E-Ink announced their prototype electronic book display last week. Finally, the dream of a portable, long-lasting electronic book reader may finally be upon us. The contrast and resolution of the display (160dpi) look quite acceptable and I’m not really bothered about the fact that it has no colour; neither do any of my paperbacks.
As long as they don’t do something as monumentally stupid as prohibiting people to put their own data on the reader (meaning that I wouldn’t, e.g., be able to transfer the contents of Project Gutenberg over) then it’d be difficult to see how I couldn’t buy one of these things.
Adrian’s minimum specs:
– One month battery life, with up to four hours use per day
– Easy synchronisation via USB or Bluetooth
– No draconian DRM limitations
– Less than $300
– Durable; able to withstand being carried in a backpack indefinitely with no case
– Removable storage format is not necessary providing that internal memory is above 32MB (enough for at least 100 books), but if there is removable storage, it must be either Compactflash or SD; nothing else will do.
– Good contrast and resolution; no squinting required
I wonder if Apple are planning to use E-Ink’s technology – how about the iBook? Oh, wait…
mssv 