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Comments: 199 +- Mobile: Asus Plans Dual-Display E-Reader on Tuesday September 08, @08:52PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday September 08, @08:52PM
from the blurring-the-lines dept.
from the blurring-the-lines dept.
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adeelarshad82 writes "Yet more confirmation has emerged that Asus plans its own e-book reader. An Asus representative in the UK appears to have confirmed this, with the additional details that there may be a value-priced as well as a premium version. The article guesses at the price point for the low-end model — around £100 ($192). Unlike current e-book readers, which take the form of a single flat screen, the Asus device has a hinged spine, like a printed book. This, in theory, enables its owner to read an e-book much like a normal book, using the touchscreen to 'turn' the pages from one screen to the next. Asus showed off a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March." Reader NeverBotedBush adds, "Asus's e-reader will likely have color touch screens, a speaker, a webcam, and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls." The color screen rules out using E Ink technology, so long battery life seems to be unlikely.
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Nintendo DX of e-books (Score:4, Funny)
It's an overstuffed Nintendo DX for reading e-books? Asus Christ.
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What's wrong with that? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see a tablet device with a touch screen about the size of a hardback book's pages with wi-fi, bluetooth, a DVD/CD burner, sound chip, and Linux, with plugs for a keyboard, monitor, earphones/speakers, and ethernet. For a hundred bucks.
That's actually the computer of my dreams. Why hasn't anybody put one on the market yet?
Dual-screen Asus Origami prototype (Score:3, Informative)
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Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Digital copies? Your school library probably has laser printers you know >:3
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Yeah, and have fun copying a ~600 page book by hand (you can't exactly cut and manually feed in the pages on a library book), especially with most libraries costing tons of money per copy.
That's why you go to the copy shop.
Based on extensive (legal) book photocopying experience, it is very hard to take more than 6 seconds per page, even including coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, and gossip time. At that rate, its going to take 3600 seconds to photocopy a 600 page book. Which is a mere single hour. To save perhaps $100. Or, in other words $100/hr, which is pretty respectable pay rate for a college student, even for illegal activities. Note that you can make multiple copies for very little
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Just search for physics or math on any torrent site and see what you get.
Most likely physics porn or math porn, respectively.
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt it will be mainstream, but not for the same reasons as you think.
Strike 1: it's not e-ink/e-paper. So, that makes it what, a dual-screen tablet? Cool, but e-ink is what makes e-readers so great, and so much better for reading, than tablets or laptops or netbooks.
Now, $200 isn't bad, compared to $299 for the Kindle 2, or more for the DX. So that's a plus. As for the college students and the price of books... I sympathize to a point. I would definitely not purchase standard undergraduate texts in electronic form. They're a ripoff in paper form to begin with, but at least you can resell them (if only for a fraction of what you paid if you were unfortunate enough to buy new).
As a grad student, though, you'll find your reading habits changing. It's somewhat discipline dependent, but everyone will be reading articles, mostly in PDF format. Kindle DX, etc., are superb for that. I've also purchased two books for a class from Amazon for my Kindle. In both cases, they were cheaper than any used copies I could find. I know I can't resell them, but I don't anticipate selling that sort of book anyway (it was inexpensive to begin with, and I will probably need it for reference when studying for comps).
In the meantime, I've found at least one book for a class on a torrent site, and I do things like copy all my typed notes to the Kindle. Is it saving me money? Absolutely not. But I don't have to print out hundreds of pages or be stuck at a computer to read things, and that alone is worth it for me.
Parent
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Cool, but e-ink is what makes e-readers so great,
It also makes them slow, expensive, black&white-only and unusable for the Internet or video. A good LCD screen, such as the ones from PixelQi, can give you something very close to the resolution and sunlight readability of ePaper while also giving you color and video and that at a low cost. Now of course if they actually use such an good LCD or just stuck in one of those crappy shiny Laptop screen that are unusable outside remains to be seen.
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:4, Interesting)
What if you buy and read a lot of books, but could do so for a fraction of the price. I see paperback type books becoming like $0.99, any my wife reads these style books like they are going out of style.
Even Textbooks could be sold "new" for much less than they currently are. The fact is, economy doesn't require resale of virtual property. Nobody is demanding resale rights to iTunes music.
Parent
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Nobody is demanding resale rights to iTunes music.
Because in general music is timeless. It gets popular, goes underground, gets revived, becomes retro, etc. A song you heard 15 years ago will still be as good of a song today as it was when you first heard it. On the other hand, textbooks get obsolete. The textbook you read 15 years ago in most subjects will be wrong, not antique, not timeless but simply -wrong-. Secondly, who re-reads textbooks? I listen to some of my old CDs regularly that I bought 10 or more years ago, I re-read some of my old fiction
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Too easy, Brian. Walk away.
That's Great, But... (Score:5, Insightful)
I refuse to get excited until I know whether it's More of the Same (TM) or not, shiny features be damned.
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That's the great thing about vaporware.. some people read it and decide "I'm going to buy one of these as soon as it comes out", some people read it and say "it'll suck, I'll never buy one" and the rest of us read it and say "that's nice".
Personally, I don't get anything from vaporware announcements except the feeling that one day I might hear about someone who actually has one of these things and they might say it doesn't suck, maybe.
O RLY (Score:2)
You say that like "the rest of you" is more than you and your virtual cat.
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Well said. But in fact:
That's the one real make-or-break question for me. Secondary formats don't matter much to me if the platform trend is going to be towards more DRM.
Re:That's Great, But... (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA doesn't address the real questions: who thought of this? I can't wait to pay 50% more for a second screen to my ebook reader so that I can look at both pages surrounding every other page break at the same time.
Parent
Re:That's Great, But... (Score:4, Interesting)
TFA doesn't address the real questions: who thought of this? I can't wait to pay 50% more for a second screen to my ebook reader so that I can look at both pages surrounding every other page break at the same time.
Well, my opinion is still "features be damned". I would gladly pay more for a reader that ensured my privacy and ownership, regardless of whether I'm paying for bloat as well. Mind you, that's not to say your comment is by any means uninsightful. It's just not important to me when compared to the question of what personal concessions I'd have to make before I'm allowed to purchase one.
Parent
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I can't wait to pay 50% more for a second screen to my ebook reader so that I can look at both pages surrounding every other page break at the same time.
I can't wait for the reduced battery life that comes from having an additional screen, LCD screens, a touchpad, and other things that don't help me read books or PDFs more easily!
Awesome, I think? (Score:5, Funny)
I keep reading the post over and over, trying to figure out how they hide the words "...includes the words "Don't Panic" written in large letters on the back."
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I keep reading the post over and over, trying to figure out how they hide the words "...includes the words "Don't Panic" written in large letters on the back."
Obligatory link [xkcd.com].
Backlit screen = yuk (Score:4, Insightful)
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There are several kinds of color LCD screens that work outdoors. Nokia cell phones commonly use one kind, the OLPC uses another kind.
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Indeed, my Palm III was just wonderful for reading e-books. Ran for a whole weekend on four rechargeable AAAs, too.
Still got it in a drawer somewhere. The main pain is that it needs things converted to .pdb and can only take about four average novels (text-only, .5MB each). No Google Books scans.
But yes, why not revive the old b&w LCD?
sign me up (Score:2)
I am tired of all those eInk readers (I've owned a couple); their slow refresh time makes them awful.
Re:sign me up (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of e-Ink is that it doesn't need to refresh multiple times per second to keep the text on there. It works more like paper, and so refresh time isn't really important. What's the refresh time on your paperback, when you turn a page?
Parent
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LCDs don't give people eye strain anymore than books or eInk displays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthenopia [wikipedia.org]
If anything, due to their lower contrast, eInk displays are worse than LCDs in terms of eye strain.
eInk is superior to LCDs only in terms of power consumption. In terms of readability in sunlight, it's comparable to LCDs designed for outdoor use. And in terms of contrast ratio, color, and refresh rate, it's much worse than other display technologies.
Color screen rules out E-ink? What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then can you explain this [eink.com]?
And that's not even mentioning color electronic ink from other companies [wired.com].
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I can.
Ordinary e-Ink + additional technology [photobucket.com].
Dual Screens = Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dual Screens = Opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Feature Creep (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't an ebook reader if it has a microphone, webcam and the ability to make Skype calls. It is a flat computer.
I can see the justification for speakers, possibly helping with ADA compliance and reading text to the sight impaired. The rest is loss-of-focus, lets add features to disguise the shitty battery life, crap.
Give me extended battery life in an ebook reader over all that crap any day.
Re:Feature Creep (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, it isn't a computer if it has a microphone, webcam, color screen, and the ability to connect to a global network. :)
You forget that as technology advances, so must our names for things.
That, and it sounds like, well, you wouldn't want the product - however, I, and I think many millions more, /do/, just as it is.
Parent
Pure speculation: PixelQi screens? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm hoping these will come out with PixelQi screens, as it will make it a truly revolutionary product. Although at this point it is pure speculation, I think there is a good chance Asus has signed a deal with PixelQi. Not only do the videos on PixelQi's sites show netbooks which resembles the Eee, their site mentions the displays will be in production in the late 2009, which coincides with the introduction of this new e-Reader. PixelQi could stand to benefit from teaming up with a company such as Asus, and I bet this is what has happened (in a couple month's we'll see how well my prediction fares!)
Color screen? (Score:2)
Really? An ebook with a color screen just sounds soo useless. Color does not mean black and white, when reading long enough on a computer you start to see the rgb bleeding through off the white. I can't belive Asus is soo far off target with this.
ebook reader tipping point (Score:4, Informative)
I'm walking into the Stop and Shop the other day, and I look over at a beat up car, the kind in which you typically see some old duffer checking his scratch tickets and reading the Herald. Only this old guy was checking his scratch tickets and reading his Kindle. I thought, Perhaps this moment is time zero.
Too $much, too late (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a life-long reader; I love reading a book or newspaper as much as anything in life. I was very ill as a child and spent most of ages 4-6 in bed. We didn't own a TV, so my only companions were books from the local library and the daily papers. (That was back when you got a morning AND an evening paper on your doorstep.) When I could get out, I bought all the comic books my allowance would allow. That was when an Action Comics Superman from DC was a whopping 10 cents. I was highly pissed when the price went to 12 cents an issue, as I recall.
One of the gadgets I've wanted for years is a decent e-reader with lots of content. I passed on the Sony and Kindle machines because they were "close, but no cigar" for my taste. Color was a requirement for me as I still love comics and graphic novels.
Recently, I got an iPhone 3GS and discovered Stanza, Comics (Comixology), NYTimes, and NPR News. I had assumed the small screen on the phone would be terrible for reading. Instead, I find that I read something with ALL of those apps, everyday. Just finished reading ALL of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars novels with Stanza. Absolutely loved them. Coincidentally, the Science Fiction Book Club (of which I've been a member since 1972) is offering a reissue of those same books in hardcover.
Cost from SFBC = $50, plus shipping. Cost of the ebook versions on Stanza = $0. Also recently read the entire Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes books and stories, again for a cost of $0.
The Comics app, even bereft of titles from DC and Marvel (so far), is excellent. I'm currently reading Omega Chase and loving it. I've spent about $10 on various comics thus far and haven't regretted a single penny.
The point is, I'm no longer "waiting" for an e-reader; I have all I need.
One could argue that I own a +$2000 e-reader in the iPhone, but since it IS a nice phone, game machine (finally getting good at F.A.S.T.), web and e-mail appliance, AND a decent e-reader, I am still happy. Plus, I only have to carry and manage ONE device.
Bottom line: Sony, Amazon, Asus, etc. will never see a nickel from me for their readers. They missed any opportunity with me.
Flipping pages (Score:3, Funny)
Another vote for the 3Qi (Score:3, Informative)
Ask anyone who has used an OLPC, and they will tell you that not only is it possible to use an LCD in full, direct sunlight, the image quality actually improves; the stronger the light, the better. The OLPC's limitation, however, is that daylight-readable version is monochrome only.
The 3Qi is the commercialized next generation of the same screen technology. It adds EPaper, color, and video [pixelqi.com] to the line up. Mary Lou Jepsen, the engineering genius behind the company, is trying to get the power requirements down far enough to allow 20-40 hours of run time, using current battery technology. The current version of the 3Qi is apparently not able to achieve that kind of power management without changes to the motherboard, but is still able to reduce power requirements by 20%.
Engadget did a series of side-by-side video comparisons [engadget.com] with the Kindle earlier this year, and the results are very impressive.
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The touchscreen can't be used for fingerprint analysis.