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E-ink in Color
Feb. 9th, 2010 08:10 pmThis is more of a general question to the folks who read this journal at large than an actual blog entry (though it does have to do with today's New York Times article about Amazon acquiring a company that looks like it'll pave the way to Amazon developing something similar to an iPad -- color display, WiFi, etc.). As you all know, I'm really fond of the e-ink display. I think it makes for a superior electronic reading experience. When I was chatting with my coworkers about it, one of them who is also a photographer said that such a display would make photo editing much easier, because you wouldn't be dealing with the back-lit glare of a monitor.
According to that NYT article, it sounds like no one is using e-ink in color -- that the choice is either an e-ink display or a color display. But back in 2005, E*Ink, presumably the company that designed the technology, put out a press release (featuring the Book of Kells, unless I'm mis-identifying the image) that showed that the e-ink display could feature color. An Engaget article from April 09 shows a competition among developers to release color e-ink displays to the masses.
My question is this: why settle for a back-lit screen as the color technology (when what makes e-readers really exciting is their non-back-lit screens) when e-ink and competitors have color in progress? Is this a personal preference issue and I'm just being a dolt about it? Or are folks just tired of waiting? (While working on this, I found a Wired article that addressed my first question -- which was why, if the technology has been around since 2005, hasn't it come to the market yet. Apparently it's harder than I thought.) If you read e-books, what are your feelings about displays?
According to that NYT article, it sounds like no one is using e-ink in color -- that the choice is either an e-ink display or a color display. But back in 2005, E*Ink, presumably the company that designed the technology, put out a press release (featuring the Book of Kells, unless I'm mis-identifying the image) that showed that the e-ink display could feature color. An Engaget article from April 09 shows a competition among developers to release color e-ink displays to the masses.
My question is this: why settle for a back-lit screen as the color technology (when what makes e-readers really exciting is their non-back-lit screens) when e-ink and competitors have color in progress? Is this a personal preference issue and I'm just being a dolt about it? Or are folks just tired of waiting? (While working on this, I found a Wired article that addressed my first question -- which was why, if the technology has been around since 2005, hasn't it come to the market yet. Apparently it's harder than I thought.) If you read e-books, what are your feelings about displays?
