Recently, the U.S. E-Ink Corporation announced that the next three years, the color e-book reader will gradually replace the black and white e-book reader, reading the end of the era black and white screen. This remark not only out of, the relevant market in an uproar. 4 consecutive years, the development of electronic readers, especially the development of E-ink is not always in color of a major breakthrough, turning from black and white color electronic ink technology from moving forward at this time so let rhetoric, it is inevitable people marked with a big question mark.
Despite the iPad tablet PC "bombing", but in the North American market, e-readers are still a lot of market share. According to the Pew Research Center survey: November 2010 to May 2011, 12 percent of American adults have e-book reader. In contrast, only 8% of adults have a Tablet PC. Relative to the Tablet PC, e-reader screen is clearly more suitable for reading: most of the e-book readers are using the electronic ink display technology (E-ink). The so-called "electronic ink technology" (electrophoretic e-paper), is a screen technology, electronic ink and two by the substrate composition, it is coated with a composition made up of numerous tiny transparent electronic ink particles, particle diameter of human hair half. When the electronic ink was applied to paper, cloth or other objects on the plane, just to shock it properly, can make hundreds of millions of particles continuously based on people's provision for a combination set to show a pattern and text.
If we say, flat-panel LCD computer screen is widely used to meet the multimedia needs, then the use of electronic ink technology, readers can be said for the reader, "tailor-made": the passive design of the light source is not conducive to reading long injury eyes. Clear text display, reading angle close to 180 °, the effect close to the paper. In addition, the electronic reader also has low power consumption and faster refresh characteristics.
However, can not be avoided, a long time, the development of e-readers into a bottleneck. First introduced four years ago, as now e-reader is still mainly black and white screen. Barnes & Noble Inc. and Kobo's e-book reader has been successfully launched in May. In addition, Amazon plans to launch in October this year again before the two new black and white screen e-reader Kindle, which includes a touch-screen e-reader. However, these new e-book reader with their "ancestors" there is no essential difference: they are only showing black and white screen. Not as smart phones, tablet PCs generally shows the movement of color quality, as most of the soft underbelly of black and white e-book reader.
In today's rapidly changing technology, electronic ink technology has remained stagnant in four years, apparently a bit archaic. In fact, the e-reader manufacturers desire for the color screen is more intense than the readers, so books, magazines and newspapers in the color images can be rendered on the electronic reader, will no doubt be a huge "selling point." However, to add color in the electronic ink is not as easy as you think. Amazon chief executive JeffBezos held in May in the company's shareholder meeting that the e-book reader in order to have a color screen is not the time. The E-Ink Corporation's vice president of marketing Sriram Peruvemba also said that the color into the black and white electronic ink, the light will be reduced on the screen, compared to tablet PCs, the color becomes very vague, monotonous; Moreover, these colors will increase 15% -30% of consumers' financial burden.
Nevertheless, E-Ink's electronic ink color is still committed to developing technology. One solution is to e-readers made thinner, so that filters can be closer to the substrate within the particle, so that you can reduce the passage of light. Another possibility is to add a front light on the screen, so you can enhance the color quality, but will affect the color screen, battery life.
Of course, E-Ink's "three years" ambition, but also faces competition from other companies. Such as Qualcomm, China announced recently invented a clear picture quality, low-power color e-book reader Mirasol. The product of millions into a small mirror to reflect light. Although the product has not yet been available, but sources indicate that use of the Mirasol technology products will be launched at the end the fastest. Our reporter Xu Luming
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