Monday, July 10, 2006

e-reader is out

For those who do research on macroelectronics, the e-reader has been a long awaited product. Will it really be as good as a printed book?

Note added on 11 July 2006. See also 5 new design concepts of flexible displays.

2 Comments:

At 7/10/2006 8:56 PM, Blogger Teng Li said...

In the past several years, e-reader (or e-paper) has drawn lots of research efforts from both academia and industry. As a result, significant progresses in its enabling technology and product commercialization have been made.

The first e-reader product, Sony Librie became available in Japan in March 2004 (a similar product targeted in US market was released recently). The iRex iLiad offers better resolution (1024x768 pixels) and larger screen, compared to Sony Librie. In the recent SID2006 international symposium, Seiko Epson Corp.announced the development of an A6-size (7.1 inches on the diagonal), 0.47 mm thick electronic paper, with Quad-XGA resolution (1536 x 2048 pixels).

While the resolution is under constant improvement, the current e-readers are all greyscaled. Also the image is often distorted when the e-reader is bent or twisted. Recent efforts by Bridgestone (yes, the tire company) start to address these issues. Promising future ahead, E-readers still has a long way to go (technology, price...) before prevailing printed books.

 
At 7/11/2006 5:07 AM, Blogger Zhigang Suo said...

Dear Teng:

Many thanks for all the information. Michael Suo found this product announcement yesterday and has been persuading me to buy it. I'm thinking...

 

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