Electronic Ink

Education and electronic paper in France

2007-10-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

After an evaluation of the different digital technologies, Xavier Darcos, the Minister of Education in France, has decided that devices based on electronic ink will be experimented as of the back-to-school period in September 2008.
As part of this evaluation, we’d prepared a presentation of the evolution perspectives of inks and substrates, and of their applications; we’d also prepared samples of meaningful content, a play (to read or listen to) and examples of geometry animations.
In 1501, the transportable book was invented in order to provide students with the course material they were lacking (teachers themselves rarely had access to books!). Today, with the objective of making schoolbags lighter, there’s a fantastic opportunity to imagine applications of this new medium for access to knowledge and its diffusion.
Thus France is joining countries, such as China, that are making this new technology a major challenge for education and the sharing of knowledge.
Read the press release (in French)...

Using electronic books

2007-10-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

Being lucky enough to have well-prepared Gutenberg.org volumes for a 170-gram reader, I use this medium more and more often for reading. I don't claim to prefer it to a conventional book, but in some circumstances it's much more convenient. On the plane a few days ago, I realized something obvious: after reading for some time, there's no fatigue of the hand nor of the wrist, which one had nevertheless got used to bearing in such uncomfortable conditions; and one enjoys much more freedom of choice of positions. It's really very pleasant.

Nemoptic awarded...

2007-10-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

The 2007 Frost & Sullivan European Technology Innovation Of The Year Award in the field of electronic paper displays goes to Nemoptic. The press release is here...

After Samsung and Motorola, NTT DoCoMo

2007-10-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

As was the case of Samsung and Motorola, the entry of NTT DoCoMo in the world of electronic ink is far from insignificant. The telecommunications giant exhibited at CEATEC Japan 2007 the prototype of a mobile phone that uses electronic ink to display its keys.
This is the proof that a sustainable business model is under study, if not confirmed. This new technology allows the manufacturer to make its productions "neutral": the phone keys will adopt the language, the size and soon the layout chosen by the user, which will provide a great degree of flexibility in terms of ergonomics (contextual menus and key in, variable key size, etc.) and will require far less financial, technical and computing resources than fixed buttons. In an industrial sector where products are sold in hundreds of millions, NTT DoCoMo's foray demonstrates, if a
demonstration was really required, the maturity of electronic ink and paper technology, in particular that of SiPix Imaging. But it may also be a means for Japanese corporations to recover leadership in this fast-growing field.

Sony PRS 505 and the electronic ink market

2007-10-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

The third product in a new category is always a remarkable event. Such is the case with Sony:
The Librié, first e-reader based on electronic ink from E Ink, offered all of today's dream functions: reading of RSS feeds or of print driver output on a PC, PDF, dictionary, keyboard for typing notes. The second product, the PRS 500, seems to have been the outcome of a focus group, for example the joystick (who would read Hemingway with such an interface?!), the too numerous buttons, the poor battery. The third product, just announced, the PRS 505, corrects many of the limitations of its predecessor and is positioned as a mature reader. Above all, it comes with more content and a broader agreement with Borders. But it must ensure continuity with the previous e-reader, and more importantly, it seeks to target the book market frontally, without making full use of the capabilities of this new medium. Is that really a good idea? We'll see.
Between the first and the third attempt, a major phenomenon went almost unnoticed: electronic ink, paper, newspapers and soon books have become a reality that can't be ignored! It's worth following very closely...

7th Tebaldo Conference - Communicating electronic paper

2007-10-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

Mark your agenda! - The 7th Tebaldo Conference, "Communicating electronic paper, strategies and issues", will be held in Paris on October 26, from 9.30am to 3pm.
The conference will feature the exceptional participation of Stéphanie Chevrier, Literary Director at Flammarion, who will present the market position of novels enriched for electronic paper; the conference will also cover experience feedback from the e-paper project of the French business newspaper Les Echos, the position of brands, the decoding of numerous projects under way as well as of production processes; it will also provide the opportunity to present the latest ink and paper technologies (Vizplex), including colour.
Practical details and registration...

New Vizplex electronic paper - Ganaxa GeR2

2007-09-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

As its conventional equivalent, electronic paper evolves. Here is (on the left) the brand-new Vizplex from E Ink, featured in the GeR2 e-reader from Ganaxa: higher clarity, better contrast (especially in low light) and noticeably higher refresh speed:

More information on www.ganaxa.com

Les Echos in Montréal

2007-09-25T03:10:00.000-07:00

Montréal, 6 AM. At the same time, we get the Canadian press and the e-paper edition of the French daily newspaper Les Echos. Fascinating...

New, unique in the world, e-paper platform from Ganaxa

2007-09-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

For lack of e-paper creation, publication and diffusion tools adapted to the editorial projects of its clients (publishers and advertisers), Ganaxa has created an integrated platform (GPP: Ganaxa Publishing Platform) for the press, book publishing and advertising. Unique in the world, this platform is the basis of the e-paper offer of the French daily business newspaper Les Echos, of brand magazines, of the experiment conducted by the publisher Flammarion with two of its best-selling novels, and of many other projects. It will be presented in Montreal on September 25 and at the Tebaldo Conference in Paris on October 26.
For more information, visit: www.ganaxa.com

Reflections of an “e-reader” on the usage of e-paper version of Les Echos

2007-09-12T00:24:00.000-07:00

Since the embargo was lifted on the occasion of this morning’s announcement of its availability, we can now discuss our experience of the e-paper version of Les Echos. There is so much to say on the editorial, technological and economical aspects of this project which I have accompanied at Tebaldo, as adviser to Ganaxa. But let’s start with what is most important: usage.

For a month now, I have been “e-reading” Les Echos on a “light” e-paper device (elegant, leather cover, 174 grams). As a subscriber to Les Echos, I would almost never read its print version (although it was available at our Regus offices) and would hardly ever read its Internet version. However, someone would do a selection of articles for me, which saved me time. Thus, once every two weeks, I would have at my disposal a set of editions annotated according to my areas of interest. I would also sometimes receive a phone call urging that I consult a specific article.

Now all of this has changed. Before leaving home, I download the morning edition of Les Echos to my SD card (I prefer this method to the direct USB link which requires the e-reader device to be switched on). It has become a habit to take the e-reader with me, as I would a newspaper purchased at a kiosk. I read it whenever I have a little spare time. And the opportunity to do a little discreet reading presents itself quite often in the course of a day: time spent in public transport, waiting for appointments, between meetings, etc. I go straight to my priority categories (information technology, communication), then I browse through the other news items, and I read in-depth articles, as permitted by my spare time. With very few exceptions, this is something I would never do with the paper edition. I even discovered a section dedicated to cinema with film releases of the week.

Furthermore, searching and selecting articles will become much easier thanks to a new semantic analysis function. And alerts will no longer be necessary.
I now prefer Les Echos to free newspapers that I used to accept without thinking, because I barely have enough time to read everything of interest to me in the daily e-paper edition!
Not bad, for a start; more to follow…

e-Paper, industrial relations and development issues

2007-08-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

A contribution on a Mobileread forum concerning the cooperation between Ganaxa and StareRead provides an opportunity to address the interesting topic of industrial relations and development issues in the new world of electronic ink. Similarities exist with relations between printers, publishers and paper manufacturers, complemented with issues related to electronics.

We are advisors to leading-edge companies in this sector, including Ganaxa and its clients, and have been involved for some time in the design of PVI’s reader base and in its interfaces. One example is the discreet button it features. This button is round and pleasant (it is often fingered as would the page of a book) and it controls navigation in four directions (to turn pages or select links) as well as validation, these functions being adjusted to the speed of ink display. We rejected the square button, for reasons of design, in the projects we are leading. The other buttons are located on the side of the device, in order to avoid visual disturbance in the reading area.

This base is used by Ganaxa’s main partners, in particular StareRead and Nuut.

Among many projects, Ganaxa is working on readers from StareRead, who have done a remarkable job not only with the reading device but above all with the community platform and general-public-content production tools. Other devices on a similar base will appear soon.

Difficulties met by all market actors in perfecting these architectures are due to numerous factors, as with any industrial project in an emerging sector (Sony’s eReader was delayed for months, reportedly because of the final development stage of Sony Connect; Amazon’s project is said to be delayed by more than a year):
- Developing for devices that lack the architecture of a conventional computer is very complex, at least when seeking to reach a level of convenience close to that of a book or newspaper. Programming such a device with such a design goal is a delicate task.
- The design, production and diffusion platform is partly new, because experience shows that providing content as on paper or on a computer is of little interest at this stage unless it is justified by intensive usage or specific content.
- And there are many more factors: the relevance of the editorial project with respect to this new medium; the appeal of the object when reading for pleasure; the cover (tear the cover off a traditional book and you’ll no longer want to read it); the support of essential features such as hyphenation and ligatures for quality publishing, etc.

As a result of mutualized processes, the first products that attempt to address these multiple issues will soon make their appearance.

e-paper and publishing: legibility is a multi-faceted issue…

2007-06-08T01:01:00.000-07:00

The issue of matching e-paper technology with the needs of publishing has already been illustrated by the case of mathematical formulas and, recently, by that of the Aramaic alphabet in the “Testament des Siècles”. Before the case of hyphenation comes up, a further illustration of the issue is provided by ligatures, which I had observed when reading One Thousand And One Nights in the Pléiade collection.

Claude Peyriguère, of the French publisher Editions Hatier, to whom I mentioned the issue, gave the following details:
“The st and ct ligatures are indeed characteristic of the Pléiade books. They are related to the choice of the Garamond font. The features of this font partly derive from its former use, which rendered the style of handwriting. Unicode provides Latin ligatures (FB00 to FB06) as well as the st ligature. But, curiously enough, the ct ligature is missing.”

More information in Wikipedia.