Advance in Printing Flexible Displays

A step toward roll-to-roll printing of newspapers
Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in producing transistors from networks of carbon nanotubes, a technology that could make it possible to print circuits on plastic sheets for applications including flexible displays and an electronic skin to cover an entire aircraft to monitor crack formation. The advance may allow researchers to use carbon nanotube transistors to create high-performance, shock-resistant, lightweight and flexible integrated circuits at low cost. A key advantage of the nanonet technology is that it can be produced at low temperatures, enabling the transistors to be placed on flexible plastic sheets that would melt under the high temperatures required to manufacture silicon-based transistors. Manufacturers might literally print, or stamp, circuits onto plastic sheets, like the roll-to-roll printing used to print newspapers."
Nanotechnology Today

Delta Electronics' E-Paper Debut

Product based on Bridgestone technology
Delta Electronics announced that it has developed a high performance e-paper, based on Bridgestone Corporation's QR-LPD (quick response liquid powder display) technology. Delta will exhibit the first version of this high performance e-paper at the upcoming IFA 2008 Berlin.
DigiTimes

E-Ink Makes Strides in Japan

Uses span mobile phones, wrist watches, train station signs
Sriram Peruvemba, vice president of marketing at E Ink Corp., talked with blogger Pradeep Chakraborty. He described the work E-Ink Corp. is doing in Japan with Sony on eBooks, with Casio on the mobile phone GzOne, with Citizen on signage products, with Seiko on wrist watches, with Hitachi on mobile phone case art display, with Teraoka on Ink In Motion signs, with Toppan on train station arrival/departure information signs. The low-power usage of e-ink is attractive for cell phones. "We see sub-segments of the mobile phone market that is disatisfied with the amount of use per battery charge with current LCD technology," Peruvemba said. "We see opportunities for customers to make a unique fashion statement with their products by using our displays. Our displays are slightly thicker than a sheet of paper, so, it is easy to incorporate them as the outside skin of a mobile phone."
Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog

Bridgestone, Newspaper Test E-paper Signage

Devices display breaking news from Mainichi newspaper
Bridgestone and The Mainichi Newspapers began testing a digital signage device using e-paper in the concourses and passageways of the Toei subway line stations in Tokyo. The devices display breaking news reports with photos and part of the front page of the Mainichi newspaper morning and evening editions, advertisements for Mainichi newspaper periodic publications and notices of events that Mainichi is hosting.
TechOn

Amazon Acquires Book-oriented Social Network

Move aimed at niche market of techie bibliophiles
The major online retailer’s latest move is an interesting one, and it makes sense in their recent push towards sales of ebooks and the Kindle. Shelfari.com, the social network for book lovers, announced in its blog that it had been bought by Amazon.
Wired

Customer Reviews of E-Books

CyberRead to enhance reviews of digital offerings
PowerReviews, a developer of customer-review technology for retailers and their shoppers, announced that CyberRead, an ebook seller, has chosen PowerReviews to manage it customer reviews.
BusinessWire

New Kindle for 2008 Holiday Season

Release targeted at textbook sales
The Kindle, Amazon’s Linux-powered electronic paper book will have at least one new version out for the 2008 holiday season.The new Kindle, however, may be marketed more for college students returning to school in January rather than for finding a place under the Christmas tree. According to a report by Andreas James, Amazon will be marketing the revised “e-book reader to college students.” The plan seems to be to release the Kindle in conjunction with college textbook publishers. This way, the textbook publishers can sell more affordable e-textbooks, cutting out the used textbook vendors, and Amazon can move more Kindles.
Practical Technology

Comparing Kindle and iPod Touch

Both have wow factor
If someone would only synthesize the best features of Kindle and the iTouch, then we'd have an exceptional e-reader on our hands. For now, Kindle wins on the number of available titles and annotation features, while iTouch/Stanza is ahead on just about everything else.
Striphas

New Kindle Models Due in the Fall

First in stores early as October
It is said to be an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. A source said that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.
CrunchGear

Plastic Logic Plans Thin, Flexible Display

Semi-transparent electronic sheet coming in 2009
Plastic Logic, spun off from Cambridge University in 2000 and now based in Mountain View, Calif., has been working to produce paper that can create and erase static images. The company has taken more than $200 million in funding to date. An obvious application is newspapers and magazines, though the economic feasibility of ‘printing’ with this new generation of e-ink displays is still an open question. Watch a demonstration here.
BlogKindle

Lessons From Kindle's Success

Ease of use, and yes, people do still read
Will Amazon founder Jeff Bezos feel victim to the temptation to believe that the Kindle is the only right answer and refuse to offer e-books for other devices? I think that when it comes to the size and shape of devices, we are moving into an era where there will be many more choices that will increasingly be based on personal taste. People choose writing pads of all sorts, from big yellow legal pads to those little bound notebooks with graph paper. In the same way, we are going to have very personal choices about what sort of connected computer we want to use for communicating, reading, working and so on.
NY Times Bits Blog

FlexTech Alliance Wins Raytheon Military Contract

Project focuses on temperature, humidity, shock specs
The FlexTech Alliance (formerly known as the U.S. Display Consortium, or USDC), devoted to developing the electronic, flexible displays got a one-year contract to produce display demonstration units for military applications. Ultralow-power, lightweight displays can greatly improve soldiers' effectiveness in the field.
Military & Aerospace Electronics

E-Books Fuel Sales of Romance Novels

Erotic romance author pinpoints e-books' benefits
Readers of romance novels have complained about the covers for decades because they don't want the public to see them carrying one of "those books." E-books help us get around that problem, and that's probably one of the reasons that romance e-books sales estimates claim about half of the overall e-books market.
eMediaWire

Why Sony Lost the Battle of the E-Book

Danger for Sony: it is already too late.
Sony has squandered an early lead in a new field because another company was better not just at inventing an electronic device but also at linking it to a wireless network and making it easy for consumers to use. The Sony product is the Reader, a portable device for reading electronic books, which the company launched two years ago. This time Sony’s competitor is Amazon, which has swept past Sony with the Kindle, a rival e-book reader that is showing every sign of becoming the iPod of this nascent market.
FT

Sony Introduces Bendable Video Display

Sony undecided on commercial uses for the technology
"In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper." Tatsuo Mori, an engineering and computer science professor at Nagoya University, said some hurdles remained, including making the display bigger, ensuring durability and cutting costs.
Aniligate007

Fundamental Flaw of E-Books

Platforms, or ecosystems, they're build on are awful
E-Book readers will never be as successful as the iPod. Not the way that the publishing industry works today. Not the way eBooks are designed and manufactured.
Last 100

Slow Birth of Flexible Screens

Setback for Readius
Polymer Vision recently said its much heralded Readius e-reader has been delayed again, this time until the second half of 2008. Moreover, the first Readius incarnation, originally crafted with a 5-inch roll-out E Ink display, will have a foldout display, instead. The reason, according to the company, is user discomfort with roll-out reliability, although the displays readily withstand 15,000 withdraw/insertion cycles.
EE Times

Revisiting Electronic Ink

EDN takes a new look at an evolving technology
When EDN looked at electronic ink seven years ago, there were two visible commercial approaches to delivering display information. E Ink’s approach has made the larger visible move from the lab to product within the last three years as a display technology; however, the underlying approach has changed.
EDN

Bookeen's Cybook Gen3 enters U.K. Market

Different navigation tools on Cybook and Sony Reader
There's me thinking the e-reader market in the U.K. was shaping up to be only a three horse race between the Sony PRS-505, the iRex iLiad and the Amazon Kindle when it finally arrives! I've discovered another player joining the fray in the shape of the sleek looking Cybook Gen3, from French company Bookeen.
Paperless Undergrad

Are we headed for all-electronic papers?

Facing up to declining print advertising revenue
Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at The Poynter Institute, says online advertising revenue will need to grow continuously, and grow a lot, in order to break even with print ad revenue, and it has been reported that online ad growth is stalling. Despite this, he says he could be wrong about newspapers being around for a while. Print advertising could continue to decline even more than it has in recent years and news sites could “get a second wind” by improving their design, multimedia content, and news content, ultimately, of course, attracting more readers who no longer want to pay for their watered down print version when more content is available online for free.
Editorsweblog

Comparing Kindle and iRex

Is $699 iRex better than $359 Kindle?
Kindle features include the ability to annotate passages of text, underline text and make notes to yourself. You can look up words in the dictionary as you read and save your place for later. You can also buy books on the device and begin reading them right away. You can also read newspapers, access Wikipedia and email documents to read on the device. What’s neat about the iRex iLiad is that you can use a stylus to make handwritten notes on pages of a book. You can also make sketches and write documents with the device. Both use electronic paper displays, making them easy on the eyes. They’re both lightweight and provide you with functionality, though in different forms. However, both products are lacking when it comes to what could have been included here. The Kindle is limited in its functions. You can only access certain sites with it, for instance. And while the iLiad provides great functionality, it doesn’t take advantage of this, leaving many users poking and prodding at it in confusion.
Slashgear

International E-Reading Conference 2008

IFRA conference Sept. 18-19 2008 in Paris
Why do Orange, Les Echos, the New York Times, Amazon or NRC Handelsblatt have so much confidence in the future of the e-reader? For what reasons have already thousands of readers adopted these tools flexible? Some see the advent of e-reading as a partial response to the questions of distribution and production costs. Others have become aware of the emergence of a new demand on the part of the consumers for offline reading of books and newspapers. The market is promising, as evidenced by the success of Amazon's Kindle. Although the tools are still in their infancy, they are growing up very, very fast. Prices will also drop. But for this new offering to work, publishers must not lose any time in positioning themselves on the market: what offering? what content? what navigation and what design? which services to build on the new functions of these electronic tools? Not to forget the prospects for advertising. The e-reader battle will be won by the combined efforts of all publishers ... The objective of this event is to help newspaper companies to explore the opportunities for business in mobile e-reading and to identify new ways to develop strong and profitable products in this area.
IFRA

Head of Readius Talks About Project

E-book plans launched in 2006 in an agreement with Philips
Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick chats about the upcoming rollout of the Readius, the early days of rollable displays, their potential effects on traditional e-book readers and mobile phones, and the direction his company is taking things in what could be the coming era of e-paper.
MobileRead

Deutsche Telecom Considers Digital Newspapers

Pilot in fall to give e-readers to thousands of customers
The News4Me project aims to create an individual electronic newspaper. Subscriptions are possible to complete issues or to individual sections from differing newspapers, which will then be transmitted to mobile devices. The contents and the layout adapt constantly to the way that you read. The e-reader is still subject to speculation. However researchers have spoken about a screen almost as large a newspaper page, flexible and not an LCD screen with backlit facilities. The researchers referred to the product of the Dutch company Polymer Vision, the Readius, with a rollable screen. They would also like to equip the e-reader with broadcast facilities, by which I think they mean video and audio. Deutsche Telecom is picking up experience from its US sister network Verizon which is working together with Amazon’s e-reader Kindle,
Biziaulane
Deutsche Telecom's blurb on its website
Blogkindle
Read the News4Me pdf presentation here
MobileRead

The Digital Book, Unfurled

A flexible 5-inch screen within the Readius.
A hallmark feature of e-books — their rigidity — is changing. New technologies are developing that make displays flexible, foldable or even as rollable as papyrus, so that large screens can be unfurled from small containers.One new mobile device is the Readius, designed mainly for reading books, magazines, newspapers and mail.
The New York Times

E-Paper Chase Nears The Finish Line

Flood of products from Sony Reader to Hanlin eBook
Demonstrations of the latest in electronic paper technology indicate that it may finally be ready to "roll up" and "plug in" to the electronic office.
Electronic Design

Electronic Books on YouTube

See a flexible page and how iRex iLiad works
Among other things, a brief video showing the eink flexible display using electronic ink. When the screen receives no power, it keeps the last image it had displayed for several months. The display works in sunlight since it is reflective, and the new generation of thin-film transistors used to drive the display are thin and flexible enough for the screen to be rolled up around a thin rod.
Errachidia

E-Paper's Killer App: Packaging

Supermarket cereal aisle lighting up like the Las Vegas strip.
Siemens says the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens.
Wired

Kindle: I Am Really Enjoying It.

Electronic ink a huge improvement
Dragonsept Arts & Publishing Blog
The only thing I don’t like better about this screen than a PDA screen is that I can’t use it for a flashlight to avoid tripping over the dog.

Fixing Obsolete Newspaper Circulation

Here's one idea how electronic newspaper might work
Publishing 2.0
Newspapers must combine their collective wealth and energies and focus on getting ELECTRONIC paper to end users ASAP! Call up Xerox, call up HP, call up Fuji..but make Electronic paper - broadsheet size a reality. I am not talking something small like an amazon kindle. I am talking a sheet of e-paper that you’d plug into your computer and get instant updates. Reusable for many months and certainly much cheaper than delivering dead trees every day. You’d read off this “paper” and if an article grabbed your attention, you’d be able to bookmark it and it would be emailed and/or saved on your computer. Who would pay for this epaper? Why not have it presented by the very advertisers who are in the paper? And drill it down locally… This edition of the NY Times presented by Long Island Honda. Of course, getting this technology up to where newspapers want it will take a huge amount of investment. BUT, I feel it is necessary. The electronic paper could be left at home, folded onto the subway, unfolded at work…refreshed before going back home…the possibilities are endless. And another thing, get me the Electronic Paper and I’d be willing to pay at least 98 cents a week! Probably more.
From the same comment thread
I’d like to echo Michael’s idea for an electronic paper. New tech innovations are a dime-a-dozen, but our industry needs a radical act of defibrillation if it is to survive. I’m thinking of the wireless phone model: You sell people a device at a major discount along with a years’s subscription, billed monthly. The device would need to be easy to flip open and read anywhere, but maybe bigger than a smart phone to reduce the squint factor. You could upload from your computer or maybe even make it wireless with some sort of agreement with wireless carriers. I’m ready to embrace anything that might pay for professional newsgathering, and am perfectly fine with someone trashing my silly idea. What can say with some level of expertise, however, is that when I moved to my current town two years ago, a week’s worth of my big local paper would completely fill the paper side of my dual recycling bin. No room for junk mail. It was that simple. I work for a newspaper and can’t support the industry because I can’t get rid of all that paper. Not to mention, I can’t see the point in deforestation when we can get all this information electronically. And in a perverse comparison to wood pulp, content generation is even less unsustainable under the old scheme of newsgathering.

Why Sony is Wrong and Amazon Right

Hey, people read ebooks and people like things simple
A colleague has a Kindle and, while I watched, he fired it up and downloaded the book while standing outside in the sunshine. No computer, no USB cable, no card reader, no Sony software, no Adobe software, no Calibre software, no conversion programs, no WiFi router. He bought a book without a computer - while standing outside in the sunshine. Get it?
TeleRead

Amazon Sells 240,000 Kindles Since November

Forecast:Amazon will sell 750,000 more over next year
If you add in the amount spent on digital books, newspapers, and blogs purchased to read on the device, you get a business that has easily brought in above $100 million so far. Looking ahead to sales over the next year,Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co, estimates that sales of the Kindle devices plus purchases of content for each device could bring in $1 billion of business for Amazon.
TechCrunch

Microsoft, Hearst Unite in Online News Delivery

Select stories to be available in free experiment.
Microsoft and Hearst unveiled a software service that allows newspaper readers to download stories and read them even when not connected to the Internet. The News Reader, which is now available to readers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, enables readers to automatically transfer a sampling of stories from the newspaper's Web site onto their computers by clicking on a desktop icon.
San Francisco Chronicle

Hearst Interactive Backing Kindle-like E-Book

Company is incubating an e-book reader called FirstPaper.
Hearst Interactive, the digital media investment arm of Hearst Corp, has invested in the startup based in Palo Alto and New York City. It has also invested in E-Ink, the electronic display company that supplies its technology to Kindle and Sony Reader.
PaidContent

The Technology Behind Esquire’s Cover

The Key: Microcapsules Containing Pigments
Temperature became an issue during the assembly process, Esquire's Editor in Chief David Granger said, since extreme temperatures deteriorate a battery's life expectancy. "We had to arrange for everything to remain cool at all times during the assembly process," he said. "That's not something magazines normally have to think about."
Folio

Seattle PI to Test Electronic Paper

Flat, flexible screen is about size of a small tabloid.
Crosscut Seattle
The electronic newspaper will carry real-time news, same as the Internet, not yesterday's news like traditional papers. Readers will turn the e-paper's pages by touching the flexible screen. And when they head off to work, readers will roll up the electronic page and stuff it in their pocket, purse, or briefcase.

Seattle Paper Denies E-Paper Plan
The Hearst Corp., which owns the Seattle Post Intelligencer, has no plans to use the Seattle daily newspaper to test a newly announced e-paper gadget, Kenneth Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media, said in response to a media report.
Seattlepi.com