iRex's iLiad E-ink eBook Reader is Now Available 167
An anonymous reader writes "iRex has just started shipping its e-ink eBook reader, the iLiad, starting today (July 3rd) — making it the first e-ink reader commercially available outside of Japan. It is available for purchase though iRex's website, for 649 euros (ouch!). Hopefully this price will come down before Sony releases their eReader later this summer."
I see copyright infringement coming... (Score:4, Funny)
Cartoon in Text Format (Score:3)
A:How goes our facexpaces effort?
B:It looks like our penetration has been significant. We have over 20,000 sign-ups in a few short weeks.
A:And Revenue?
B:Gross revenue through paypal is over $600,000.00
A:And our net is fourteen dollars?
B:Because of our exchange fees. Transfer fees. And Account fees. Oh. and Just-Because-We-Can fees.
User Friendly by J.D. "Illiad" Frazier
The point: author is "Illiad" Frazier (Score:2)
The GP's point was that the author's nickname is "Illiad", similar to the product in question, "iLiad".
(Thanks for posting the text of the cartoon, but you forgot to post the text from the ad below the cartoon, too.)
Shweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shweet (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Shweet (Score:2)
$825.98 US Dollars (Score:3, Informative)
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:2)
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Even purchasing new from BN or Amazon, I'd end up with about a year's worth of books.
These e-book readers are a relatively expensive solution in search of a problem IMHO.
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't argue regarding the cost, but all new technologies are expensive when they first come out. It is the nature of the beast, if we didn't release new stuff b
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:2)
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:2)
Some of us leave home for more than a few hours at a time (on occassion, people have been known to travel to other parts of the planet -- which can take more than a day or two!).
I can only listen to one song at a time, yet I carry 6,000 of them in my pocket.
PS3 (Score:3, Funny)
Or, Make Your Own Books (Score:2)
I mark up text files with Latex [latex-project.org] and then print them out for my own use. I find a two-column layout on 8.5 x 11 paper works best. An average novel usually works out to 30-40 pages printed on both sides of the page. Depending on your printer costs, you can print an entire novel for less than a dollar. Leave an offset on the left for a binding, and what you end up with is alot like a magazine or newspaper (which is where novels used to be published).
Project Gutenberg is an obvious source for text files
Re:Or, Make Your Own Books (Score:2)
\documentclass[10pt,openany,letter,twocolumn]{book }
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{scalefnt}
\usepackage[margin=0.47in,bindingoffset=0.5in,foot =.269in]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\setlength{\columnseprule}{1pt}
\setlength{\columnsep}{20pt}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\small {\thepage}}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footruleskip}{0pt}
\begin{document}
Google is *so* cool! (Score:2)
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:2)
Re:$825.98 US Dollars (Score:3, Funny)
you call it independance day, we call it thanksgiving
dave
Links to iRex's iLiad purchasing site? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Links to iRex's iLiad purchasing site? (Score:2)
E-Ink is a huge thing and first time an e-ink consumer product ships outside Japan.
They aren't trying to sell it to you on purpose, it is PRODUCT page. They are a commercial company and they of course have buy now in their product page. Sun's MAINFRAME class product pages have "buy now" links too.
This is Internet, not some communist country. Try to live with it. 99% of Slashdot userbase (incl
Re:Links to iRex's iLiad purchasing site? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just think about it - any portable device (other than an audio device) has pretty much been constrained to indoor use. Take a laptop outside and try using it. And sure, $900 can buy a lot of paperbacks, but try carrying them all with you at once. On top of that, $900 is what it costs now. What did the first CD or DVD player cost?
And on top of that, you have to realize that this is much, much more than just the capacity to carry around a library with you. With searcheable documents and note-taking ability it's going to grant users the capacity to carry around a library, card catalog, and user-created index.
I've been waiting for this to come out for years. Of course I'm not in a position to get the first model (too expensive, and I imagine that some things like text recognition won't be working quite right) but I honestly believe this is one of those products that will (if quietly) really change the landscape of digital devices. As far as I'm concerned it's 10 times more useful than a laptop for most non-tech-related uses already.
We give out laptops to middle and high school kids in my county. What a waste! Textbooks are pain in the ass to read on laptops. And that horsepower is wasted on kids who don't code, can't game, and don't even use cool programs like Mathematica or something. For note taking, reading, and research this is a real breakthrough. Toss in mp3 support and it's like any bibliophiles idea of portable nirvana.
The only thing that remains to be seen is how they draw the line between eBook devices and laptops. What functaionality will end up where? What will distinquish one from the other - or will they merge into one ultra-device if digital ink gets full color, etc.?
Oh yeah - and did we mention 21 hours of battery life. Now THAT is starting to look like a portable device.
-stormin
Re:Links to iRex's iLiad purchasing site? (Score:2)
...and that's the greatest thing -- and the thing most people seem to be missing, since they don't see past the "ebook" label -- about this device. It's not just an ebook reader; it's actually a PDA with a huge, bright, readable (albeit grayscale) scr
Re:Links to iRex's iLiad purchasing site? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll stick with books... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, I'm sticking with books.
Really, about the only advantage that electronic books have over the real thing is the ability to search (but real books have an index), and the fact that they occupy no additional physical space/weight above that of the reader. If Sony wants us to buy one, they need to offer some real advantage. If anything, DRM-crippled products are a definate disadvantage.
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:5, Insightful)
This line made me chuckle. Not crippled by DRM? How about a DRM that made it so that if you wanted to make a copy you'd have to either re-write the entire novel or OCR the whole thing? Imagine not even being able to make a quick archive copy for personal back up! You'd be up in arms! Or a DRM that was constructed in such a way that if you lent your copy to a friend you coudln't read your copy until you got it back. And if your friend lost it - you'd have to buy a new copy if you ever wanted to read it.
Books already have the best conceivable DRM policy - the content is died directly to the physical media. And you thought propietary formats were bad!
I'm not saying I'm a fan of DRM, but anyone that compares a hard-copy book to DRM media and sees the DRM media as a pain in the ass is just bonkers. The only reason the DRM is more annoying is because you can break it. And so we're tempted to try and it's a pain in the butt. You can't break the DRM on a book and so we forget that it even exists.
Now maybe you understand why RIAA execs keep cramming insane DRM schemes down our throats. They must believe that if only DRM could be as iron-clad as physical media we'd all stop whining about it.
-stormin
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine a book that wouldn't let you open it unless you paid a rental fee to the publisher. Or a book that insisted on being
read only when placed on a certain desk. Or a book that locked up when put on a copy machine. Or a book that would only
let you use publisher-approved markers to write on it... The annoying part of DRM is not copy protection as much as access
protection.
I wish I could mod you up... (Score:2)
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
That has nothing to do with DRM. Physical books can only be in one place at one time. So since libraries are trying to serve a community of users, they have to limit the amount of time one can check out a book, otherwise someone who keeps a book forever would keep everyone else from being able to access the book.
DRM is used to create artificial restrictions. Library lending policies are used to overcome physical restrictions. They are two completely different issues.
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is that a book is reliable. Properly cared for a book will last a long, long time. The author and publisher can't stop me from reading, lending out, giving away, or selling the book. If a publisher goes bankrupt, there is no risk that my paper books will suddenly become unreadable when their authorization servers go down. (As happened for anyone who purchased "silver" unlimited access to DIVX movies. [wikipedia.org]) There is no practical way for a publisher to somehow lock down a book to make it impossible to, say, scan a page and reproduce it for commentary purposes.
True, books are a nuisance to copy or scan, but it's possible (as the small but vibrant illegal e-books scene shows [usenet-replayer.com]).
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:3, Insightful)
But if this gets popular (by this I mean "eBooks") then it's going to do to books what mp3s did to music. I'm sure there will be plenty of ways to download DRM-free copies of books and I will be looking into them.
If the DRM goons manage to keep a tight lid on the whole thing frmo day one, then yes, the whole idea sucks. But if th
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
Any media I can't back up easily is not reliable. No media can stand getting cooked in a house fire. I have a few hundred ebooks, and they're all backed up offsite. I have a few thousand paper books, and if my house burns, they're just gone.
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2, Interesting)
Err, this is one of the main disadvantages I've found with DRMed e-books: you can't lend them to your friend at all! I'm one of the people who actually prefers ebooks much of the time for the advantages like portability, searching, and bookmarking. The main thing that keeps me from embracing them completely is that even though they cost about the same as paper books, I can
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
Regarding DRM (Score:2)
Before you dismiss this device on account of DRM, note carefully that -- unlike Sony's pile of shit -- the iLiad does not require DRM. It supports text, PDF, HTML, and probably other formats. In reality, it's actually a big PDA -- it's got a fast XScale CPU, wireless, expansion slots, etc. -- and maybe USB host!
You know, with the right software this could even replace Tablet PCs for some uses. That's certainly what I want it for!
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
I have no interest in PDAs, smart phones are just expensive pieces of junk with poor interfaces and worse displays that break easily.
But an E-ink reader -- that's interesting. Many haven't grasped by description only just h
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
This must be one of the stupidest posts ever.
Physical (paper and ink) books are DRM's wet dream. Think photocopier, or scanner and OCR.
I can give you and my 10.000 best friends a CD with 200/300 books in TXT format for a few cents. I have 4000+ physical books. Do the math.
Cheers,
CC
Re:I'll stick with books... (Score:2)
When and if any of these savings get passed on to the consumer, then I might say that you have a point.
Look at it this way. Years ago when you could find both CD and cassette, the CD was cheaper to produce, but it cost approximately 50% more than a cassette. Same story for VHS vs. DVD. If you believe for one moment that electronic books are really going to be cheaper than paper, you obviously have not paid much attention to the way the mark
Yeah, but what format? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which formats do you support?
In order to stimulate the momentum in electronic reading, iRex Technologies will support as many formats as possible in as open an environment as possible, respecting the rights of owners of content and IP.
Ok... So what formats are those again? This sounds, to me, like they will only support DRM capable formats... Which makes this a non-buy in my opinion.
Re:Yeah, but what format? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, but what format? (Score:2)
You should probably look for an actual list of formats instead of jumping to whatever conclusion you want. Like the one in the product sheet [irextechnologies.com] that includes : PDF, XHTML, TXT, APABI (China only), OEB, MP3.
Re:Yeah, but what format? (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, but what format? (Score:2)
It will read non-DRM formats (Score:2, Interesting)
It supports PDF, TXT and HTML, among others. Plenty of scope for non-DRM'd files.
Whether or not anyone will sell you a book in a non DRM'd format is another quetsion, but if they will the chances are you'll be able to read it on this.
My main problem with it is that I can buy an awful lot of dead tree for 650 euros. I'm still waiting for a really good e-reader. I would be happy to pay somewhere around 150 pounds to get an A5 size tabl
Re:It will read non-DRM formats (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, but what format? (Score:2)
iWhat? eWho? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:iWhat? eWho? (Score:2)
oh baby (Score:2)
Re:oh baby (Score:2)
price? quality? (Score:2)
Re:price? quality? (Score:3, Informative)
iT iMakes eMe i-Sick (tm) (Score:5, Funny)
iUgh, an e-New iContender for the worst eBuzz.com i-Product iName, turbo gold deluxe II.
Too late, too big, too expensive, no market (Score:2, Insightful)
As it is today, with a good-sized SDRam, I can carry all the books I own in my pocket for easy access, anytime, anywhere.
If I want to carry around a bulky device to read books, I already have a notebook PC, which includes MUCH MORE capability than this silly thing. And at todays insanely low hardware prices, $825 will get me TWO notebooks, or even a pretty-decent
Re:Too late, too big, too expensive, no market (Score:2, Informative)
Now, that being said, this Iliad seems pretty poor on resolution: It has a stated DPI of 160 (the Sony has 170, which isn't that much better). This means you have to hold it at 105 cm (3.5 ft) to get maximal resolution on your retina (assuming perfect 20/20 vision). Now, a PDA generally does worse here (needs to be at 204 cm [6 ft]). Note, that average re
Re:Too late, too big, too expensive, no market (Score:2)
Re:Too late, too big, too expensive, no market (Score:5, Insightful)
1. E-ink looks like ink on paper. Less eye strain than other display technologies.
2. E-ink doesn't require power to be visible. Much lower power consumption - only needed when turning pages.
I wouldn't be surprised if E-ink overtakes dead-tree publishing within a decade.
Re:Too late, too big, too expensive, no market (Score:2)
LCD Paper providers? (Score:2)
I thought there were more companies putting out LCD Paper itself, but so far I've only been able to find eInk.
Also, how much does LCD
Re:LCD Paper providers? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:LCD Paper providers? (Score:2)
Ooo Goody (Score:2)
iCan't wait!
Price (Score:2)
Maybe you're new here, but "the price will come down" and "Sony" simply cannot be used in the same sentence.
Re:Price (Score:2)
Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backlight (Score:5, Informative)
1. VERY expensive, Euro 649 (that includes VAT over here) for a black+white ebook reader. I'm come on... Please leave the WLAN out next time.
2. VERY slow, VERY slow. Page flipping sometimes takes 2 seconds, sometimes 3-4. That's bad for a newspaper, but it's simply unusable for a technical documentation where you're searching for specific parts, etc.
see mobileread.com [mobileread.com] for videos.
3. No backlight, I (as a consumer) don't care wheter that's realizable or not, but I would like to have some sort of backlight. Yes a book doesn't have a backlight, too. But my books at least don't cost 650 Euros.
Nice is: a 1024x768 resolution, everything else is not usable for my purposes.
I'm waiting for the next generation.
Feature fuck (Score:2)
2. Taking 4 seconds to turn the page is certainly a pain. But under some circumstances, that's a good tradeoff for not having to recharge the thing for a week.
3. Excuse me? You want to take an expensive device and add an expensive, power-draining feature just because it's expensive? Laptops don't have backlights because
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
Leave the WLAN and the MP3 player out for example!
An NO ONE is gonna replace a laptop with such an ebook reader, it's just an addition.
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
I personally will switch _only_ to an ebook reader with some kind of lightsource (be it backlight or side-leds or whatever).
I don't need much RAM, no note-taking, no mp3 player no WLAN, etc.
Just a quick, 768x1024 (or higher) resolution ebook reader for
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
I sit here writing this on a laptop I paid $382 for (ok, I spent another $40 on an extended warranty so I wouldn't have to call Toshiba support because I despise them and CompUSA gives me free batteries every so often). Photoshop CS2 is running in the background, a couple of remote desktiop clients, winamp is playing and I
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
It costs more than a entry-level laptop, and does significantly less. Compared to the small VAIO my wife bougth last week for pretty much exactly this price this thing lacks:
I'm
Re:Feature fuck (Score:2)
Suprise: I completely agree with you. (Except I might even go as high as $299.95.) So this device goes for about 2½ times what most consumers would pay for it. Which is about par for early-adopter products.
When I compared this device to a laptop, I wasn't comparing it to what a laptop can do, but what people use them for. And a big chun
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:3, Interesting)
1024x768? If I'm not mislead about the resolution of e-ink, the screen on that is likely to support 4-8 times that resolution.
Where'd you read the part about 2-4 seconds for a page refresh? If true, that would really suck.
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:2)
May be. Just some sort of lightsource.
1024x768? If I'm not mislead about the resolution of e-ink, the screen on that is likely to support 4-8 times that resolution.
See the product specs: http://www.irextechnologies.com/downloads/Productl eaflet-Iliad.pdf [irextechnologies.com]
1024x768 16 grey tones.
Where'd you read
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:2)
Damn. That's awful. I thought the e-ink pixels were measured in microns?
Hrm. People seem to be saying that the physical screen refresh is a lot faster, but that the software is just sluggish, which makes me happier.
I don't really care what happens to this particular
backlight = bad (Score:4, Insightful)
My dad prints out hundreds and hundreds of pages daily because he simply hates reading backlit displays.
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, it's too expensive. I'm an early adopter, but I will not pay that kind of money for a mere ereader. A portable screen like this should cost 300 euro's max...and that's for the first run of the tech. But then they have to go and include an mp3 player?!? WTF? WHY? I do not want one on my ebook reader. Either make an all purpose device like a palmpilot with this screen or just make a simple no-frills reader. Preferably just the reader, as everyone and his dog has a better mp3 player. It increases cost and size (chip, jack) and drains the battery. AND PEOPLE WHO WANT THIS THING TO READ ON DON'T WANT AN MP3 PLAYER! THEY WANT TO READ BOOKS!
I mean, shoot, my phone has an mp3 player which I never use, as does my palmpilot (which I do use the mp3 function on). I love the screen on this thing....but just not for that money. My guess is they'll never re-coop their investment, as they screwed up their market research on who wants one of these things and what they want on it. They should have diverted the mp3 R&D towards creating a html help (.chm) reader for this thing, as that's what it's sorely missing.
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:3, Interesting)
As an early adopter, you definately do no like spending. If you look at Blu-Ray, you would have to put in a hell of a lot more cash to get one of those. I think the eInk market is in potential muc
Re:Expensive, 2 seconds per page flip, no backligh (Score:2)
Poor eyesight forbidden by DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Making the text larger so I can more easily read it is DRM dependant!? Anyone suggesting "DRM will never get in your way unless you're a thief" needs to be kicked in nuts.
Re:Poor eyesight forbidden by DRM? (Score:4, Funny)
The DRM book can be only safe from you if its font is as legible as those twisted, crooked, scratched letters that you need to recognize and enter for subscription to Web services.
WHY? (Score:2)
Seems like overkill in every sense of the word. When will we see finally a few dirt cheap ebook readers that (also) support DRM-free formats? Preferably with a mini keyboard for notes.
I like my Psion5 as much as anybody, but the screen just isn't big enough for reading a full book.
Field test results (Score:4, Interesting)
* Slow.
* No search.
* Difficulty setting up wifi connections.
* Good quality display, easy to read.
The bigger picture: She called it an "evolution of paper" but not an evolution of newspapers, and raised questions about whether editors are prepared to evolve into a medium where RSS feeds/aggregation, interconnections with other resources, and conversation are expected and demanded.
I briefly examined the device, which seems a bit larger than the e-paper device Sony has been selling in Japan for a couple of years now.
Re:Field test results (Score:2)
Well, she forgets that printing is a very high competitive business. I'm pretty sure they are prepared to evolve if one of the other newspapers tries this (in desperation because the paper version won't sell).
Please note that this is a developers version (Score:5, Informative)
DRM WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, I have been waiting SO LONG for something I can read documents and books on without having to carry around a stack of documents and books.
Now, what's it say here?
You can change the font size of your text to suit your own reading comfort. (Format and DRM dependant.)
WHAT THE FORK???
Write and comment in articles (format and DRM dependant.)
WHAT THE [utensil]???!?!?!?!?!
I mean WHAT???
Sabotaging your own product like that is supposed to be the exclusing domain of Microsoft and maybe Sony. Now every small startup's jumping up on the 'make a product that's expressly designed so that others will actively desire to avoid using it' bandwagon.
Seriously.
Well, I guess I won't be buying one of those. I don't know or care exactly what DRM would prevent me from making notes on the text I'm reading. There's no real justification, but doubtless in some idiotic sense it counts as 'distributing a modified version'. Maybe nothing I would ever want to read would decide to be un-zoomable. But you know what? Why the fork should I even have to think about it for a second??
Re:DRM WTF (Score:3, Informative)
Calm down. Take a DEEP breath. Think quiet thoughts. Take a DEEP breath again.
Ok. Good.
I fully understand your frustration with lock-in book readers, but if you read the product specifications [irextechnologies.com] you will see that it does in fact support open document formats: PDF, XHTML, and plain text. With a little extra thought you will also realize that they may have difficulty supporting annotations on these formats. PDF supports this (except when disabled in the document), but for XHTML and plain
lower case letters (Score:2, Funny)
Screw that (Score:2)
Try again iRex.
(No, I'm not a shill I just want one...and can't afford it...but it'd get it over this e-ink crap)
649 Euro? (Score:2)
DRM?
I think I'll stick with my zaurus, thanks.
Other technologies are waiting in the wings (Score:4, Informative)
Pics of these technologies at the last Society for Information Display Show is here:
http://www.smartalix.com/Consumer/SID/page2.html [smartalix.com]
Where is GPRS module? (Score:2)
Open Source Potential ? (Score:2)
With eInk offering a developer's kit for $3000, is it time that the open source world took it upon itself to put together the first working ereader? Would an ereader not be possibly as useful as a $100 computer to a Third World demographic?
Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
-Jayne
A different opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
The name's easy to remember since it already rings a bell for most people who have spent more than a day in a school, so for evil ma