[IP] Library without books
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:59:24 +0100
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Dave:
Just in case you haven't already leaned about this and put your order in:
From today's Guardian
Library without books
Would you read a novel on this six-inch screen? Sony want us to shun the
printed page for downloaded text. J Mark Lytle reports
Thursday April 22, 2004
The Guardian
Sony's Yoshitaka Ukita is passionate about his work and, as general
manager of the electronics giant's ebook business department in Japan, he
has every reason to be a fervent believer in the brave new world he's
planning to bring to the Japanese public. The latest development in
Ukita's division is arguably the first successful attempt at a proper
electronic book with a display that approximates the look of traditional
paper. The ebook reader (the Librie EBR-1000EP) launches in Japan on
Saturday, and we met with Sony in Tokyo for a sneak preview.
Whisper it quietly, but first impressions of the Ç41,790 (£220) Librie are
that it looks a little dowdy. Its grey plastic case is vaguely reminiscent
of an old-school PDA, albeit a slim one. Any disappointment vanishes the
instant Ukita flips the power switch to bring his baby to life.
The quality of the display will come as quite a shock to any seasoned user
of mobile devices; it looks more like paper than the computer screen it
is. The closest comparison is to think of old-fashioned ink on pulp you're
likely holding now, unless you're reading this online, in which case the
LibriË looks far better.
In fact, as it's a reflective screen, it looks the same whether you read
it indoors or out. At power-up, the Librie presents the ubiquitous
Japanese cartoon character to guide you through the electronic library.
The mascot is called Libro, after Ukita's three-year-old miniature
Schnauzer, whom he acquired in 2001 just as the ebook project was getting
off the ground.
....
After flipping a few virtual pages on his ebook version of Natsume
Soseki's classic Botchan, Ukita spends a good 15 minutes explaining just
how the crisp ink-like look is achieved. The end product is the result of
three years of work on the part of Toppan Printing, Philips, Sony and E
Ink Corporation. The display is based on tiny 40-micron diameter
microcapsules, which contain dozens of oppositely charged black and white
particles suspended in an oil solution.
Electromagnetic fields dictate whether black, white or a combination of
both are drawn to the surface of each capsule to render the desired shades
- the smallest picture element is the particle, rather than the
microcapsule. The finer the degree of control over the fields, the crisper
the possible onscreen image. Achieving that control was one of the
greatest challenges of the past three years, says Ukita.
The result is a 6in screen with a resolution of 600x800 dots at 170dpi,
considerably sharper than the 70-90dpi of a regular computer display. This
allows for increasing the text size up to 200% with no degradation. One
much-repeated fallacy about the LibriË is that power is used only for
turning pages. While it is true that the "ink" particles stay in position
without consuming power, the electronic innards do drain the juice, hence
the inclusion of a standby mode. Nevertheless, the three AAA batteries
used to power the Librie should stretch to an impressive 10,000 pages,
enough for about 40 novels.
In his enthusiasm, Ukita lets slip that flexible electronic paper which
can handle Harry Potter-esque moving images and colour is in the research
and development labs and may be just two to three years away.
....
6in electronic paper display with E Ink technology
SVGA (800x600 dots)
170dpi
300g with case and batteries (190g without)
126mm x 190mm x 13mm
Motorola Dragonball processor
Sony Linux OS
10MB memory
Memory Stick slot
USB 2.0 port
headphone jack
mono speaker
Full story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1197495,00.html
Cheers
Brian
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxx PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
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