Sonostar Announces eInk Smartwatch

Curved 320 x 240 1.73″ eInk touchscreen display with backlight, Bluetooth connection to iOS and Android apps, claims to be on sale now for US$199 — even though there seems to be no way to click through to buy.

I don’t understand the hype for these things. And if this is $199 for a 320 x 240 eInk display, what will be the price of Apple’s rumored iWatch?

The Sonostar site for those interested.

Onyx Does What The Nook Should’ve Been

The Boox eReader was surprisingly popular in some European countries — likely because it was the only eReader available for sale.

Nevertheless, Onyx must have been encouraged to further develop their products because Charbax has the scoop on two new products: an eInk phone and a new Boox eReader that’s essentially an eInk Android tablet!

That’s a move Nook Media should have made when it introduced the original Nook Touch. Having seen how eagerly people were rooting the original Nook and the NookColor, Nook Media should have capitalized on that and gone vanilla Android, with Nook as an app.

But it didn’t work out that way. And here we are today.

After the break, check out the exciting video.

Say Goodbye To eInk Readers This Year

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Rumors: Larger Display, Better Processor

Today though, the Galaxy Note 3 has surfaced again in a report from The Korea Times, the same publication which was the source of the original screen bump rumor back in December.

The publication again claims that the Galaxy Note 3 will be released later in the year and that when it does, it will feature a 6.3-inch display. However, it also looks like, unsurprisingly, that Samsung will be using a new processor inside of the Galaxy Note 3 as well.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

No, don’t ask me how the hell that will work. I still can’t wrap my head around the Ascend Mate with the 6.1″ display.

See it after the break next to the iPhone 5 to really blow your mind.

eInk isn’t Dead Yet

May 26, 2012 here: The iPad Mini Will Mean The Death of eInk

Well that’s not going to happen now. Not at $329.

The iPad Mini Will Mean The Death of eInk

Oh yes it will!

Let me get the basic objections out of the way:

1) eInk devices are cheaper
2) eInk devices are lighter
3) eInk devices can be read outside
4) eInk devices don’t hurt eyes

None of that matters to the general buying public.

If it did, we’d see eInk devices literally everywhere. We wouldn’t see a single iPad or Android tablet anywhere used for reading. Amazon would not have sold as many Kindle Fire (estimated at five million) as they did. The company that produces eInk would send out press releases about possible shortages due to overwhelming manufacturing demand. Plastic Logic would still be in the game.

You eInk users are a minority that will be ignored.

Full-Motion Video On eInk Screen

I guess I would have been more impressed if it had been an actual YouTube video with people. As it is, without seeing the original animation, it’s difficult to really tell what’s going on there — aside from all the ghosting. It makes the animation look like it was done in pencil — which is why I need to see the original.

I suppose some owners of the rooted Nook Touch would like to see a YouTube video now and then, except there’s one problem with that: There’s no speaker in the Nook Touch! And no headphone jack.

Are LCD Screens Killing eInk?

Report: eReader Sales Down — Way Down

Global shipments of e-readers will reach two million units in the first quarter of 2012 — down dramatically from nine million shipped in Q4 2011, according to new data from Digitimes Research.

It appears that color tablets, including the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet and Nook Color, are luring eReader customers away from less expensive, less flashy e-ink models. Digitimes Research calls the phenomenon a “substitution effect,” one that has forced Amazon to reduce orders of e-ink eReaders from its suppliers thus far in 2012.

The big-picture view of the eReader market isn’t dire, however. Global shipments of eReaders climbed to 22.82 million units in 2011 — up 107 percent from a year earlier. And annual eReader shipments should exceed 60 million units by 2015, Digitimes Research estimates.

There’s only one company that knows the truth.

And it’s not Amazon.

Flexible Rubber eInk Reader Video

This was just uploaded to YouTube hours before post time. It shows a rubberized and flexible eInk-screen reader that I’ve never seen before, from a Russian company called Wexler.

Being that thin, there wouldn’t be an IR-enabled touchscreen (nor would that even be possible with the flexibility). While it’s an interesting demonstration, I wonder if anyone would want to go back to pushing buttons on an eBook device.

eInk Screen Demos From 2009

I’ve been going through over nine-hundred(!) YouTube Favorited videos. Several of them were interesting eInk demos of features we now take for granted here in 2012.

For example, here is a touchscreen eInk display from 2009:

They are other videos, after the break, one of which is from 2009 showing non-flashing page turns on an eInk screen!

eBook Readers At New Jersey Target

All photos taken today Sunday, February 5, 2012. Resized and resampled to VGA. Click any to enlarge.

My walkabout this morning had me in the Newport area of Jersey City, so I decided to stop in the Target there to see which eBook readers they were carrying.

Is something up with Kobo and Target, or is Kobo just getting screwed by them? Look at the sign below:

Kobo is listed second from left, but there is no Kobo eReader on display!