BPN 1180 Telcos seriously look at e-Papers

Der Spiegel, the sister publication of the German newspaper Bild, published a story on Deutsche Telecom being interested in digital newspapers. However the story was rather vague as the spokes person told the reporter that the telecom company did not have a content agreement with a newspaper nor did the spokesperson say anything on the e-reader(s) to be used. The story should be taken serious as Deutsche Telecom is picking up experience from its US sister network Verizon which is working together with Amazon’s e-reader Kindle, of which more than 240.000 have been sold already.

But the announced project does not really be on its way yet or does not want to tell too much about it. But in the fall the telco wants to start a pilot by handing out e-readers to some thousands of clients. The project is called News4Me and it is known that the telco tinkers on producing a personalised electronic newspaper. The site of Deutsche Telecom says: 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. In future, wherever you are, you will benefit from easy access to current news and information which correspond to your personal interests.

So Deutsche Telecom or T-labs still have to agree on cooperations with newspaper companies. What DT wants looks like Google News. This asks for a lot of conversions from the various newspaper formats. Of course it has been demonstrated by Google and can be done for an e-reader.

The e-reader is still subject to speculation. However researchers of T-Labs have spoken about the specifications in June to Innovations Report and talked about an 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 (see photograph), 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.

It is interesting to see Deutsche Telecom going into e-papers as a telecom company and not having the support yet of the German newspaper industry. It is almost unbelievable as the international newspaper research institute IFRA is in Darmstadt and has been conducting an e-paper project for some years. Some US companies now benefit from the project by offering their newspaper to the public through Kindle. Besides IFRA recently performed a focus group test of e-reader with black and white screens provided by irex Technologies and Sony, but also colour screens, provided by Bridgestone.

But all these details aside: DT is the second telecom multinational going into a pilot of e-papers. Earlier this year France Telecom through its Orange Labs started the project Read & Go, the first 3G-connected mobile newspaper kiosk with the newspapers Le Monde, Le Parisien, Les Echos, L’Equipe and Télérama. Orange has specifically developed Wifi/3G coupled connectivity with a dedicated distribution platform, user interface and browsing capability. The Read&Go device has a storage capacity of 1 Gb – more than 200 newspapers – and also contains a e-library of thirty or so books (literature, strip cartoons, children's and practical publications, etc.) provided by Feedbooks, Médiatoon (Dargaud, Dupuis, Lombard et Kana) and Mango editions. The project will have 150 test persons. So far an iLiad has been used in the marketing utterances.

The move of the telecom companies France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom is interesting as the pilots are not just undertaken by newspapers and equipment manufacturers only like the projects of NRC Handelsblad in The Netherlands and Les Echos in France

Blog Posting: 1180

Tags: newspaper, e-paper, e-reader

BPN 1055 First Dutch university on eBook

As the first Dutch university the Open University offers its course material on eBook readers. Students in the management Studies department, taking HRM courses, receive an eBook reader for free with a substantial part of the course material. The offers fit in the OU’s strive after time- and place independent studying facilities.

With the eBook project the OU looks for sensible solutions using new methods, tools and technologies. The eBook reader can contain a complete cupboard with books and reads as well as a printed book. The OU has chosen after a trial (see photograph) for the Hanlin V3 for its stability and user friendliness. The battery life is 8.000 page flips long. And interesting is the facility on which mp3 files can be played. With the experience of using the eBook readers the university is able to continue its policy to use, extend and optimise e-material. Also course material as mp3 file is seriously researched. It can save time, while also visually impaired students can participate.

The OU is the first university to offer its material digitally for eBook readers, as the OU develops most of its content itself and digitally. It converts also the content with text-to-speech material, so that the texts can be read and listened to. Other universities are more dependent on publishers, who are more cautious and wait for a standard to crystallise.

It looks like eBooks and eReaders are slowly making inroads, despite a recent marketing survey, basically telling that only 2 per cent of 600 respondents will buy an eReader and 16 per cent might do so. But eReaders and especially the digital paper ones, are products of national pride, as in The Netherlands three companies, all Philips spin-offs, are actively developing digital paper eBook readers. iRex Technologies has brought the second version of the iLiad wireless eReader. Polymer Vision is still developing the mobile phone Readius, while Liquavista has just taken the colour digital paper, based on the technical principle of electrowetting from the drawing board in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) to start industrial production in China. In terms of sales The Netherlands is starting up. Last year the book chain Selexyz started to sell the iLiad and has sold 273 units till March 2008, while 50 Dutch language eBooks were available. A pilot was held at a secondary school. This year so far the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad started its ePaper edition and sold in two weeks more than 500 iLiads. The Dutch language eBooks have doubled since last year to 100 titles, while 279 Dutch language eBooks are in the public domain. Also the libraries subscribers can now borrow eBooks. The consultancy PWC expects this year a turn over of 0,5 mln euro.

Blog Posting Number: 1055

Tags: eBook, eReadereBook, eReader, digital paper, ePaper

BPN 991: Here the Readius comes again

Last week Polymer Vision, the inventor of rollable displays and a spin out from Philips, announced the commercial launch of the Readius device by mid 2008. The exclusive device exploits the versatility of rollable displays to merge the ‘reading friendly’ strengths of e-readers with the ‘high mobility’ features of mobile phones. Together with the Readius internet portal, designed for personalisation and content selection, the company offers a whole new mobile phone category.

The Readius is designed around ease of use and mobility. The device can last for 30 hours of continuous reading without battery charge. The 3G HSDPA tri-band phone allows worldwide calls and high speed instant updates from personally selected news sources, email and other services. Standard POP3 and IMAP is supported for ISP e-mail and others such as Yahoo!Mail, Google Gmail and Microsoft Exchange. The Micro SD High Capacity storage ensures quick and easy access to e-books and valuable information. Readius also features audio capabilities, including MP3, for podcasts, audio books and music.

The Readius internet portal allows users to quickly and simply configure their Readius User Interface as well as select content and services to individual style and needs. With zero clicks, personal data and information is then ‘pushed’ whenever and wherever it is needed.

The portal presents content providers with a commercially attractive channel to offer their content and services to the high growth mobile consumer market. Polymer Vision is in discussion with numerous such providers to populate the portal and make a broad choice of content and services available to Readius owners.

So what is new after last years’ press announcement for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona? Last year the announcement indicated that Telecom Italia would exclusively market the Readius. In one of the press releases even the deadline of one week after the Barcelona Congress was mentioned. Did Telecom Italia pilot the Readius or even market the device officially. The site of Telecom Italia only mentions one press release: Telecom Italia through TIM will co-develop and market in Italy the world’s first rollable display enabled personal device for digital content distribution while Polymer Vision will market the device in the rest of the world. Nowhere on the Telecom Italia site is an indication of a pilot or the availability of the Readius. Now one year later the manufacturer tells the mobile world that the Readius will be available for commercial launch mid 2008. IN the press release there is no mention of the Telecom Italia exclusive launch.

Rushing press releases to the market before finished devices is a bad policy. The following question will pop up: What went wrong between Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision; Was the device not ready yet; Will the device be ready for commercial launch mid 2008 (roughly July till October 2008)? Or is there a technical or production problem. From a person who has seen the Readius, I heard that there is a fault in the design. When you are called, you will have to open the mobile to take the call; there is no screen, receiver and speaker on the outside. This will be experineced by a user as very awkward and looks like a cardinal sin in mobile usability design.

Blog Posting Number: 991

Tags: digital paper

Dutch public libraries in e-books

The Dutch service organisation for libraries NBD/Biblion will offer public libraries a collection of digital and audio books within two months. The members of the public library will be able to download e-books and audio books at home. The new online service is an addition to music download service for members of the public library, which was started late 2005.

The service organisation will produce a portal, which will be launched for trial in the second quarter of the year. There is a curious detail: normally e-books can be rented out to members instantaneously. However, in this case a limited number can rent the e-book copies due to license limitations. In first instance a few hundreds Dutch language e-books will be available, included copyright ones, as well as a few thousand English language books in the public domain.

In The Netherlands activities concerning e-books are fragmented. iRex Technologies is selling the iLiad. There is an online e-book site. The Dutch book chain Selexyz has started to sell the e-book reader Iliad and e-books (the company sold already more than 150 e-book readers). The software development company Edupaper has held a trial in a school environment and is now selling e-book readers like the Iliad, Booken Cybook, Polymer Vision Readius. And a few public libraries, among which the public library of my hometown Almere, bought e-book readers to rent them out. However, there is no united consumer promoting campaign for e-book readers and e-books by manufacturers, publishers, developers, book shops and libraries.

Blog Posting Number: 976

Tags: e-book,
e-book reader, public library, library

Digital paper seminar in Paris

Last night upon my return from Salzburg (the flight was okay; thank you) and before my flight to Tampere (Finland tomorrow, I found a message, in French, in my mailbox from Bruno Rives of Tebaldo. In the mail he announced the seventh edition of the Tebaldo Round table this time on Electronic Paper for communications, strategies and risks, to be held in Paris on 26 October, 2007.

This sounds interesting. After the introduction of two e-reader versions for the French financial newspaper Les Echos, it is interesting to see that a seminar with a wider scope than only Les Echos is devoted to the subject. During the seminar a presentation will be given about the place of the novel on an e-reader by an editor of the publishing house Flammarion. Bruno Rives himself will present the State of art and take the case of Les Echos to talk about economic models. Another speaker will talk about the place of the e-readers for the press projects and editors. A representative of Ganaxa will talk about the announced project in Japan and China. There will also be an introduction to the architectures, preparation and continuous production.

There will be more presentations on the use and experimentations in this field for the press, editors and libraries. There will be a presentation of the GeR2 e-reader of Ganaxa, digital paper as a large sheet, the development of digital paper and colours and the flexible digital paper from Samsung, Polymer Vision, Fujitsu and E-Ink.

It really looks like a very interesting seminar. But it is in France (I will have to travel again), it is in French (read French, but speak a little tourist French) and it will take two days of travelling. Yet I am very tempted to go.

For more information and the registration form:
http://www.tebaldo.com/seminaires.htm

Blog Posting Number: 882

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

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