Library without books

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:59:24 +0100
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>

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 () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/

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