Bridestone decides to put the rubber on the road in eReaders

Tech-On, one of my favourite Asian Tech Blog brings us the news that

Bridgestone Makes Full-scale Entry Into E-paper Business

and is to release a new updated version of it's QRLP (Quick Response Liquid Powder) ePaper displays to the world, with at least one of them being an A4 sized display.

The screen refresh time of 0.8 seconds is down from their previous times, but that's still a bit on the slow side.

They don't specify this in the article but that is I suspect the time specified is that needed to refresh the entire display. That distinction is relevent here as (at least previously) Bridgestone uses a passive addressing method that requires a certain amoutn of time to switch each pixel/line into a new bi-stable state and then move on.

So, switching every pixel into a (potentially) new state on a reasonable resolution A4 device in 0.8s is not bad going....but needs more.....keep working on it guys.

But, parts of the display (a pixel minimum?) can be incrementally updated or changed, enabling update rates (for a few pixels each time) to be pretty fast - hence enabling the pen input functionality the article describes.

So, don't think that you will have a 0.8second lag of the display pixels behind your "digital ink" that you draw with your stylus! That would be totally unusable.

Despite the possibilities that their passive addressing scheme should open up for them it's still on glass, so heavier and fragile than a plastic substrate would be.

Last, but not least they mention color. But, alas, this will be with an RGBW filter on top of the reflective Black&White display, so expect dull, washed-out, color.... :-(

Elonex and Border ship economic eReader in UK

Sorry for the lapse in posting, but I'll try and get back into the swing of things over Summer!

I want to post other material than just re-posts of eReader news on other blogs, but as those are also interesting for this audience I'll start with them, and then work on other subjects.

Over at Engadget they tell us about

Elonex launches £189 6-inch eBook reader through Borders UK

As Engadget also note, this seems to be a fairly standard offering - with little to distinguish it in design or functionality from a bunch of other readers out there, and surely an OEM of the basic model.

Most notable is the price for UK buyers of £189 ($311) and the partnership with Borders for distribution and on-lien content sales.

More more (unsurprising) details you can read the Elonex Press Release, which also has a bunch of high-res image links if you want a "closer" look.

It seems the device has got beyond the stage of "self awareness" and kindly developed other human abilities, and is "Environmentally Considerate" which is nice of it!