BPN 1578 E-book's 40th anniversary (part 2)

A third wave started in 2001, when E-Ink, a development company near Boston (Mass), started to develop a new display technology, which would offer a still screen and a long battery life only page turns would consume energy. By 2006 the first E-Ink based e-readers started to leave the factory. A Philips spin-off Irex Technologies in The Netherlands started to sell the Iliad at a heavy price of more than 600 euro. The new display was a real success and seen as the future for e-books, energy consumption long lasting, portability high. The only real disadvantages were the black/white screen and no movie facility.  A breakthrough came when Amazon released the Kindle on November 19, 2007. The devices caught on and the market effect started to come: more e-books were published and the prices for e-readers got lower to the level of consumer devices. By 2010 there were e-readers on the market on just under 200 euro. This also stimulated the production and sales of e-books and forced many a publisher at least to try it out. Also the standardisation of the format contributed to this. While Amazon kept to the Moby Pocket format, developed by one of their own subsidiaries, in the UK and some Western Europe countries EPUB was introduced as a format by publisher’s associations with even liberal copying facilities. 

The fourth wave is now under way. The tablet vs. e-reader race has started. The tablet has come out of the laboratory at last. Since the launch of the Newton messagePad 100 in 1993, the tablet had gone back to the laboratory. The display, display writing and telecom technology were not mature enough. By the end of the nineties, HP launched it tablet computer, but it was still more a PC than a tablet. But the pace had been set. By 2000 Nokia had developed a tablet, which was intended as a personal entertainment centre; but it only left the laboratory since 2007. The tablet world started seriously with the launch of Apple’s iPad on March 12, 2010. It was followed by a slew of tablets. The iPad and other tablets had also apps for reading e-books. The screen was still tft with interference, but better; battery life was lower than E-Ink e-readers. So now the question came up do I buy both devices or just a tablet. It also meant that the E-Ink e-reader had disadvantages over against the tablets: limited multi-functionality, a black/white screen and no movie functionality. Advantages over the tablets for e-readers are: a better display technology without interference and a longer battery life. But at least, this race is delivering a wide market for e-books.

What will help the promotion of e-books more? Of course the best of both worlds: E-Ink like technology for display and energy, colour screens, movie facilities and better internet facilities. Research is going into that direction. Two indicators into that direction are Liquid Vista, again a Philips spin-off, and the tire manufacturer Bridgestone. Laboratory samples of colour displays have been shown on exhibitions. Liqua Vista has announced that it will be on the market with the screen product in 2012.  As Liqua Vista is also a Philips spin-off, a similar quality product as the Iliad of the  Irex Technologies is looked for, but with a more acceptable price than the Iliad of the former Irex Technologies.

While the e-reader circus continues its technology perfection, the portfolio of e-books is increasing. Springer Verlag already recognises a contribution of e-books in its turn-over. But also publishers of novels are seriously busy with the market of e-books, using marketing tricks like offering a chapter for free or a free book in a time window. E-book in fact has intruded into almost all genres of the book trade, less coffee table and art books. For many publishers e-book has become a standard routine to launch the electronic edition with the print edition.

It has taken more than 30 years for e-books to flourish. But with user friendly devices and a well filled portfolio of e-books, Mr Hart had many reasons to look back and celebrate this July 4th, 2011. 

BPN 1578 

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BPN 1426 iREX compacts to IRX

The bankrupt e-reader manufacturer iRex, a spin-off of Philips electronics, based in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) will restructure and be operational again from September 1. From September 1 the company will continue as IRX Innovations.
Besides a new name the company will have a smaller scope. It will forego the consumer market and concentrate on the business market. Geographically the company will serve the European market. The company will also sell licenses to its technological solutions.

iRex Technologies went bankrupt after an adventure on the US market. The company attempted to conquer the consumer market in association with Barnes & Noble, but it could not deliver the electronic reading tablets in time. Besides the tablets were too expensive.

Part of the 10 million euro debt has been paid off. Mr Brons will remain the CEO and the 24 employees will be re-employed. Parts of the company will sold, most likely to an Asian company. IRX Innovations will take over the goods of iRex Technologies and will use the existing e-reader modls and technology to kick start the marketing in Europe.

In a radio interview Mr. Brons indicated that the European business market will be interesting and cost less than attempting to serve the US and EU and business and consumer markets all at once.

BPN 1426

Compact disc: happy 25th anniversary

It is anniversary day for the Compact Disc in general and the audio compact disc especially. As the reworked press release of Philips says:

Exactly 25 years ago tomorrow, on August 17, 1982, Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world's first compact disc at a Philips factory in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany. The invention of the CD ushered in a technological revolution in the music industry as CDs ­ with their superior sound quality and scratch free durability ­ marked the beginning of the shift from analogue to digital music technology. The CD became a catalyst for further innovation in digital entertainment, helping pave the way for the launch of DVD and the current introduction of Blu-ray optical media.










The Philips factory in Germany, where the world's first CD was pressed, belonged to Polygram ­ the recording company, which Philips owned at the time. The first CD to be manufactured at the plant was 'The Visitors' by ABBA. By the time CDs were introduced on the market in November 1982, a catalogue of around 150 titles ­ mainly classical music ­ had been produced. The first CDs and CD players ­ including Philips' CD100 ­ were introduced in Japan in November, followed by a US and European market introduction in March of 1983.

CD audio introduction by Mr Joop Sinjou (c Sinjou)

Philips and Sony partnered to develop CD ­ collaboration based on open innovation helped position CD as standard for the music industry As early as 1979, Philips and Sony set up a joint task force of engineers to design the new digital audio disc. this open innovation was a new approach ­ and it paid off, as Piet Kramer, a member of the developing team, said.Many decisions were made in the year to follow ­ such as the disc diameter. The original target storage capacity for a CD was one hour of audio content, and a disc diameter of 115 mm was sufficient for this, however both parties extended the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate a complete performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. In June 1980, the new standard was proposed by Philips and Sony as the 'Red Book' containing all the technical specification for all CD and CD-Rom standards.

When the music industry sales of CDs started to take off, more than 1000 different titles were on the market in 1985. In that year, one of the most famous bands in the world, Dire Straits, adopted the CD. The infamous album 'Brothers in Arms', as one of the first fully digital recording (DDD) to be brought to market, went on to become the top selling CD at the time, and the third greatest selling CD of the decade. The joint collaboration with Philips entailed Philips and Dire Straits jointly promoting the sound quality of the CD to consumers, making 'Brothers in Arms' the first album to sell over one million copies in this new format, marking the success of the CD as the emerging format of choice for music quality.

'The Compact Disc has played a pivotal role in the shift from analogue music to digital, not least for the DVD as well in music, though moreover in helping lay the foundation for even new technologies such as Blu-ray quality today.

The Compact Disc, is the forefather of today's extensive family of optical discs for a wide range of applications such as CD-Rom, CD-R and CD-RW, DVD, DVD R, DVD RW and Blu-ray. Philips estimates that over the past 25 years, since the first CD was pressed at the Philips factory near Hanover, Germany, over 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide. Even though a single CD is only 1.2 mm thick, if all CDs ever produced were piled up, the stack of CDs would circle the earth six times. The compact disc, as well as the DVD disc, remain a very popular music/ video carrier, because of their digital quality, portability, and resilience to damage.

(BTW I still remember that in August 1983 I was sitting in the garden of my friends Herman and Ria and Herman and Herman had made up his mind to buy an audio CD player. And he did so; he was a very early adapter. Later on we had discussions on rot damage of CDs after 10 years; did not hear any discussions like that lately).

Blog Posting Number: 841

Tags: compact disc

Colour digital paper around the corner

Last week digital paper was in the news again, when the French financial newspaper Les Echos announced two propositions for e-readers for its subscribers. One of the propositions is the iLiad, a black and white e-reader, manufactured by iRex Technologies, a spin-out of Philips. When talking to people a black and white e-reader is seen as a drawback; why is there not yet full colour digital paper. Of course such people forget that it is not just a black and white e-reader, but one with sixteen grey tones. So its not just a four grey tones like for example STAReBOOK. But yes, it would be great to have full colour digital paper.

The development of coloured digital paper has been started long time ago in laboratories. Last year Hitachi and Bridgestone showed an example of digital paper which could render colour for 40 percent of the entire survive. The colour prototype has a diameter of 13 inch, a resolution of 352 times 512 pixels. But it is not just a colour problem to solve, but also a power management problem. During the process of turning a page, the machine consumes energy. When a page has been turned and is definite, .no energy is consumed. This power management leads to a different way of programming.

Last month LG Philips showed full colour digital paper. It was an A4, 0,3 mm thin, thin and showing 4096 colours. Just like the iLiad has 16 grey tones, so this coloured paper has 16 colours per red green and blue channel, making up 4096 colours. This is contrary to a conventional screen , which renders 16,7 million colours with 256 channels in red, green and blue.

It looks like it will take some more years before colour digital paper will be to an acceptable level. And for colour books it will be acceptable. But the digital paper will not be able to render video yet. Uploading of images takes a lot of energy.

Of course colour digital paper is not only interesting for newspapers and books. But digital paper will also be usable for screens of smart mobile telephones as Readius of Polymer Vision, another Philips spin-out, is demonstrating. Other applications have not left the laboratories yet.

20070607: Check an article by Reuters

Blog Posting Number: 773

Tags: digital paper, e-book, e-reader