[ExI] Ebooks Formats and ebook readers

[Tomasz Rola]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2011, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 11:11:29PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> > On 10 December 2011 20:41, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes. This is 2011. You're asking for a full-color high-resolution
> > > mirasol (inteferometric modulator display). These are probably 5-10 years
> > > away from the consumer, if the technology can be made to work at all.
> > >
> > 
> > Why, my life expectancy should hopefully be longer than that even if no
> > life-extension breakthroughs take place in the meantime... :-)
> 
> First mirasol-display readers seem to be closer to the marketplace
> than I thought:
> 
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/E-Reader-mit-Mirasol-Display-1393714.html
> 
> The colors and contrast look too good to be true:
> http://www.heise.de/imgs/18/7/4/6/0/7/8/Kyobo-E-Reader_Mirasol-4434d3bc6c2ca47a.jpeg
> 
> The other Google images hits for mirasol aren't nearly as
> dramatic.

Interesting. I tried to see this thing in action, there are few films on 
y-tube, like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y21xHGrecMk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ag4HGceyVik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=-rYg9-VJ2Ys

>From those and other films, I can say that both colors and contrast seem 
rather acceptable to me, but not very much. I would like to wait and see 
next gen of this technology, or their competition.

Maybe for now it would be more interesting to have e-paper with 256 grey 
levels rather than one with 1024 or even 4096 colors. I'm not sure how 
many colors have the displays shown but I wouldn't bet on 5 digits... On 
my IPS LCD monitor I can see that Kyobo colors are very similar to my old 
4096-color Ipaq 3630, including picture being somewhat pinkish sometimes. 
I could easily swallow this, but I can even easier wait - a unit with 
16-bit colors (65000+) would look much nicer.

Besides, I didn't like the glassy reflections. This is exactly the thing 
that I don't need to take with me for a walk. I guess they will sell 
antiglare filters.

Compare for example, this Kyobo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rYg9-VJ2Ys&feature=related

with this nice Mirasol presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMxJDi5z-C4

The second one looks (to me) much more like 16-bit colors and is very 
sexy.

OTOH, it is also quite possible, that both devices have same colors, but 
only the second have been filmed with decent camera. However, the glassy 
reflexes are present only in first, as far as I can see.

As of Mirasol being close to market - I couldn't see price sticker 
anywhere. I think we will see it when it happens.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
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**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **