eReaders with Color eInk Displays – Will we ever get them?

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Destination Infinity

Color E-Ink, technology for displaying text and images on an eReader in color, exists today. It’s just not good enough and not cheap enough yet.

We have a lot of ‘Reading Tablets’ (such as the new Kindle Fire HD and the Nook Tablet). However, these are tablets with LCD screens with minor adjustments (such as an anti-glare coating) to make the LCD screen good for reading. It’s far from the ideal color eInk screen.

While LCD displays are stunning they have their limitations.

Some Limitations of LCD Screens

  • Difficult to read on LCDs for a long time. Unless you are LCD-compatible you’ll experience eye-strain.
  • Difficult to read in direct sunlight. Pretty much impossible, actually.
  • High contrast and brightness makes it difficult to read it in a dimly lit room. You have to dim the brightness and adjust the theme to a Night Reading theme.
  • Some people find it difficult to sleep after reading for a long time on a back-lit screen (LCD display). The brightness messes with the Circadian rhythm (your body assumes it’s not night yet because a bright light was right in your face so recently).
  • More power consumption, drains battery very fast. IGZO screens are trying to solve this in one way (to only refresh the screen once per second when displaying photos and other static items). However, color eInk is a much more promising solution.
  • Devices using LCD screens can sometimes heat up.

A LCD display is excellent for media consumption and performing utility tasks like checking mail, browsing (short durations). However, LCD displays are not the ideal book reading screen (unless you are LCD compatible or think that a device/screen optimized for reading is a stupid idea).

Is Color eInk the solution? Is anyone EVER going to ship eReaders with color eInk? 

Black and White eInk screens (16 shades of grey, not quite as exciting as 50) have been the screens of choice for eReaders (Sony Reader, Kindle, Nook). This is despite the fact that eInk can only display 16 shades of grey.

Why are eInk screens so popular for eReaders?

E-Ink is a reflective display technology and it works by reflecting the light that falls on it (unlike the back-lit LCD). This makes eInk ideal for reading in sunlight.

eInk also only changes the screen when required. There is no constant refreshing of the screen (as you have in TVs and Computer LCD screens). So it only uses power when the screen is changed. This makes eInk very good for uses where the screen is not often changed (reading, posters, price tags).

Since the screen is not refreshing constantly. Since the technology is very similar to actual ink on paper – there are eInk dots that are moved up and down to show different shades of grey. Since there is no light coming out of the screen at your eyes.

eInk is great for reading.

E-Ink is the closest we have got to the real paper experience. Readers find it very comfortable to read from eInk screens, regardless of duration.

LCD-compatible people claim that they can read War and Peace off a LCD screen at one go without bothering their eyes even a bit. However, for us LCD-incompatible mere mortals, eInk is the only screen that allows us to read non-stop for long stretches without eye strains or worse (headaches, loss of sleep, etc.).

eInk uses very little power and thus eReaders using eInk do not heat up. This is critical for eReaders as people hold them in their hand(s) while reading.

E-Ink displays are also light weight.

However, eInk is far from perfect

The biggest disadvantage of E-Ink is that currently eInk screens are only available in Black and White. Color eInk screens have been promised for years and years. However, they either have very washed out colors, or very high prices.

This puts Amazon and B&N and Sony in a bind. They would probably LOVE to get color eInk and makes cool new Kindles and Nooks and Sony Readers. However, the technology hasn’t arrived yet.

Limitations of Color E-Ink and eInk

  • Low/Slow page turn, page refresh rates. Since the dots of electronic ink are literally ‘moving’ every time the page refreshes, it’s hard to match LCD screens. Advances are being made but we are still a long way off from catching LCD screens on speed.
  • Relatively expensive (this is in part due to lack of bulk production capacity).
  • Limitations on natural color reproduction, dull colors, limited color palette. Color eInk screens shown so far can’t compare with the richness of IPS and AMOLED displays.
  • No multimedia, video display capability. Most Color eInk display technologies do not support Video.

To compete with LCDs (or to even have a chance), eInk needs color and video support and lower prices and higher volumes and faster evolution. Right now, none of this is happening.

Prominent manufacturers of eInk and Color E-Ink

E Ink Corporation (eInk Triton): E-Ink has almost become the de facto standard for monochrome eReader displays. Can E-Ink repeat that success with its color E-Ink Triton display?

They do have the technology and there is even a product in the market (Ectaco Jetbook Color) that uses the color E-Ink Triton technology. However, none of the big eReader makers have embraced eInk Triton.

Pixel Qi:  Pixel Qi’s e-paper display technology modifies existing LCD technology to create multiple modes. A black and white reading mode that consumes very little power. A color mode that lets you use video. Combine the modes and you can display full color video and images, read in sunlight, and consume less power.

Pixel Qi has a multi-mode screen whose back-light can be switched on and off by the reader. When the back-light is switched on, it works similar to a LCD display and when the back-light is switched off, it becomes a reflective screen for reading books. The technology has been implemented in the Notion Ink Adam tablet. Again, none of the big eReader makers have adopted the technology.

Mirasol: There are at least four devices using Mirasol displays in the Korean and Chinese markets. Kyobo eReader was perhaps the most popular among them. However, Kyobo discontinued its color eReader products. Mirasol recently decided to license its technology to others instead of manufacturing its own displays. All signs that perhaps the technology has no future.

Plastic Logic: Plastic Logic is another company with a color e-paper technology that has decided to license its technology to others. There were no products released with Plastic Logic displays, even thought they sent out a lot of very impressive Press Releases.

Fujitsu e-paper: Fujitsu was one of the first vendors to bring out an eReader using color e-paper technology (Fujitsu FLEPia Lite). They even did a technology refresh. However, their color ePaper screen was too expensive and was not released in the West.

Fujitsu is now planning to come out with improved color eReaders that are flexible (bendable) and have better displays. Let’s hope they succeed.

Samsung: Samsung bought Liquavista, a company which manufactures color e-paper displays that work with and without back-light. These displays also have limited video capability.

Samsung is working to release these electrowetting-based color e-paper displays. These will be flexible and might even support video. Samsung’s backing should increase the chances of this technology making it to actual users at some point of time.

Conclusion

Color eInk isn’t here yet. There are a lot of contenders. However, none of the competing technologies seem to be ready. None of them seem to be able to land a big client like Amazon or Sony.

There also seems to have been a shift. Instead of focusing on eReaders with Color eInk, companies that make Color eInk seem to be trying to take on LCD Tablets. That’s a really strange move. Why not start with a smaller, less competitive market first? Why would you try to take on a firmly entrenched screen technology like LCD technology?

It is actually quite disappointing to see that the major eReader vendors (Read: Amazon, B&N, Sony, Kobo, etc) are focusing on Tablets and aren’t releasing any Color eInk display powered eReaders. You’d think that a Color eInk powered eReader would make for a wonderful TextBook Reader and also a very good device for Magazines and Newspapers. It would have the sort of battery life that LCD powered Tablets can only dream about.

Amazon has recently released a lot of new Kindles but none of them have a color eInk screen. Will B&N spring a surprise? Will Samsung?

Filed under: evolution | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

In Defence of Delaying Gratification – Amazon from a non short-term Profit perspective

Posted on September 10, 2012 by switch11

ReadWriteWeb writes an article about Comparing Apple, Amazon Based on Their Profits. It’s really interesting because they start off with the stupidest description of what Amazon does that ANY Silicon Valley worshipping Tech Blog has ever written -

Apple and Amazon are both in the business of designing small computers – tablets, ereaders, phones, media players – and selling them to the public. But how they do it is the big difference. And that’s best depicted by the astonishing difference in the two companies’ profits.

Did they just write that ‘Amazon is in the business of designing small computers – tablets, ereaders, phones, media players, and selling them to the public’?

Whether its Amazon or Microsoft, the tech press LOVES to bad mouth Seattle tech companies (actually any company not in SFO or the Valley). A company based in San Francisco that is selling users’ information or selling purple cows to users – the NEXT Amazing Technology. A company in Colorado making lifesaving equipment – Not worth a mention.

Let’s set some facts straight about Amazon. Then we’ll take a look at why Amazon is running a very different race from Apple. A race that might prove to be a much smarter race and a much longer lasting one.

Amazon is more than the Kindle and Kindle Fire

Let’s take a quick look at all the things Amazon does -

  1. Amazon.com.
  2. Amazon Web Services. This is, arguably, the #1 Cloud Services Provider. An industry that is going to be very, very significant.
  3. Lab126 – maker of Kindle.
  4. Kindle Store and book publishing divisions and companies like BookSurge, Mobipocket, CreatorSpace and various publishing imprints.
  5. IMDB.com. Movies Website.
  6. Amazon.com branches in multiple countries including Joyo.com in China and Amazon UK, Amazon Italy, Amazon Germany. Keep in mind these are ENTIRE country focused retail sites (not just a branch selling goods made in the US).
  7. Audible. Audiobooks.
  8. Zappos. Shoe and Apparel Retail.
  9. Shopbop. Retailer of Designer Clothing.
  10. Endless.com. Another retailer of Shoes and Apparel.
  11. Woot. Deals site.
  12. Amie Street.
  13. Lovefilm. Movie rental site in UK and Europe.
  14. The Book Depository. UK book selling site.
  15. Investment in Living Social, a daily deals site.
  16.  Brilliance Audio, audio book producer.
  17. A9 and Alexa – search and categorization sites.
  18. Amazon Movie Studios.
  19. Amazon Wireless. Selling phones and subscriptions.
  20. Operating retail websites for Lacoste, Marks & Spencer, Sears Canada, Timex, etc.
  21. Drugstore.com.
  22. Diapers.com.

Amazon is like the Hydra. You cut one head off and two others grow. It’s exactly the sort of strategy that stands the test of time. Just ask GE.

We basically have a LOT of billion dollar businesses that Amazon is running -

  1. Amazon.com. This is the main site.
  2. Amazon sites in different countries. Amazon UK by itself is a multi-billion business.
  3. Digital Media such as music and movies.
  4. Kindle devices.
  5. Kindle books.
  6. Cloud Services.
  7. Zappos and Shopbop and Endless.
  8. Diapers.com. Might not be a billion dollar business yet but it’s very close.

Amazon is setting up all these billion dollar businesses and it’s putting itself into position to make money from EVERY SINGLE THING that EVERY SINGLE PERSON buys ANYWHERE.

Yes, it’s probably going to fail in getting to that point. It will, however, end up as a company that -

  1. Has 100 million+ customers in the US. 500 million+ customers worldwide.
  2. Makes money from 25% to 50% of the items those customers buy. Consistent, recurring money – every single month for the life of the customer.

It’s going to be the ULTIMATE stable and HUGE business. If it gets to that point.

It might fail. However, the extent and scope of its ambition is impressive and ludicrous.

Microsoft was – a PC on every desk.

Amazon is – Every purchase by every person through Amazon.

Recurring Revenue is ALWAYS better than one time revenue

The single biggest thing Amazon understands very well is that it’s better to make money from customers repeatedly, than to just make money once.

  1. Better to make money from customers every month than just once every two years.
  2. Better to make money from customers from various products than from just 2 or 3 products.
  3. Better to make money from customers as often as possible.

Recurring revenue means that you know with a HUGE amount of certainty how much money you will make. You can invest now to grow and to make more profits in the future and to keep growing your recurring revenue.

It’s a vicious positive cycle – You keep using current profits as customer acquisition costs. And you keep increasing recurring revenue and profits. Then you keep pumping that back into new customer acquisition. It’ll take you a very long time to run out of customers to acquire. But when you do you’ll be left with 500 million to a billion profit generating customers for life.

Delaying Gratification = Long Term Survival

Those existing 7-8 billion dollar businesses that Amazon has. The additional 7-8 billion dollar businesses it is building up.

Those guarantee long-term survival (to whatever extent it can be guaranteed in such a fast changing world). If one product is no longer ‘The One’ then another takes its place. If one business gets defeated, then another takes up its place as a fundamental pillar for the company.

All those customers Amazon is locking up as long-term recurring revenue income streams – at the cost of current profits. Those are very, very valuable.

My prediction is that in 5 to 10 years we’ll see some very clear signs of what is the better approach – Selling devices for $200 to $300 instant profits to a somewhat smaller group OR Creating long-term customers for life from a somewhat larger group.

Filed under: evolution | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

Can Kindle and Nook replace physical textbooks?

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Destination Infinity

Text books have not seen any radical changes for a rather long time. While we have had Wikipedia and eBooks and lots of other very interesting developments in related fields, textbooks continue to plod along.

As Kindle and Nook and eBooks transform the book publishing industry, the natural question that comes up is – Can Kindle and Nook replace physical textbooks?

Let’s start by looking at the advantages and disadvantages eReaders have over textbooks.

Advantages of eReaders over physical textbooks

  1. Portability. eReaders are lighter and it is easier to carry a single eReader than it is to carry a whole bunch of textbooks.
  2. Cost. The cost of each digital textbook ought to be lower than that of the corresponding physical textbook. The raw material costs, printing costs, handling costs, shipping costs are all either removed or greatly reduced when we shift to digital textbooks.
  3. Low Priced eReaders. The price of eReaders has come down drastically - from $399 in 2007 to $79 today. We can expect eReader prices to go down further if eReaders are adopted on a large scale by Schools and Colleges. Note: eReaders for textbooks would require larger screens and probably be twice or thrice the price of the cheapest Kindle (which is $79).
  4. [Never going to happen category] Once school and college libraries are digitized, it will be possible to lend a copy of the same textbook to many students. Note: This depends on publishers so we can safely assume this is not going to happen. A related benefit is that we can offer as many textbooks as we want when we have digital textbooks – We aren’t restricted by the number that were shipped to us.
  5. Public Domain – Students, Professors, and Researchers can access public domain textbooks and research material easily and freely using their eReaders. Many public libraries across the world are already digitizing the public domain educational books and material they have.
  6. Readability and Larger Audience – The text is always legible and clear and the font size can be increased or decreased as required. There is also a Read To Me feature available with the Kindle. This will allow digital textbooks to cater to lots of groups that have been denied access – dyslexic children, blind readers, readers with weak eye-sight, and so on.
  7. Saving Trees – All the photocopying of books can be avoided. Not only do we avoid using trees to make textbooks, we avoid using trees to make copies of the textbook pages.
  8. Easy Reference – Dictionaries and reference materials can be loaded onto the Kindle and Nook and students can instantly access them whenever required.
  9. Internet – Students can connect to the Internet directly from their Kindle or Nook.
  10. Renting – Renting textbooks is easier with eTextbooks and eReaders. Amazon has a digital text-book rental option that enables students to save up to 80% of the cost of the physical text books. If other major publishers can also come up with such schemes, cost of buying and using a textbook over a limited time period (like one semester) can be brought down drastically.
  11. Students’ Familiarity with Technology – Students are familiar with technology and better able to adapt to a new technology. That makes it easy for them to understand and use Kindle and Nook.

Limitations of eReaders (When compared to physical textbooks)

  1. Most eReaders that are cheap are too small to be used for eTextbooks. Kindle DX has a suitable size but it’s far too expensive.
  2. Note taking, marking, underlining, etc may be possible with eReaders, but they are a lot more difficult and unwieldy with eReaders than physical textbooks.
  3. Students are not able to browse/skim through their textbooks quickly.
  4. E Ink technology can currently display only black/white/shades of grey. Back-lit LCD displays can display multimedia content and rich graphics, but it is difficult to read from them for a long time (unless you’re LCD compatible). LCD based tablets are also more expensive than entry-level E Ink based eReaders.
  5. Color eInk has been around the corner for the last 5 years. It might be just around the corner that happens to stand in a distant part of the Universe. Even when it does arrive there will be cost and usability issues for a few years.
  6. Students need to handle eReaders more carefully than they handle textbooks. Replacing broken eReaders will cost a considerable amount of money.
  7. Sharing Textbooks will be difficult as they will probably be locked down to a user account.
  8. eTextbooks have little to no resale value.
  9. Students won’t get enough exercise from carrying just eTextbooks. ;)
  10. Digital book publishers usually display books using proprietary formats and DRM. There is the very real possibility of getting locked up with a certain publisher or eTextbook store. A marriage you can’t really get out of unless you are willing to give up all your past purchases.
  11. Not all textbooks are available in digital formats and some publishers may not want to digitize their books.
  12. Actually, that’s the biggest one – Why would Publishers want to make less from eTextbooks?
  13. Lack of Specialization. It would be good to see specialized screens/devices made exclusively for the education segment by major eReader manufacturers.

There are lots of limitations including some really hard to navigate ones (Textbook Publishers). It’s hard to say which of these will be overcome,  or when/how they will be overcome.

Can Kindle and Nook replace physical textbooks?

At the moment the answer seems – No, definitely not.

We could extend that to say – Given the direction of evolution of eReaders and eBooks, it seems very unlikely that eReader makers will provide a device suitable as a Textbook Reader and it seems even more unlikely that Textbook Publishers will agree to go with eTextbooks in a form that improves the status quo for students.

Truthfully, Kindle DX was a bit of an experiment (to try to corner the textbook market without really putting in the effort to make a device optimized for students) and B&N hasn’t even tried to make a Textbook eReader. Once one or more companies actually go all-out after the eTextbook and eReader markets we’ll have a better idea. At the moment there seems little hope.

Filed under: evolution | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

What Tools and Apps for Kindle Owners should we make?

Posted on December 11, 2011 by switch11

Over the years my team and me have been making various tools and apps for Kindle owners. Of course, we’ve made a lot of mistakes and sometimes not stuck with things. That means we have a few things that are well done i.e.

  1. Notepad for Kindle. Not for Kindle Touch (working on it) or Kindle Fire (completely different development ecosystem, not working on it).
  2. Calendar for Kindle. Same as above.
  3. Other Kindle Apps like Calculator and Address Book.
  4. This Blog (hopefully, it’s well done and not medium rare).
  5. Kindle App Review Blog. Maurine is doing a great job here and she has nearly every single Kindle App reviewed.

We also just released a Kindle Game based on Alice on Wonderland. It’s called Alice in Crossed Up Land. You have to match objects from Alice’s World and you can play Match-3 or Match-4 or Match-5 (match either 3 objects or 4 objects or 5 objects).

We also have lots of things that are at various stages of completion i.e.

  1. Book Summit. A Social Network for Kindle Owners (lots of authors for some reason).
  2. Book Monk. A Kindle Book Search Tool. It’s fallen into a bit of disarray at the moment. However, it’s something I’d be interested in working on if there’s interest from all of you.
  3. The Kindle Start Page Maker. Which lets you create a ‘book of links/favorites’ that you can keep on your Kindle Home Page.
  4. Kindle Page Number Tool. A tool that lets you convert (approximately) from page numbers to locations.
  5. Various projects that haven’t seen the light of day.

************************************************************************************************

Perhaps all of you can help me/us in deciding what would be most valuable for all of you in 2012. The things that are interesting to us as a team are:

  1. Curation Engine. Enter in criteria + get a list of books that you can sort and arrange.
  2. Crowd-sourced Curation Engine. Here we would give all of you some way of triggering what’s best.
  3. Recommendation Engine. Enter in one or more books you like and get suggestions.
  4. A site that only features indie author books.
  5. Filtering Engine for Free Books. So you could say – I only want to see books that are by published authors and rated 4 stars and longer than 300 pages. The Filtering Engine would bring up all such books.
  6. Something Else. 

I will be continuing the blog (and also writing about good free books to the extent possible) but it’s just not possible to manually go through 500 to 700 free books a day. The added issue of there not being any simple way to even look at today’s free books makes it all rather difficult. On top of everything we have the problem of some offers being for 1 day only.

**********************************************************************************************

Please enter your thoughts for this Poll, and I’ll let you know which 1 or 2 projects we decide to focus on in 2012.

Thank you for your time and ideas.

Filed under: evolution | Tagged: , | 11 Comments »

What the Kindle was meant to be, and what it’s turning into

Posted on March 1, 2011 by switch11

Please Note: This post is all conjecture. By Kindle it means eReaders in general – Kindle is the best example because it had the most thought put into it.

Most of this post will revolve around the assumption that empowering customers wasn’t really what the Kindle was about. It was about freeing customers, and Amazon, from Publishers. It’s a very important distinction because things are beginning to get out of control – in good ways and bad.

What the Kindle was meant to be

iTunes with $10 books. An Amazon Store in everyone’s hand.

Longer Version:

Amazon saw a future for books where physical books would be replaced by digital. That meant two things -

  1. Amazon had to move to ensure its stream of book sales revenue was preserved.
  2. Amazon had the opportunity to become the platform for all of Publishing.

The latter goal is really what the Kindle was about. Amazon probably has a wall map with the Kindle bubble slowly growing to encompass all of Publishing.

Once the Kindle began to show it was more than just an eReader, Amazon probably realized a few things -

  1. Kindle owners bought nearly all their books from Amazon.
  2. Kindle owners became Amazon customers and bought lots of things from Amazon – pots and pans and cauldrons and brooms.
  3. Kindle owners would buy any other device Amazon produced.
  4. Amazon/Kindle could become the platform for all of Publishing much quicker than Amazon had thought.
  5. A Kindle owner had an Amazon store in her hand.

Just like the iPod helped turn iTunes into a monster and helped lay the foundation for the success of the iPhone and the iPad, Amazon had found a means to build a Publishing Platform and start something truly big.

Of course, since Amazon sells EVERYTHING, the Kindle is far more important to it than the iPod was to Apple. Imagine if Apple also sold shoes and jeans and kitchen sinks and wireless plans. How much more important would iPod and iTunes be?

Kindle is potentially that important.

The wall map was probably updated soon after Kindle 3 was released – the Kindle bubble was now slowly growing to encompass all of retail. At this point the wall map probably became an exact match of the 2003 Kindle blueprint in Jeff Bezos’ journal.

What the Kindle is turning into

The Internet with $1 books. A store that isn’t yet fully defined.

Longer Version:

Here are just a few of the Publishing related things Amazon probably neither expected nor is prepared for -

  1. The Race to $0. It starts with The Race to $1.
  2. The Democratization of Publishing. The speed and extent of this have probably taken Amazon by surprise. It doesn’t have Encore ready. It doesn’t have the right controls in place.
  3. The impending destruction of the $9.99 price point. It’s truly stunning that from $15 hardcovers we are going not to $10 ebooks, but to $1 and $3 ebooks.
  4. Competitors willing to kill themselves and books. If you consider the moves competitors have made, i.e. supporting library books and lending and browser-based books – it’s madness.
  5. Users constantly raising their expectations. Everyone seems to have forgotten the world we were in just 2-3 years ago. Now, $1 and $3 and $5 ebooks seem like a birthright to readers. On top of that readers also want lending and reselling rights.

When an existing power structure gets destroyed there’s always the chance the void will be filled not by a kinder, gentler power structure, but by utter chaos.

In terms of the Kindle being the Trojan Horse that helps Amazon take over all of retail the possibilities are still strong. In fact, Amazon might stick with books even if the book market goes to $1 and $3 books – solely to keep its millions of tiny, powerful storefronts humming along.

Kindle as Store is still mostly undefined. The direction Amazon takes the Kindle in will be very, very interesting. Will there be a Kindle Tablet? Will the Kindle become something you get free with Amazon Prime? Will a Color Kindle be added on as the premium, non-free Kindle?

If Amazon really is thinking of the Kindle as a direct, powerful channel to customers, it’ll make nearly all of the following moves -

  1. Release a Kindle Tablet that addresses music and movies and games.
  2. Drop the Kindle WiFi to $99 soon. Six months after that – bundle it free with Amazon Prime membership.
  3. Drop the Kindle 3 black and white model to $125. Release a color Kindle at $199.

Companies regularly pay $100 to $300 per customer in customer acquisition costs. If a free Kindle translates into an Amazon customer who buys books, ebooks, movies, digital movies, kitchen sinks, games, clothes, diapers, carpets, car tools, and garden chairs from Amazon - then giving away Kindles makes a ton of sense.

Every Kindle owner’s path of least resistance is buying from Amazon – not just ebooks, everything. Amazon will probably realize in a few years that the book market is likely to be destroyed. However, it knows that the Kindle is its golden channel to customers - a direct channel so lucrative and important that the lost book market will be a trivial price to pay in return for an excellent shot at taking over all of retail.

Filed under: evolution | Tagged: , | 11 Comments »

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