Qualcomm Mirasol display by Christmas? Plastic Logic's Que vaporizing

QUALCOMM MIRASOL color e-paper technology may be on multiple e-readers by Christmas, if you can believe deadlines given during demos.

Pocket-lint's Rik Henderson headlines that this 5.7 in. device with super-thin static display ... "may be heading Amazon's way."

The article mentions that, at a demo, Qualcomm included "a strong hint that the next Amazon Kindle is to adopt the tech" but I saw it more as an avoidance of an answer.

  I'd not realized just how battery-efficient the technology is.  I've been interested in the new Samsung Galaxy S cell phone using super AMOLED, which has extremely high contrast and strong colors.

  Here is their analysis of the light battery hit when using Mirasol's reflective full color display:

' Mirasol's screen, which is now capable of being manufactured at any size, is colour, can run video content, and requires only 1mW of power to run. In comparison, a similarly sized TFT LCD screen requires 20mW, and an AMOLED display needs a staggering 100-700mW. That essentially means that battery life will be greatly enhanced on a Mirasol-laden device.
. . .
The company aims to have one or more ebook readers on the market by the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, and is working towards building the technology into iPad multimedia devices by 2013...
. . .
"Activity will come from the e-reader sector first," said Cheryl Goodman, director of marketing, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies.  "We are working towards the end of the year, beginning of next, and with multiple vendors." '

  Now, I personally don't consider the content of the next quote "a hint" at all, although Pocket-lint does (Qualcomm, however, has given heavy hints about Amazon in the recent past), but here is the reason given for the writer's optimism about Amazon's possible involvement:

' And while she won't confirm who those manufacturers/suppliers are, when asked if the Kindle will be part of the Mirasol roll-out, Goodman teasingly told Pocket-lint, "multiple deals are in the queue." '

? Maybe there was a twinkle in the eye or something, but the words themselves don't tell me anything.

  There six other photos at the website.

Mobile Entertainment's Tim Green interpreted Qualcomm's answer on the Kindle question as a "no comment" but writes that Qualcomm's marketing director, Cheryl Goodman, "confirmed that contracts have been signed and that the screen tech would be in 5.7 inch e-readers before the year is out."

  Points made by Henderson:

' Mirasol's big boast is a MEMS-based tech that displays perfectly in sunlight and offers a battery life between the weeks offered by electrophoretic readers, and the ten hours offered by iPad.

  Goodman explained [as did Henderson] that it takes one milliwatt to power a Mirasol display, and 100 milliwatts to power an equvalent AMOLED screen.

  What's more, a Mirasol screen will need virtually no extra power to display an image once its loaded.

"Battery power is a huge issue and all the new features in phones are adding extra pressure. But still it's the display that drains the battery the most, so we're very excited about what Mirasol can do," she said.
. . .
She added that Mirasol trials have delivered 30 frames per second rates and that the tech can also support optical and resistive touchscreen functions. '

Production copies seldom meet early timetables though.

PLASTIC LOGIC now vaporware?
And this week we've seen that one timetable missed several times from a promising outfit, Plastic Logic (Que tablet), which has now cancelled existing pre-orders and refunded that money and is not taking new pre-orders, while giving no date this time when the planned business-oriented tablet might ever see the light of day

Wired/GadgetLab's Priya Ganapati points out that the reason for April's delay was a need to "refine" the product and that this is the reason given this time too, accompanied by what is perceived by most as a shutting of the door when pre-orders are cancelled and no new date is given.

See Wired's article for Plastic Logic's interesting wording in its cancellation email.

Earlier Kindleworld blog articles on Plastic Logic:
  . Plastic Logic interface demo at the D7 Conference - June 2009
  . B & N and Plastic Logic 2010 - The Focus - Update - July 2009
  . Costs of delivering a newspaper on the Kindle - May 2009

---

Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

$0.99 Kindle books, Apple, and e-reader meanderings

The Amazon Kindle forums tend to carry a lot of good info from the members there.  While that's centered around the device, they also discuss finding books.  There's also a specific forum to discuss Kindle books, however.

1. Here's a page for recently tagged 99-cent Kindle books.  Members and authors are doing the tagging to make them easier to find.

2. A Kindle book that actually costs money :-) has been doing well on the Amazon charts. Active Senior Living.  I'll add the product description -- it's a situation many families face one way or another and this is a more positive book than usual about it all.   (The author does live in an active senior living complex and at first reported her experiences in a blog but people told her to put these into a book.  She explains some of it in a forum thread.)

"   Jan Curran, a vivacious socialite and newspaper reporter, reluctantly moves into an Active Senior Living complex to recuperate from a brutal battle with cancer. She tackles the surprises and challenges of her new life with warmth, wit, and courage, meeting a colorful cast of unforgettable characters in an often hilarious yet profoundly moving story of friendship and hope.
    ... a short excerpt, the "house rules" for the dining room at the Active Senior Living facility:
1. No sleeping in the dining room.
2. Please use tissues rather than the cloth napkins for blowing your nose.
3. No baseball caps or other head gear in the dining room.
4. Women should not dine with rollers in their hair.
5. No bare feet.
6. No pajamas, nightgowns or robes in the dining room.
7. No wine service with breakfast.
8. Motorized scooters in designated areas only.
9. Wait staff will not be responsible for partials or dentures left on dining tables.
10. Wait staff will not be responsible for hearing aids left on dining tables.
11. Second helpings on dessert only. "

  7 customer reviews, 4-1/2 stars, $2.49

3. A Kindle book, A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion, was recently optioned for a film - announced by the author in the Kindle forums.  It's been quite popular and has 21 customer reviews, with an average of 4-1/2 stars, and is #2 under 'Family Relationsships' and #4 under "Women's Fiction "   $1.99.

4. Tomorrow, we finally hear what the Apple tablet (iPad/iSlate) actually does, after months of rumors.  It's sure to be an amazing product.

  At this point, articles are appearing that say expectations have been raised so high that it'll be harder for Apple to wow the crowd, but I think they will anyway.
  The problems it may have with buyers, including the e-reader inclined (though Apple will undoubtedly offer magazines in full color) are that the estimated cost by almost all insider word is $750 to $1000 and then a monthly data-plan similar to iphone web plans would be needed for cellular wireless access to the web, unless people just use them on WiFi networks at home or in the office.

  Apple's never given free cellular wireless but if they gave a limited number of hours, they'd probably do extremely well though it's unlikely Steve Jobs would do that.
  If they charged $600 + a reasonably priced data plan (lowest tends to be about $30-$35/month), it could sell pretty well, especially if they surprised us and have a slide-out physical keyboard so that it could replace a netbook while still being light.  For the price I would expect it to be able to replace my netbook, which I use a lot.

5.   The dual-screen EnTourage eDGe (the caps sent me on edge, actually) is attractive but it's heavier than my netbook and has no hard disk or physical keyboard, so I wonder how widely attractive that will be for $490.  That's set for shipment mid-February, as it was immediately back-ordered after a few went out.
The LCD screen and gray-scaled screen look great together, but I can't imagine reading a book on it by holding it the way I do an e-reader. It is almost 3 pounds.

  That one would be bought mainly by web-oriented people who want to be able to write on an e-Ink type gray scale screen and have it included in a file (though not with handwriting recognition as the 9" grey scale Asus DR-950 is said to be offering along with many other features although there's no pricing or availability on the Asus yet).  Estimates for that Asus are around $500.

6. The Alex reader (made by the company which is suing B&N over the 2-screen design after several key meetings with them before the Nook was released), picked up Borders as a partner but the head of Borders just resigned, as that company is not in great shape.  Even B&N is closing many stores.  The Alex, which does, unlike the Nook, have a web browser, will not be offering cellular wireless though in this version.

7. Sorry to meander but I won't be doing any e-reader round-up until later since all but the Asus DR950 were either too expensive for the consumer e-reader crowd or had many key features missing for the price and just didn't inspire me as a buyer.

8. The Plastic Logic Que, while expensive at $650 w/o wireless and at $800 with it will really have the business office formats needed (the iRex DR800s doesn't even have the editing feature ready yet), but consumers waiting for the Que(s) were disappointed by the high cost, which includes no web browsing except to stores.

 I'll be definitely watching the Apple scene tomorrow morning.

  I do send out alerts and links to e-reader stories every day.  If interested in following those, if you can stand Twitter :-), go to either http://twitter.com/andrys to see them in chronological order or use   Tweetree instead to see them as they have a more readable listing, since it shows an intro or summary or photo of stories we're linking to.  One can run through Twitter listings a bit faster though.
  In either case you'll also see what are called Retweets or forwarded alerts first found by others who are very much on top of the scene.

---

LINKS FOR SEARCHING FOR FREE OR LOW-COST E-BOOKS
  The ongoing set of links for various Searches for free or low-cost Kindle-compatible books. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

CES video/audio from TheKindleChronicles

The Kindle Chronicles podcast brings us audio and video interviews, with demos of newest E-readers at CES, by its roving reporters (Darlene too) and interviewer, Len Edgerly, whose reflections on CES are definitely unique and even poetically upbeat.

The podcast audio and 2 videos include time with (1) Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge, popular for creative covers and other Kindle accessories; (2) Joe Kralowetz, software director at enTourage Systems, who demos the eDGe Dualbook which has both an e-paper screen and an LCD color one for web activities -- and the 2 screens interact; (3) Neil Jones, CEO of InterRead, which makes the COOL-ER ereader, which has done well in the UK; (4) Maureen Mellon, direct of product marteting at Plastic Logic, whose Que, aimed at business professionals, made quite a splash this week, meeting predictions (here) that the Que "ProReader" would come in between $600 and $800.  Plastic Logic is selling the lower-cost 4-gig $650 model with WiFi but no cellular wireless, and the 8-gig $800 one will have 3G wireless.

Go take a look if curious about the new e-readers and the people behind them. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Sony Daily Edition, Nook, iRex, PL-Que Comparisons, Delays

Excellent comparison piece by Staci D. Kramer of Paid Content a couple of days ago that included charts of features for the two current Kindles, the Nook, the iRex 8.1", the Sony Daily Edition, and the Plastic Logic "Que" - (Chart 1,  Chart 2) and Kramer's own thoughts on each unit in Slideshow format.  Page loading is slow on the charts.
  It's interesting to note (and she more or less does) that every unit except the Kindle Int'l and the Kindle DX is not available for customers or reviewers yet despite the looming holiday season.

  As an executive editor, she's a generalist but knows her e-readers and gives pros and cons for each in a very balanced report that is fair to each.  She is the only one I've seen who refers to the Nook's "unexpected demand" delay-reason as possible hype that works.
  I read, with some disbelief today, another writer's report of holding a plastic or cardboard version of the Nook at B&N and saying how good and right it felt, despite its having no innards.  Size matters, they say.  And definitely colorful slim looks.

  On the other hand, the Nook has a promising feature set, especially with file formats, even if the heavily-marketed lending feature is now seen as quite limited (one loan only for each book and only if the book's publisher approves the feature).  The indication of future multi-tasking with the 2nd window is a draw.

  I did comment at the site that the charts which list features that each does or doesn't have should also have categories for other unique features such as the Kindle's free 24/7 access to Wikipedia globally and the text-to-speech feature.  Kramer catches just about everything else and seems impressed most with the iRex and Que, both of which will be somewhat more expensive but also more flexible and catering to the business users most.

NY Times: New Sony Reader May Miss Christmas for Some
Brad Stone of the New York Times reports that Sony is unable to guarantee that the Daily Edition ($399), with wireless to the Sony store and a 7" touchscreen, will arrive in time for the holiday.
  Today, Sony will begin taking preorders and advising buyers that shipping will take place between December 18 and the first week of January and the device won't be in physical stores until January.

Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division, said that publishers hate the current $9.99 pricing and are trying to slow down the shift to digital reading but that it's "ridiculous" that they are actually delaying some e-book titles over the dispute.

On October 22, the American Booksellers Association asked the Department of Justice to investigate bestseller price wars.  Here is their letter to the DOJ via overnight mail and email.
  And here's the varied reaction to that letter. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!