e-ink

The New York Times reported this weekend, in an article titled "Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press," that Amazon.com is on the verge of introducing a new larger-screen Kindle e-book reader.

A blog post from CNET's David Carnoy ("Amazon to introduce larger Kindle this week?") says that Amazon has scheduled a press event for Wednesday that may be the venue for this announcement.

The larger Kindle (which I think of as a "Kindle Pro," although I really have no idea what Amazon might call it) should be about … Read more

I got an e-mail from the folks over at O'Reilly Media mentioning that keynotes and other presentations from the company's ETech 2009 conference, held earlier this month, were now online at the ETech 2009 site. I missed that show, but I was interested in one of the keynotes, so I surfed on over to take a look.

The keynote I was looking for was indeed online: Mary Lou Jepsen, CEO of Pixel Qi and formerly CTO of the One Laptop Per Child organization, talking about "Low-Cost, Low-Power Computing." You can watch a video of the presentation … Read more

We've had a lot of CNET readers tell us they're waiting for a little color before they jump onto the e-book reader bandwagon. Well, as one might expect, a little color is going to cost you a lot of dough, as Fujitsu gets set to release its Flepia color e-book reader in Japan with a $1,000 price tag.

In the works for several years, the Flepia has a bigger display than does Amazon's Kindle 2--it has an 8-inch 1,024x768-pixel XGA touch screen that can display 260,000 colors (Fujitsu refers to its e-ink technology … Read more

As reported by The Wall Street Journal this week, Amazon.com's e-book reader, the Kindle, is out of stock.

The Journal credits Oprah Winfrey, who recommended the Kindle on her show in October.

I saw this effect myself in the page views for old blog posts here--the daily view count for some of my old Kindle posts, especially my comparison of the Kindle with Sony's Reader, spiked the very next day, and it remains higher today than it was before that show aired.

Amazon's Web site reports delivery delays of 11 weeks to 13 weeks, which means … Read more

Interesting news from the DemoFall conference held this week in San Diego:

Plastic Logic--a company founded to commercialize electronics built on flexible plastic substrates--demonstrated a prototype e-book reader (not yet named) and announced that it plans to ship this product in the first half of next year. You can read the press release for yourself.

This particular gizmo is very attractive. It uses a large, flexible electronic paper display based on technology from E Ink (the same company that makes the displays for Amazon.com's Kindle and Sony's Reader), but the device overall is remarkably thin and light.

And the whole thing is somewhat flexible, so it won't break if it gets slightly bent in a backpack or briefcase. Flexible doesn't mean invulnerable, but it's a lot better than the brittle glass displays of existing e-book readers.

Check out this video from DEMOfall, in which Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta demonstrates the prototype. I see some minor problems in the prototype's display--some dead lines and odd drawing glitches--but nothing that should interfere with the scheduled launch.

More importantly, even as a prototype, the display's contrast ratio seems to be better than that of the Kindle or Reader, mostly by virtue of the white being whiter--I'd have to make a direct comparison to be sure, though. I also see all of the critical features I want in an e-book reader: good display resolution… Read more

On today's show, we reveal our favorite fragrances, briefly touch on the new Apple offerings, disappear into e-Ink, rip into the Geek Squad and Microsoft's new "gurus," send text messages to inanimate household objects, and try to convince Wilson to take a shower in public in the name of animal rights.

Don't bust out that checkbook yet, my friends, contrary to popular belief, Natali Del Conte's hair is not on eBay...yet. We'll be the first ones to break that news, but until then you'll just have to listen to our show to get your NDC fix. Lots of news to talk about today, which we get to right after we guess each other's favorite eau de liquid smells. No surprise here, but Jeff's is the sweet scent of Natali's hair that he creepily compares to a cherry lollipop. Anyway, we also get the scoop on a few more tech-related gems, including a story about energy companies testing a program that will send you a text message on behalf of your thermostat if you forget to turn it off when you leave the house. Hey, I'm all for energy conversation, but are ya kidding me!? So now, on top of ignoring text messages from my close friends and family members, I have to deal with spam from my household appliances, too!? I guess I can see it being useful when I forget to turn off the oven, but I'd prefer to get the news by driving up to a burning apartment rather than getting a text from my oven that says "Hey, dummy--you forgot to turn me off, so now I'm spitting hot fire at all your physical possessions. See you at home!" No thanks, gas company, you can keep the service--I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

In case you hadn't heard already, this morning Esquire officially unveiled the first "digital" E-Ink cover in paper magazine history at an event in a Borders store in Manhattan. The special cover, which helps promote/commemorate Esquire's 75th anniversary edition, is only incorporated into 100,000 copies, all of which are available only at newsstands for $5.99 a pop--that's $2 more than the usual price. Sorry, subscribers, you get a ho-hum nondigital version.

The whole venture is sponsored by Ford and its campaign for its new "crossover" vehicle, the Flex. The cover … Read more

It seems as if the hype over the "Kindle" has barely subsided, and already we're getting a glimpse into the next generation of e-book readers from overseas.

The EB-100 from Taiwan-based Netronix is an e-ink reader that features a touch screen and Wi-Fi networking, according to Gizmodo. Other specs seem fairly standard, including a 6-inch display that's the same size as Amazon's version, though GizmoWatch and some other blogs have mentioned a model with a 9.7-inch screen.

We welcome any and all advances in these devices as long as stop short of reading minds.… Read more

With the impossible competition in the mobile phone business, it's not surprising that some manufacturers would try something a little crazy to distance themselves from pack. But we didn't think they'd be this crazy.

First we saw a weird design from NEC for a "Flask" handset that's apparently powered by some kind of liquid fuel. Now, just a day later, we find that Hitachi is introducing a phone that sports a 2.7-inch E-Ink display on the back that's destined for the Japanese market. Gizmodo says the "Silhouette Screen," which comes … Read more