Sony releases the Holy Grail: A flexible e-ink screen

http://techgeekforever.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/sony-releases-the-holy-grail-a-flexible-e-ink-screen/

by techiemonkey • 12 years ago

94 81 12 years ago

techgeekforever.wordpress.com

At $8.95 apiece, $1100 can buy you 122 mass-market paperbacks. I certainly hope that someone can bring that retail price down a fair chunk, or this tech is not going far.

Zikes• 12 years ago

Many new technologies are prohibitively expensive, but we have to start somewhere.

thorntonbf• 12 years ago

Can we really call this new technology? I get it that it's a new iteration of eInk technology, but it doesn't seem that Sony is really taking advantage of any of the advances with this implementation. As much as I really want to get excited about this, I just don't see anything here that really does it for me.

As much as I think Amazon needs some competition, I'd love to see them take a swing at this concept with a Kindle - "Technical Edition". While I'd love to see some openness and extensibility via an SDK, I think if you get the price point right, it doesn't much matter. A sub $300 A4 or Letter sized device with the ability to read major document formats, annotate notes and maybe offer a digital note taking solution would be a dream.

But, at $1,100 this is nothing but a interesting but wholly irrelevant spectacle from a company that is rapidly trending in the same direction.

rch• 12 years ago

I'm in the market. At one point I tried a Logitech Io2, even though I knew it was too awkward to really work.

At this price point lifetime is what I'm looking for; a moleskine replacement that could last 6-10 years would be interesting to me, even if it isn't perfect (refresh rates, and so on). Of course data accessibility is a concern with Sony too.

necubi• 12 years ago

This is not meant for reading paperbacks. A kindle paperwhite, at $120, is a far better choice for that.

This is for reading and annotating documents, and generally replacing paper in an office or academic setting. Given then number of research papers I've printed out (thousands and thousands of pages), I can see a huge use for this. It may still not be cost effective, but is still much more environmentally friendly and saves the hassle of keeping track of all of that paper.

The paperless office has been an idea for several decades, but without devices like this that allow easy reading and annotation, we haven't been able to get there.

toomuchtodo2• 12 years ago

YES!

This replaces your legal/letter notepad your drag meeting to meeting, not your Kindle.

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

For research papers... maybe 50 pages including technical graphics? With a monochrome laser printer, we'll give a very high estimate of $0.10 per page, or $5 per paper. That's still 220 papers to break even, at least, and only one person can use it at a time, unlike the printer, which can be shared for the whole office.

My home printer is over 10 years old, and I still don't think I have spent more than $800 on it during that time, including consumables.

And I would recommend the Kobo Glo/Aura over the Paperwhite for paperbacks. The MicroSD card slot alone is worth it.

devindotcom3• 12 years ago

You can get an e-reader for around $40 these days. This is a one of a kind specialty product.

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

You can get an e-reader for around $40 these days.

Yeah, but you can't get a letter-sized eink reader for around $40.

bashcoder5• 12 years ago

Meanwhile, today I get an email from Sony saying that their Reader store closed on March 20, and that it has ceded its customers to Kobo, which spawned from Canada's Chapters Indigo. [0]

While this tech may be notable, Sony continues to have a fatally misaligned device/content strategy.

[0] http://www.kobobooks.com/SonyMigrate

lignuist• 12 years ago

What is wrong with just offering a reader without forcing its users to also buy the books from the same source?

I own a Sony reader and I actually enjoy that it is not tightly bundled with a bookstore.

bashcoder5• 12 years ago

Sure - and I think Sony e-readers were even among the first to allow side-loading of non-DRM ebooks.

The problem is the economics. There just haven't been financially successful examples of standalone readers, and Sony has been no exception.

Amazon can offer cheap Kindles because they can sell ebooks onto the devices directly and make money from content. Apple can charge more for their books because people are bought-in to their iPad investment, and because competitors have to pay Apple 30% to sell directly on to an iOS device.

Sony, meanwhile, continues to fail to bring an integrated value proposition to the market. Everything with them involves friction, compared to the competition. Last time I was at CES, I couldn't even find a Sony reader in their booth.

ben174• 12 years ago

Still in major need of a refresh rate boost. Especially with stylus input. It would be near-impossible to write at a reasonable speed when the screen takes so long to refresh.

jamesmiller5• 12 years ago

I was pretty upset with it's performance as a writing pad, having 100ms response times, maybe even higher. Even if I didn't have 3 week battery, I'd prefer <35ms draw times so it feels 1-to-1 with the input.

johnduhart• 12 years ago

Is there a source for this that isn't blogspam?

scholia7• 12 years ago

http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox and http://www.sony.com/digitalpaper

psc• 12 years ago

This technology is really cool, too bad it seems like there wasn't much thought put into making an appealing product out of it. Just imagine how much more you could do with a flexible display, rather than just reading PDFs and writing notes. From the video, the UI looks mediocre, and this is just a guess, but I wouldn't expect the software to be great. It feels like Sony just wrapped up a really cool hardware prototype in a shell and decided to sell it, but the whole thing lacks any sort of polish. I can't wait for someone who cares about the details of a product to get a hold of flexible e-ink screens.

kliao• 12 years ago

wait, this device is literally flexible as in bendable like paper? that's what the article makes it sound like, but it doesn't seem to be true based on the product page:

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-digitalpaper/cat-digitalpap...

shawn-furyan• 12 years ago

I think that it's the display that's flexible, not the device. I suppose that you could potentially do a Chromecast style computer in a kind of bump enclosure at the bottom of the back of the display to retain flexibility (though I don't think that there's enough detail to determine if there are other issues with such an approach). They however seem to be using a traditional rigid enclosure for the prototype.

devindotcom3• 12 years ago

Not really, I've played with one an the enclosure is pretty rigid. It flexes but it's not like you can fold it and half and then smooth it out. I'm still waiting on that. Also the resolution leaves something to be desired at that size.

derefr• 12 years ago

Would the best analogy be something like a 5.25" floppy, where it wiggles a bit but bending it into a U-shape would wreck it?

devindotcom3• 12 years ago

This is much thicker than that. No, if I remember correctly it's really more like a large, thin hardback, like a children's book. Sorry I can't be more specific, I only held it for a few moments, and they could easily have altered the design or simply had an old prototype out.

6d0debc071• 12 years ago

I suspect they meant flexible in the usability sense rather than in the physical sense :/

Retric• 12 years ago

Having busted e readers before; being able to flex a little probably does wonders for it's survivability. Light weight + thin + rigid is just a dangerous combo.

dwb• 12 years ago

I don't understand why a flexible e-ink screen is desirable if its cost doesn't approach that of paper – and it's safe to say it won't for a very long time. If it's (relatively) expensive, you want to reuse it, and so it will need a rigid enclosure. Apart from bending around shallow radiuses for gently curved displays and the like, am I having a failure of imagination?

anigbrowl5• 12 years ago

Imagine you already deal with a great amount of paper by necessity. You can put it in a binder, bend it out of the way to get at physical documents behind it, use it as a live index to other things and so on. It would be perfect for lawyers in court, where you don't necessarily wish to have a laptop on the table r a device that you hold up, but you do have to deal with massive amounts of paper and would like an electronic tool that substituted/integrated as seamlessly as possible into that environment.

arjn2• 12 years ago

This is just an initial release/prototype. Pretty sure it will improve with time. Glad to see Sony breaking new ground and also glad that e-ink technology is improving.

scholia7• 12 years ago

No, it's being offered for sale....

sukuriant• 12 years ago

So is the Rift

scarmig• 12 years ago

Attach it to a keyboard. Screen is big enough to code at the beach.

Isn't what I wanted Mirasol to be, but looks like a damn fine refinement of e-ink.

guidopallemans• 12 years ago

sand in the keyboard though...

rectangletangle3• 12 years ago

Hook up one of those new projected keyboards, and I think it'll be ready.

CountingCode2• 12 years ago

Silicone keyboard covers.

jboggan• 12 years ago

I really, really want a beach laptop. The ultimate accessory for Silicon Beach. I've looked into rigging up my own with leftover Pixel Qi demo screens and older netbooks but I haven't had the time. Someone please liberate us from coding indoors!

udev• 12 years ago

This might be very useful for reading academic papers, because most of the time people scribble notes while reading.

It's funny how having solved the battery problem (3 weeks on one charge), they still can't solve the speed problem (1 sec to refresh the page).

tenfingers2• 12 years ago

I actually want/need a digital sketchpad, and while I do read/annotate PDFs, this is not what I would do the majority of the time.

If this device would be hackable (run linux on it), I would find so many use cases for it that I could justify the price in a heartbeat.

Somehow, being a device from Sony, I expect this reader to be a piece of junk software-wise, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised that you need to convert the PDF into something else and use custom clients just to exchange files.

I hope I will be wrong.

joshvm• 12 years ago

If you want a cheap digital sketchpad, look at the Boogie Board LCD slates. They're nowhere near as good as a proper graphics tablet, but you can draw and save stuff on them. High end model is around $100, other models more like $30.

tenfingers2• 12 years ago

I really want an e-ink screen, otherwise paper is still a better option for me. Price is not really an issue if the screen delivers.

dorkrawk• 12 years ago

This looks awesome. I love the ability to write on e-ink. But is flexibility a feature or a bug of paper? What is the benefit of a non-rigid e-ink display for these types of use cases?

lando2319• 12 years ago

But is flexibility a feature or a bug of paper?

This is interesting. I hadn't thought of it from this perspective. If perhaps, down the line of course, you could roll it up like a taquito then you could put it in your pocket.

mdip2• 12 years ago

As I've been reading the coverage of this product throughout the day, the price seems to be the biggest drawback everyone focuses on, and I agree that $1100 is overpriced for what this product is offering. I got the sense from several articles that $1100 would be way overpriced for any e-reader.

Because of the huge number of PDF files in larger paper sizes that I have, I'd happily pay $1500 for this if in addition to it's features it: 1. wasn't made by Sony, 2. was color (to about early 1990s Newspaper quality), 3. was unlocked (different OS could be installed, etc)

arjn2• 12 years ago

I wonder if the $1100 price is for the dev kit and not an actual retail product.

scholia7• 12 years ago

It's not a retail product, it's a professional product. Sony hasn't launched it in the US, it's being imported by Worldox, which is targeting lawyers etc. http://www.worldox.com/news/sony-digital-paper-worldox

I wonder if people would be better informed if there were more professional journalists and not as many crappy blogs...

anigbrowl5• 12 years ago

It's a premium price that's partly for early adopters to show off, but when you can read and write Japanese on it (as shown in the product video) the deal is basically made. Lawyers will flock to this in droves, not least because it will be a deductible business expense. The color will be irrelevant to them and the Sony brand will actually be an asset, because they're less concerned about Sony's cool factor than the fact they're in no danger of going out of business.

I know, it's not the most hacker-friendly analysis, but this really is something innovative and will help teh technology towards becoming ubiquitous.

Crito• 12 years ago

Is flexibility a particularly useful feature for lawyers? I've always kind of thought that flexibility was one of the shortcomings of paper in most situations involving writing, hence clipboards.

dfc2• 12 years ago

when you can read and write Japanese on it the deal is basically made

Why is this the deal maker? I do not read/write japanese so maybe I am missing something obvious.[^1] Is writing/reading japanese with pen/pencil and paper difficult? Is there something that differentiates Japanese reading/writing from Korean? Have there been other tablets that worked with western scripts but not Japanese?

[^1]: I am assuming we are not talking about handwriting recognition.

SixSigma2• 12 years ago

What's your particular Sony beef? I've found their products rock solid, on the whole. Rootkit and Sony Network otoh are the negatives I can think of. I'm typing this on the Xperia Z, I've got a S1 tablet, an Prs -101 e-reader, two mp3 players - and I'd recommend every single one.

My video edit suite was all Sony gear (camera, firmware deck, amp & speakers), never a problem - not so with the Sanyo, Panasonic or Philips stuff I've seen.

$1100 is a crazy price for this, then again I'd probably fall for it once in hand.

lugg• 12 years ago

Careful opinions follow,

Something to do with suing users who use their owned hardware in a way Sony disagrees with.

Suck fony and all that. Honestly since the geohots case I've pretty much laughed and ridiculed sales people in stores who reccomend Sony products. None of them get it and they all think I'm a little bit crazy but sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in. Openness and being able to mod or hack my hardware shouldn't come with the chance of being sued. Its absurd and detrimental to society at large that they can get away with it.

Won't be buying. The over pricing I can deal with. Sony. Not so much.

anonbanker• 12 years ago

I was a named party in Sony vs. Bleem!, LLC. I don't support people that sue me or my friends.

JensRantil• 12 years ago

Why don't you want it from Sony?

mdip2• 12 years ago

tl;dr DRM, Sony Rootkit debacle, Vegas Video (and the other audio ap that they purchased from Sonic Forge) activation scheme. Trust.

1. The CD they produced with a rootkit that I had write a script to facilitate it's removal from several hundred PCs on a network with unique government contractual security requirements.

2. My Sony 1080p HD TV that I have to unplug the HDMI cable any time I want to watch streaming video on my Sony Blu-Ray player.

3. Vegas Video, which was far too expensive of a piece of software to (A) treat me like a criminal for having made the mistake of actually paying for it and (B) spending two weeks pleading my case after I upgraded my PC for the third time and the software insisted that I pay for it again.

As a rule, I avoid products who's DRM schemes I am forced to use. You can't always avoid it, but my PDF collection is unencrypted and, though I assume that Sony isn't going to suddenly add DRM to those files, I can only go by their history and the fact that there's not really any evidence that they've learned their lesson, only that they got caught and like most companies, prefer to avoid the negative press. Even Microsoft has toned down the implementation of their activation schemes. Remember when a PC would deactivate resulting in a 3 hour usage limit and the disabling of Aero? I have a PC that hasn't been able to talk to the licensing server for a year and all I see is a subtle Genuine Windows message in the lower right hand corner, a nag when I start Office and a message in the title bar. It's a little annoying since these are legal enterprise licenses on a tablet that I just haven't used VPN on in a very long time, but the software still works properly.

This kind of product requires me to grant Sony a certain amount of trust. Sony flushed trust down the toilet with Vegas Video and two Sony products failing to negotiate a proper HDCP handshake without physically unplugging cables. That would have been enough, but I don't even have a metaphor to describe what they did when they chose to take a medium with no DRM scheme and hack a user's PC into inserting one much like ransomware does with people's word docs.

I'd have no room to complain if I plugged that device in and it b0rked my PDF collection because based on history, what else should I expect?

*EDIT: Grammar

leoc2• 12 years ago

1200×1600 greyscale and 13.3" is great, but I feel that 'flexible' is a lower priority than 'not $1100'.

riffraff• 12 years ago

that is only if you haven't broken a few e-ink screens already :)

As soon as I saw this I thought "no way anyone sensible is buying this, it will break in a week".

Factoring this in, a rigid screen would have probably meant "unsellable".

TillE• 12 years ago

Use a case? Include a free fake leather case with every purchase?

I've had zero problems with my Kindle screens, but I've never dropped them.

TrainedMonkey• 12 years ago

It does not matter how much it costs now. Simple facts that it is possible and technology to produce it exists are important. Within a few years economy of scale and technology optimizations will bring flexible e-ink at affordable price.

rectangletangle3• 12 years ago

This, technology always starts out expensive and impractical. Through mass production and refinement, it becomes practical and useful. Now that it's confirmed possible and somewhat practical, more funding and research is likely to be directed toward it.

CountingCode2• 12 years ago

It's funny, almost every argument against this e-reader I've read here today I also read when sony released it's first e-reader, well in advance of the kindle. I bought it anyway and had no regrets.

rectangletangle3• 12 years ago

Wow, that's cool as hell. Even though it's $1100, it's new technology, and subsequent iterations will likely be much cheaper (and will probably have support for color).

caiob• 12 years ago

How exactly is this a MVP?

Sony releases the Holy Grail: A flexible e-ink screen

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