Investor's Business Daily, April 10th, 2007
Once upon a time, scientists envisioned electronic books that would look and feel like the traditional varieties, but could hold hundreds of titles, update often and do other tricks.
Development on the concept began in the 1970s when Nick Sheridan, an inventor at Xerox's Palo Alto (Calif.) Research Center, began experimenting with a type of electronic paper. It used charged black and white beads to form text on a transparent silicon sheet.
In the decades that followed, other inventors, like Joseph Jacobson of MIT's Media Lab, picked up the ball with electronic ink, a similar type of charged black and white capsule technology that could be displayed on flexible plastic sheets.
Today, e-books can be found online and in bookstores, though most aren't the e-books their pioneers foresaw. Rather, they are documents that appear digitally in a variety of formats on a computer or other devices, and usually must be read through an LED screen. Reading a book this way can be tough on the eyes.
Most e-books still lack the look, feel and plain readability of traditional books. While e-book sales are rising, they represented only 0.08% of total U.S. books sold in 2005, says the Association of American Publishers. It doesn't yet have 2006 figures.
MIT Work Inspired E Ink
But some companies are working hard to bring the e-book closer to the paper-book-like experience early developers imagined. One such company is Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink E Ink. The privately held firm sells the microcapsule technology that evolved from the work done at MIT.
E Ink has the appearance of regular print inks, and can be viewed under direct sunlight and many lighting conditions.
The resolution isn't as sharp as print hardcover books, but it comes close to that of newspapers and paperbacks, and it's generally better than computer screens. It's also high-contrast, so it gives the reader a more traditional paper experience. And text can also be enlarged 200%.
E Ink is used in several devices, including Sony's SNE $349 Sony Reader available in Borders bookstores and Sony Style stores. This handheld unit is about the size of a paperback novel, but thinner at about half an inch wide.
It can store about 80 books, and hundreds more with the addition of an optional memory. Sony e-book users can download 12,000 titles from the Sony Connect content site at a discount from the book's hardcover list price.
The iLiad, made by Netherlands-based iRex Technologies (a spinoff of Philips Electronics PHG), is another reader that uses E Ink. It allows for editing, targets the business market and costs about $865.
While the Sony Reader and iRex iLiad screens are close to that of a traditional book, the casings are still hard plastic, rather than flexible like the pages of real books.
"Ultimately, people want the look and feel of paper," said E Ink CEO Russell Wilcox. "We started (with) a look that was close to paper, but it was on glass so it didn't have the feel.
"Our technology has been improving the look, with sharper text and higher contrast, but always one of the promises of this technology was to get the feel, to at some point be paper-thin. Ultimately, you'll get something so thin you can actually roll it up."
The flexibility issue is being addressed by companies such as Polymer Vision, another Netherlands-based Philips spinoff. The company, partnering with Telecom Italia TI, recently introduced its Cellular-Book.
The mobile device features Polymer Vision's E Ink-equipped display that rolls out to about 5 inches long, and enables you to read personal information, newspapers and books.
The device itself is about the size of a mobile phone. It is designed to answer the problem of reading information on tiny mobile device screens.
Flexible displays are getting much attention and investment dollars, particularly in Europe.
In January, Cambridge, U.K.-based Plastic Logic raised $100 million to build a factory in Germany to make flexible active-matrix displays for e-books and newspapers.
Investors Taking Notice
These cheaper, lighter, more paper-like displays will also use E Ink, along with transistors made from plastic instead of silicon (to create the charge that moves the text technology).
The venture capital round, one of the largest in European history, was led by Connecticut-based investment firms Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment.
Intel Capital INTC, the venture unit of the chipmaker, was another investor.
"This is a very positive affirmation that the funding community believes the technology has progressed far enough to transition to manufacturing," said Robert Street, a senior researcher at Xerox PARC who has been researching such technologies for more than 30 years.
He adds, though, that the cost savings will depend on the manufacturer's ability to produce the displays at high volumes.
Look and feel is just one issue that will decide the future of e-books.
Another big factor is the impact of the Digital Rights Management technology publishers or copyright owners use to control access to the published works, and the amount of content that will ultimately be made available in e-book form.
The situation is similar to that of the entertainment industry, which is trying to determine the best ways to offer music, movies, TV shows and other media for devices like the iPod.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
