Forbes.com has a round up of next generation of ebook readers including the soon to be released iRex Reader 1000 and a reader under development from start-up Plastic Logic. Both devices use E Ink technology.
In the article E-ink CEO Russ Wilcox says these new devices mark a transition to larger screen format and new applications, "First we had a wave of e-books. Now we have a wave of something closer to e-newspapers, E-ink is the only way to create that size of display that's thin, rugged and has a long battery life. As the capabilities and features go up and up and up, the applications will keep growing."
If you have been paying attention, you will notice the development of low energy electronic displays is progressing steadily. It might be hard to predict exactly when the reader format and price point push this technology into the mainstream, but I think its safe to say within 5 years their will be a critical mass of adopters that will require publishers to have information products available for consumption on these type of devices.
It is time to prepare for the future now. Your editorial, production, and distribution workflows should account for these devices just as they should account for publishing on the Web without having to do labor intensive repurposing.
Discussion
By Eddy Hagen on Sep 21, 2008
Will these e-papers replace physical papers? E.g. printed magazines?
Did anybody see or buy the Esquire issue with the e-ink display in the cover? Well, I was in the US a week ago, when the issue was launched. Of course I ran to a bookstore to get it (I love new technology). It was a Borders shop in Boston (MA). There were at least 20 displays that had the Esquire issue on show. There were a lot of people in the store. But only one bought it, nobody else even cared to look at it. That one person was of course me. Even though Esquire was on national TV with this 'revolutionary' cover, most people didn't seem to be interested.
The display itself: I didn't get a wow-feeling... And that's an understatement. To get some color in it (e-ink is at this moment only black/white), it had an overlay with printed color images. The e-ink below would then turn from black to white, to show some animation. With the images on the cover, this was reasonably. There was also an ad (from Ford) on the inside. This one was terrible... Only after reading an article on it, I saw that there was also an animation in that ad... Would any CMO want to pay a lot of money for this kind of gimmick, when it has absolutely no effect?
The contrast of the display is not what we are used to with printed - certainly glossy - magazines. This was really in contrast with the rest of the magazine, which is composed of 90% - so it seemed to me ;-) - of fashion and luxury ads... Will those people be willing to pay the same amount of money for a much less appealing ad?
I do believe that e-ink displays have a market, but not the magazine market. Only where the information that is displayed is the most important criterion, they will find a market. If 'appeal' is important, it will be very hard to conquer that market. And magazines - at least the ads in it - are about appeal... And magazines need to have these ads to make money, otherwise the price readers have to pay for the information would become much higher. And are you willing to pay more for your magazines to be able to read them on an e-ink display?
But there are numerous devices out there that have displays, that only need to be functional, and that will probably be the biggest market for e-ink and similar display technologies.
By Eddy Hagen on Sep 21, 2008
PS: for those people who haven't seen the Esquire issue, here is a movie: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/e-ink-cover-video?click=pp
By Michael Josefowicz on Sep 21, 2008
Imagine if e-ink were used to replace textbooks in K-12 education. Now that's a big,addressable market, probably going to be growing market. Probably something in health delivery that would be similar. Probably something in government especially local and state is similar.
Advertising or marketing? In a world where most people already have a lot stuff. And evidently the credit card machines are going to be broken.
IMHO, advertising is a broken shrinking market that printers who are not already deeply embedded in should take what's left on the table and run away...run away..
By Ralf Schlozer on Sep 22, 2008
there are trials with E-paper starting in France, Germany and Italy, mainly focusing on newspapers. This is more than a gimmick to sell a printed edition - this is to replace print.
As with all new technologies the first trials are doomed to fail. But better products/technologies will follow.
btw. There are plenty of technologies in the lab aiming for paper-like properties. E-ink will by no means be the only technology provider.
By Andrew Tribute on Sep 23, 2008
As Ralf Schlozer points out this is still a very new and embryonic technology. There are many other technologies also coming to this market based upon 'plastic electronics' with perhaps PLED displays (polymer light emitting diode)being a very significant one. The problem with the current approach is that it is not financially attractive in the way that books, magazines, etc have to be acquired. Also as is stated earlier the quality is totally unacceptable for advertising.
I believe however that this technology will develop to be highly significant in certain markets. I don't think the book market where it competes with the excellent printed product technology is that important. The real future markets are as indicated in another post are education, health care and others. Education is perhaps the first key area in future. It will allow students to do away with buying text books and instead allow them to download the latest editions for a specific time from the central school or university servers. It will also allow the publishers to largely drop printed textbooks and instead reach agreements with the educational institutions to supply continuously updated digital information to the education organisations' secure servers. In the healthcare areas it will provide the ability for health professionals to have the very latest data in terms of diagnostic prints and health information automatically loaded to their devices.
For this to happen we will need to see much better devices than those available today, plus a totally new approach to the business of information distribution in the specific markets. Today we are just seeing readers used for picking of the easy areas for gadget fans that don't associate with printed material. The true printoholics will not see the current level of technology is of interest to them. When the technology moves forward and the new business models develop then electronic reader technology will really open up many new areas of business.
By Eddy Hagen (VIGC) on Sep 23, 2008
Calling e-paper 'a very new technology' is not completely correct ('embryonic' I can agree upon). The first prototype was developped in 1975, by Xerox PARC, under the name 'Gyricon'. That is over 30 years ago...
Mass production - in cooperation with 3M - was announced to the press in 2000 (if I'm not mistaken). But it was cancelled afterwards.
The point I want to make: usually it takes quite a long time before 'new' technology really breaks through, really has an impact on real life. We should always keep this in mind when looking at something we consider being new technology. There are of course exceptions, but the general rule is that it takes time. Take e.g. digital photography: the first commercial available consumer digital camera was launched in 1981, the Sony Mavica. It is only a few years ago that digital photography became mainstream. When the price level was right, when the right conditions were there (e.g. cheap memory, availability of computers and imaging software in many households).
Nevertheless, there is absolutely a market for this kind of stuff. When the time - and everything else - is right.
By Michael Josefowicz on Sep 23, 2008
In the education space, I think it might be a combination of short run books and e paper.
The present time to market and sales process in K-12 education is very long, highly specialized and quite protected by the players already there.
There might be an opportunity in charter schools and different educational models that are emerging. Given that the next U.S. President is going to get lots of pressure to "fix" education, it's likely that education delivery is going to get lots of resources.
Turns out that digital books economically produced in quantities of 30 to 150 could turn out to be either a bridge technology or perhaps a long term sustainable complement.
Imagine the following customer experience:
10th grade teacher is going to do a unit on the Civil War next week. She goes to a website, selects from the on line library of resources, clicks, pays with her Staples account, and 4 by 6 paperbacks are delivered in a couple of days.
The students do their long term "reading" on the e reader. But they do "close reading" with a pencil or highlighter in hand, to circle or highlight the parts of the text that interest, confuse, or need further clarification. Reads it on the subway (I do live in NYC), then the next day has a focused discussion on the text.
If anyone would like to discuss this as a real business opportunity, please don't hesitate to get in touch. josefowm (a) gmail.com
Discussion
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