By all accounts, 2008 was a particularly bad year for newspapers. Ad revenues are down, subscription rates are dwindling and classified ad sales are virtually non-existent.
Online competition has decimated the black and white lady, although most news junkies attest that the web doesn’t offer the same reading experience as print. To fill the void, a British company will be launching an e-paper reader in early 2010 designed to replicate the morning news in all its page flipping glory - minus the leftover ink residue.
Cambridge-based Plastic Logic says its new electronic reader is smart enough to download your favorite newspaper, but tough enough to survive the bangs and bruises of a morning commute. The device is the size of a piece of A4 paper (letter size in the states), weighs only 12 ounces and is thin enough to fit in an envelope. Manufactured in Dresden, Germany, the unnamed device is being referred to as the “Dossier” in some Plastic Logic advertising materials.
Street Tough
What sets apart the new Plastic Logic device from other e-readers is that its screen is made from a flexible plastic, instead of a more fragile glass. Early video previews (see below) show engineers bending the screen like a piece of paper, avoiding cracks and strains.
“With existing readers, if you drop them, they will break, because of the screen glass. That isn’t the case with ours,” David Edgar of Plastic Logic told the Times Online UK.
The 10.5-inch screen is large enough to display a full piece of paper, like a magazine cover or a formatted newspaper page. The device is only available in monochrome and readers use a finger swipe motion to flip through their electronic documents, similar to the browsing technology used on the iPhone. A full color version that can transmit data via 3G will be available by 2012, while a video version is set to release two years later.
Early press estimates have the device retailing around $450, about $90 more than the Amazon Kindle and over $200 more than the Fox eSlick. Bundled news subscriptions will be an added value for the Plastic Logic device, but many wonder if consumers will pay a premium for a plastic display.
Subscriber for Life
While the device can display eBooks, PDFs and Microsoft Office documents, it’s designed for electronic versions of the New York Times, The Economist and other subscription publications. Plastic Logic officials are currently in talks with a number of publishers to bundle subscriptions in with the original purchase of the device, as well as a la carte add-ons.
“The idea is that you would automatically download these to the reader each morning via its WiFi connection. When you pick up the device, the latest edition would be ready to read,” Edgar told the Times Online UK.
Power Up
Because its e-paper display uses so little power, the Plastic Logic device only needs to be charged about once a week. Since it only requires power while the screen is repopulating, that equates to about 5,000 page turns or 166 hours of continuous reading. The low-power display, which is said to resemble ink on paper, is supposed to be easier on the eyes than a conventional screen.
It comes with 2 GB of flash memory to store work documents and personal items. Most notes can easily be edited with finger gestures that underline, highlight or cross out text, while a virtual keyboard allows the user to leave more in-depth comments. Files can be transferred from one to reader to another using WiFi or Bluetooth, while DRM technology blocks the transferability of copyright protected documents like newspapers or magazines. The device will run on a version of Microsoft’s Win CE, although the features of the operating system won’t be visible to the viewer. It will be compatible with both Macs and PCs.
Beta testing of the device has not begun, although a limit market release is set for mid-2009 with the product going out to more markets in early 2010. Company CEO Joe Eschbach told Forbes.com that he plans to market the device to the business community as a replacement for the briefcase.
“The opportunity on the business side is much larger than on the leisure reading side,” Eschbach told the website. “The average person only reads two or three books a year. But the same person probably reads several thousand pages of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files at work.”
This is true Joe, but everyone on the business side also uses a laptop. Will they really want to carry two devices for viewing documents? If the syncing method is simple and effortless it could pay off for the business community. However, the ubiquitous setup for the business man has always been a multifunction mobile phone (ala blackberry or iphone) and a laptop. Is there really room for another device?
By Dave Brooks
Wow, just once a week to charge the device, and you get all those reading hours???
WOW!!!
It may be a great device, but it’s also quite expensive!
I think this device has a lot of potential. But as it is right now, it’s still in black and white. We’d have to wait 3 to 5 years before a color version comes out. I think I’d pass on this one.
This is great technology. It would be really useful for doctors at bedsite to have medical charts that are easily accessible, editable, and people friendly.
The device itself may be letter-sized, but the large margins make the useful display area much smaller. 10.5 ” diagonal display is still over 30% smaller than an actual letter-sized page.
This device looks fairly good but as zen says it lacks a colour display. The newest and hottest e-reader for 2009 is the Barnes & Noble Nook. But the future is the flexible Bridgestone colour e-reader. See this link, Bridgestone E-Reader But Bridgestone’s plans are pretty much the same as Plastic Logic’s, more directed to industrial uses or even as a tablet computer. I am sure that they would be interested in making a deal with some company to produce a low cost e-reader as well. Low cost is definitely going to be a challenge though. Maybe something for Google to seriously look into since they seem to be the leader in digitizing books for e-readers. 2010 is going to be the year for the eruption in e-reader technology. Google are you listening???