I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed to the Book Upload area. It's really "taking off" now, with lots of people contributing, and there's lots of great stuff there. My only problem now is that I don't have nearly enough time to read all the books that I now want to .

Anyway, I hope that people find this "index" a useful facility.

06:47 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Formats | Workshop

I don't know anything about this software, but CoolUtil's Total HTML Converter is free today only at Giveaway of the day.

Here's the description:
"A most efficient yet easy-to-use utility that converts html files to doc, pdf, xls, jpg, or txt files. The most difficult thing is to decide what format you need. Everything else is quite easy. You just select the files and the target format, then press Ok. HTML Converter will do the rest for you. Converting doesn’t have to be timetaking."

With all the great free software that people have developed, I'm not sure if this complements the others or is just duplication, but there it is if you are interested. If anyone tries it, let us know what you think.