The Kindle may as well have an antenna with tin foil on it.
With the launch of the Fujistsu FLEPia next month there’s finally going to be a color ereader on the market, in Japan at least. The specs look pretty good. Not only does it appear to be open to all the major formats used in Japan, but the FLEPia has a built-in Windows OS that allows for basic internet browsing, email, and word processing. It looks a lot like the cross-functional device we’ve been calling for. Too bad it’s being released only in Japan and costs $1000.
You can see a video of the FLEPia in action at the bottom of this post. It’s a bit hard to tell with the glare on the video, but the large 260,000 color touchscreen seems to work pretty well. The refresh rate seems a little slower than grayscale readers, but not awful. So when are we going to get this kind of stuff in America?
A better question might be why don’t we have it already? The E Ink Corporation, the brains behind the tech in most of the current-gen ereaders announced color technology in 2005, long before the Kindle came on the scene. Some one should probably tell Amazon this. When asked by PaidContent.org about color on the Kindle, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos responded:
We would love to have color but electronic ink doesn’t do color.
Apparently Amazon didn’t get E Ink’s press release.
For the most part, books don’t require color to be enjoyed, and the makers of ereaders likely want to keep their production costs as low as they can. Grayscale readers are still selling steadily at premium price points, so they haven’t needed color.
The opportunities flexible electronic paper create are many.
But with netbooks poised to outsell laptops, and smartphones essentially becoming minicomputers, the market is clearly primed for a fully functional intermediary device such as this. The difference between electronic paper and backlit LCD screens is drastic, and when it starts hitting ereaders in color, things will move quickly. E Ink is already shopping their newest flexible, color displays. Here’s hoping the FLEPia will scare Amazon into focusing on bettering their technology, rather than nickel-and-diming users for content that is free on browsers and forced DRM. Then Sony and the rest of the ereader producers can work on selling better, rather than adequate, tech to the ebook hungry masses.
Via bznotes, eink.com, Wired, Crunch Gear, PaidContent.org.
A short collection of three novellas, The Diving Pool presents some excellent fiction, although it never strays to far from the New Yorker mold. All three stories have an eerie and haunting quality to them that adds a palpable atmosphere to excellent character studies. … Continue reading »
Amazon used DMCA (the law which makes it illegal to circumvent copy-protection) to force MobileRead to take down a script they were offering users that would allow Kindlers to buy non-Amazon books. It wasn’t pirating, and it didn’t break DRM at all, it simply let them buy elsewhere. Further analysis: here, here, and here. One sentence analysis: Amazon continues to be a world-class jerk to its customers. However, TeleRead reports you can indeed distribute a book for Kindle without DRM, though they don’t make it easy. And the Kindle’s getting sued.
New ereaders are coming fast and furious: The txtrreader, made by German company Wizpac, is slated for release in Q3 ’09; it looks slick (but not nearly as revolutionary as they claim in the video on MobileRead). It claims 3G capability, though, so it could give Kindle a run for its money in the non-U.S. world, where Kindle is non-existent. There’s also a video of the Hanvon ereaderon MobileRead, which has a slick-looking touchscreen interface, no black page-flash, and a questionable $180 price tag for the bargain model. Also: Apple rumors, an expensive Brother device in Japan, iRiver’s Libre (also from Japan), and Fujitsu’s exorbitantly priced, colorized FLEPia (also, of course, in Japan).
Appropos of nothing, my favorite new time-waster is the “Your Problems” column in the Guardian. Margaret Dibben “writes your wrongs”; specifically, people write in when corporations jerk them around, and Margaret goes in swinging, sorts it but fast, and then writes a report. It makes for an entertaining read, especially since she doesn’t take guff from anybody, not even her readers. In one recent column, she writes:
FCD agreed to refund £50, half the late fees, and £27 for a second transfer but you were still not happy because you believe you had to squeeze the money out of them. FCD says you emailed to say you were satisfied. This argument is going nowhere.
I love reading books. Well, more precisely, I love reading good books. I don’t much care for bad books. In fact, I believe (unscientifically) bad books are what keep people from reading more.
It’s not a complicated theory: people have bad experiences with books that were over-praised, and they begin to develop a negative association with reading in general.
As for myself, I tend to get hung up on bad books in my reading life. I’ll read a few novels in a row, quickly and enjoyably, and then I’ll hit one that I don’t like. Often the bad book has come highly recommended: it’s won awards, it’s been praised by authors I like, and (most commonly) it’s been called “hilarious” when in fact it is not. At all.
As fast as I’ll blaze through I book I really love, I’ll read a bad one just as slowly. It sometimes takes me weeks or months to get though it, and the worst part is that in the meantime, I don’t read any other books. It’s like a mental bad Netflix rental—I can’t bring myself to finish it, but I can’t move on to the next one while I still have it. … Continue reading »
In the spirit of all things Irish, I wanted to remind everyone that most of James Joyce’s work is beyond copyright, and thus free. You can get his books for nothing in many formats here, and I encourage you do so. Start with Dubliners and Portrait, and work you way up to Ulysses, his masterpiece–one of the best books ever written.
Some other great Irish writers in the public domain:
Not really a review so much as a reminder. I had this book in the queue for ages and finally got around to reading it after years of hearing friends say, “You haven’t read that?” White Teeth is one of those rare books that pretty much delivers on all the hype you might have heard about it. Rather than piling on too much more hype, I’ll just say that you should hurry up and read it. Or better yet, save it for a time when maybe you know you’re going to need a really good read. … Continue reading »
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Lockpick Pornography; I came across it somewhere and downloaded it because it was free and I liked the title.
It’s not a novel, despite what it says on the cover art. It would be more aptly called a novella, at about 120 pages, but that’s not quite right either.
Lockpick Pornography follows a gay man who hates straight people (and is discomfited by lesbians) on his quest to forcibly change people’s attitudes toward sexuality. Often, this includes breaking into buildings, and often he has casual, graphically described sexual encounters along the way. Thus the title. … Continue reading »
In the past few weeks, several companies have announced sheet-of-paper-sized ereaders, a trend which no doubt reflects a growing desire to crack into the lucrative business/student ebook market. The problem is that, while bigger screens are necessary for students and businesspeople, bigger screens alone will not make for a suitable device.
The fragility of the screens, the still nascent state of E-Ink, and the inadequacy of all current content interaction systems are just a few flaw that ereaders need to address before these devices become a commonplace sight on college campuses. Simply enlarging the display (and the price) won’t by itself create a perfect ereader for students and business users.
That said, though, I think this trend toward big ereaders could spell great news down the line for the state of ereading.
Here’s what’s happening, why it won’t be mind-blowing in the short-term, and how it could finally take ereaders mainstream. … Continue reading »
It's burning my retinas, even in this tiny unofficial mockup (photo credit: allthingsd.com)
For the record, I don’t put any stock into the rumors of Apple making an ereader. The reports state that Apple bought a bunch of touchscreens, not a bunch of E-Ink screens. Dedicated ereader devices simply cannot have LCD screens anymore. My guess is it’s a big iPod, like everybody first thought; even in that case, if they’re hyping a reading feature, backlit screens are a step back.
All that said, though, Apple entering the ereader market would be nothing but a good thing for readers.
On ITWorld, Peter Smith theorizes that one of the major reasons for Amazon’s popularity is its ease of use: you don’t have to fool around with formats or software, you just buy books right off the Kindle Store.
The tradeoff for this ease of use is a number of significant drawbacks: Kindlers have no alternative buying options, they’re strongly tethered to cripping digital restriction measures, they can’t borrow library ebooks, and they can’t download RSS feeds for free (and can’t download a lot of feeds at all). Plus, Kindle’s success is making Amazon a company that feels no desire to significantly improve its device. Understandably so, because nobody else can compete with their price, selection, name recognition, or that aforementioned streamlined book-buying process. … Continue reading »
Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves is a social satire written in the tradition of George Saunders and Kurt Vonnegut, amongst others. Freedom takes cuts at most every aspect of American society–if you ever find yourself unsure of just what Robillard’s angle is at a given point, the chapter titles will help steer you. Ultimately, the book’s undoing is its large scope: it tries to tackle too much and loses focus in the effort.
Vonnegut was a master at pulling back, at separating the narration and the action. And Saunders’s brilliance lies in his staccato zaniness. Robillard takes neither approach, though he should have. … Continue reading »
Finishing bad books
Author: Joey Comeau
