Amazon has put on its war paint, pulled out its tomahawks, and declared all out war on the iPad. Since the iPad’s earlier release, Amazon has been acting irrationally, trying to keep the stranglehold it has on the market. First, it introduced the Kindle Apps, an obvious stake at one of the iPhone’s (and now, iPad’s) claim to fame. Then they made DRM optional for publishers. All of this to compete directly with the iPad and its new threat to the e-reader market.

The Price Wars

Right after the iPad was introduced, the big publishing houses approached Amazon and suggested a change in the way Kindle books are priced. Every other e-reader on the market allows for variable pricing set by the publisher, the Kindle is the only hold out, enforcing a $9.99 price for all books. Macmillan and Amazon had some heated words during the meeting, and the next day Amazon pulled every single book by Macmillan off of its virtual shelves.

The publishing industry  didn’t budge. Amazon replied later in the week, saying that they would eventually place the books back online. The wording of the note Amazon posted was criticized as being unprofessional and strangely worded, and never mentioned exactly when Macmillan’s books would come back online. After this point, Amazon stayed strangely silent on the whole matter, not talking to anyone in the press, nor posting any more details online.

This, of course, was all about the Kindle versus the iPad. Amazon wants its books to be cheaper, so that it can sell more Kindles. iPad wants a level playing field. The publishers want to get the most money out of their books, and see the way the iPad handled ebook sales as more viable in the long term.

But this tactic (trying to force the Kindle prices to stay low) wasn’t the only trick Amazon had up its sleeve. It was still hiding an Ace, ready and waiting to pull it out just at the right moment. The time came when their shares had dropped because of the whole Kindle versus iPad skirmish.

Where art thou, Touchco?

That brings us to the biggest news surrounding this whole fiasco. It’s also the most troubling news for fans of e-paper and e-paper based devices. About a few weeks ago (just around the time that Amazon announced Kindle Apps) Touchco dropped off the face of the earth. Touchco was a company we covered on our site, and gave them huge props for creating what could be a revolutionary product for e-paper: dynamic, true multi-touch interface, designed to work directly with e-paper.

This item could provide the user interface that’s been missing from e-paper in the last year or so. Sure, there are some touch based devices, but they provide a glossy glare over top of the screen, getting rid of any benefit that e-paper gives them in the first place. With Touchco, you could combine some of the full-color technology from Mirasol and create a powerful, e-paper based tablet device. One that could easily rival the iPad.

Amazon Buys Touchco

Right before the introduction to the iPad, Touchco dropped off the face of the earth. Their website only gave a cryptic message about being shut down. Contacting them via email or phone provided no ready answers. This week we found out that Amazon had purchased Touchco.

At first blush this seems like grand news for the e-paper crowd. The Kindle is leading the charge into the future of e-paper based products that the public adores. It could easily compete against the iPad, if it had a touchscreen interface and color. It seemed like a match made in heaven! So why is this so troubling?

Given Amazon’s latest actions (dropping all of the books from a single publisher, insulting that same publisher on public forums, price fixing, etc) we don’t think Amazon is going to license out Touchco’s technology. They want to destroy any competition, leaving Amazon’s Kindle the only e-reader of choice.

This means that Touchco’s amazing technology will be locked into one device. A dedicated e-reader, that might eventually have some tablet like functionalities. This is bad news. Touchco and e-paper could be used for so many interesting devices! Dynamic remotes for home entertainment centers, cellphones, mp3 players, kiosk’s, the list goes on and on. All of these possible, amazing devices that could really show the public how versatile e-paper is, gone up in smoke. All because the Kindle wants to keep a stranglehold on the e-reader and e-book market.

As for Kindle Killing and e-paper dooming, the poorly named iPad comes with a new iTunes for books called iBooks (which, oddly enough has nothing to with the Apple iBook laptop…), which is identical to several other iTouch book apps already in existence. We’ll take a look at both the device itself and the software, and see if it really has enough punch to knock out e-paper and e-readers (like the Kindle).

The Hardware

Let’s get this said right away, the iPad doesn’t use any form of e-paper at all, what so ever. It uses an LED back lit display that contains all of the eye strain issues that has plagued monitors and laptops since the invention of the CRT.  So, if you’re looking for something that gives you lots of hours of easy reading with little drain, you can count out the iPad. E-paper based devices will always win out in this area, since the whole purpose of the e-paper based screens is to reduce eye strain and improve battery life.

The iPad battery is impressive for an LED device (10 hours), but without removing the eye strain there is no comparison. Especially when we have several models of e-paper with color and a better framerate/refresh rate coming out this year (Mirasol, et al). Once these displays come out in e-readers, the main benefits for having an iPad versus a dedicated e-reader vanish.

The key thing to remember when looking at the iPad and it’s hardware is that it is a multipurpose media device first and foremost, and an e-reader secondary. Because of this, it will never perform as strongly in the e-book market as dedicated devices, since the hardware is more geared towards visual media like movies and games, and less geared towards print media like books and magazines.

The Software

At first the software Apple debut for reading/buying books on the iPad seems impressive. It’s visually appealing, seems as simple to use as Kindle’s one-click to buy, and as intuitive as iTunes. But when you actually use the software itself, you’ll see that it lacks very many fundamental e-reading tools that we’ve taken for granted.

Sure, it’s got a neat page animation that looks a lot like real paper, and you can control it just like real paper. But it’s a gimmick (one that the Blio reader used well before this announcement), and it doesn’t make up for the lack of functionality found elsewhere. For one, even though the iBookstore is based around ePub, you will still need to order/download books directly from the iBookstore. You can’t just buy it from Fictionwise and move it wirelessly, or through the USB.

Secondly, you don’t have a bookmark function. You can’t highlight text, and you can’t add in your own notations. This seriously cripples any reader functionality, especially for the University/College bound crowd. This crowd would be a key audience for a full color, large screen e-reader, since it would replace the need to buy so many expensive, heavy, text-books. Without annotation and without simple bookmarking, the e-reader is only good for passive fiction reading.

The Verdict?

E-paper isn’t gone yet, not by a long shot. It’s pretty obvious that this device is not a dedicated e-reader, and people that love their Kindle probably won’t be ditching it for an iPad anytime soon. Even though a large number of publishers signed on to sell books at the iBookstore, the largest US publisher hasn’t joined up yet (Random House) and probably won’t in the near future. The iBookstore is also US only, so overseas users of the iPad will have to be book free, or rely on existing iTouch/iPhone book apps. Also, the books shown on the iBook store were priced a lot higher than those on the Kindle, which is a great thing for Publishers, but a bad thing for readers.

It’s a great piece of hardware, and will be really good for people who want to play games, watch movies and browse the internet without a computer. As far as e-readers go, it’s still lagging behind in all the important places. And once the next generation of e-readers come out this year with color screens, the iPad’s hype for the publishing industry will be a forgotten memory. In the meantime, it will definitely open up the e-book market, which will lead to a greater demand in e-readers.

The best known e-paper devices are without a doubt those based on E Ink’s display technology. Devices such as the Sony, Amazon and iRex readers all use this technology to great affect, and have sold tons of devices with it. But, just because they’ve made a lot of money doesn’t necessarily mean it will stand the test of time. How long can E Ink dominate the current e-paper landscape?  Let’s take a look.

Most people who are interested in e-readers know the basics of how the technology works, but it may be useful and interesting to take a deeper look into an E Ink patent to see what really makes it tick. The patents are all public domain, and looking at the right ones can give us a quick peek into how these things work. They show how the particles (black, white and color) are made, turned into a fluid, encapsulated and then turned into a film.

Looking at precisely how this technology works is key to understanding how well it will fare in the far (and very near) future. Before we explore the technology’s impact I will provide an overview on how E Ink particles are made and how the technology works. For those of you who are not interested in the technical specifics of the technology, you may skip over this section.

How E Ink Particles are Made

The patent itself is a bit dense to read in one bite, so we’re going to simplify things even further. The way the white particles work is pretty much the simplest to follow and the other particles are used in pretty much the same way.

To make the white particles, titanium dioxide pigment particles are coated with silicon dioxide. These are the types of pigments used in paints and coatings. A reaction is then done to make the surface carbon based, and then a polymer reacts on the surface. So what you end up with is an “onion like” particle with many layers, starting with a titanium dioxide core to give the whiteness and a hairy polymer surface which stops the particles from sticking together. The hairs can also give the particles charge needed to move in a device.

How E Ink Particles are Used to Make Electrophoretic Fluid

This is a simple step in essence, but it is actually very tricky to get just right. The dry particles are mixed with a solvent and a surfactant(s) to create the fluid. The solvent used is very hydrophobic (water-hating). The end results are extremely small (less than 1000nm) particles which are dispersed in a fluid. At this stage different colors can be mixed to give a 2-particle system, like you see in current E Ink displays. This is what is known as an Electrophoretic Fluid. If step is done incorrectly, there can be many long term problems such as aggregation of particles, or the particles can even carry the wrong charge mixing up your black and white particles and creating a big mess. 

How E Ink Microencapsulates Electrophoretic Fluids

The electrophoretic fluids can be emulsified by surrounding drops of the electrophoretic fluid in water. Using some clever chemistry, a solid polymer at the interface of the water and electrophoretic fluid is formed. This provides solid capsules which now contain the fluid. The conditions must be just right. If they’re not, the capsules won’t be the same size, and if the capsules are not the same size, the electrodes can’t connect, won’t hold a charge, and will effectively be a dead capsule on the display.

Making the Film

Making the film is a very simple step, but tricky to get right as the engineering required for it has to be precise. The capsules are mixed with a binder, formed into a film and dried. Then it can be optionally laminated onto another binder. The binders used are sometimes based on PVA, which is a well known type of polymer. The binder and capsule must also be very flexible. The backplane electronics need to be applied to them and they need to conduct some electricity. All of these criteria must be in place in order to perform the electrophoretic manipulation of the particles to display images in a flexible display.

Coming Full Circle and Moving to the Future

You should not underestimate the amount of science used in an E Ink display. Many of the steps are extremely tricky to get just right, and if you get them even slightly wrong you are left with film which doesn’t perform well and a horrible mess to clean up afterwards.

The final film has some excellent properties. It shows good contrast ratio, the switching speed is quite high and it is bistable. Most importantly, it works time and time again in real devices.

The films on the market at the moment from E Ink are black and white. The real future of e-paper is color. People want moving video, faster refresh rates, cheaper devices with more features, but the first step to most of these is color. The main drawback is that E Ink technology has only been proven for 2 particle systems giving just black and white films.

Even if you could incorporate other colors, a mixture of either red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white particles would be needed. To get the full color spectrum, at least 3 colors, plus white or black are needed. Recent announcements on color displays use color filters over a black/white display. These look washed out, usually producing pastel shades.

What does this mean for the future of E Ink type devices? They work well now, they have a dominant market share, but the technology does not seem well suited for color applications. The particles and films described above can be found in patents over 10 years old and not much has changed in the patents on the synthesis during this time. Improvements made in the patents are on bistability, switching speeds and lower switching voltages, but the question of full color devices is still open.

Until we see this, electrophoretic displays of this type will always be in a weak position when colored technologies enter the market this year. However, history has shown us that when technologies go head to head it is often a battle won in the marketing departments. If this is to be the case with e-paper, judging by the current market, expect E Ink to be here to stay.

By W Y Scott

Bio - W Y Scott has a strong background in materials chemistry. With many years experience in the industry and a PhD in Chemistry, his main expertise is in the physics and chemistry behind many e-paper modes.

The Technology

The key difference in the LG prototype is the size and the amount of flexibility it retains. It uses a Gate in Panel (GIP) technology, which places the Gate Driver IC into the panel itself, rather than along the spine or the outside of the device. With other flexible e-paper screens, the Gate Driver is placed into the side of the device, and this seriously limits how bendable and flexible it is.

Right now the 19″ prototype is just the e-paper by itself, without any processor, input device or storage. Adding in these different components would make the paper far less flexible and far less like the newspaper format it’s currently trying to mimic. That’s not to say there aren’t any devices already slotted to use this new technology. Quite the contrary.

Planned Devices

The first device we know that will use this technology is Hearst’s Skiff dedicated e-reader, although it’s not quite the full 19″ size of the prototype LG released today.The Skiff’s prototype they had at CES used a full touchscreen technology, and that could easily be integrated with the larger, 19″ model that’s about the size of a normal, print newspaper.

Other devices aren’t yet announced, but we can easily see this being used in lot of different applications, other than e-readers. Since it’s light and flexible, it could be used as wallpaper for rooms, one that is dynamic and could change with a small electronic charge. The same could be done with different bits of apperal, like bags or coats.

The Future

This follows on the heels of LG’s announced partnership Taiwanese display maker, Prime View International. This could only mean that they plan on ramping up production in the e-paper market and charging in full steam ahead. In 2007 LG also showed a prototype (much smaller, with a slower refresh rate) that even used full color. Thin, flexible, full color displays are the wave of the future, and could be used in so many different products, not just with e-readers.

If the refresh rate is decent, we could have truly portable computers that make our current wave of netbooks and slim laptops look like dinosaurs. Computers that roll up, slide into an envelope, not even requiring a case to carry them and protect them. With a water proof coating, these thin computers of the future will be able to withstand anything, and manufacturers like LG are paving the way.

Qualcomm’s vice president of Mirasol, James Cathey, recently said in an interview that text and books where the last of the analogue to digital transitions. We’ve already gotten past music and video, and now we have to find a way to bring stuff like textbooks, comic books, novels and magazines into the digital realm in a way that works right and feels right. Once we’ve digitized books, we can move onto more versatile devices that really push what e-paper products are capable of.

We’re going to spotlight on Mirasol and go through the various benefits that it’s e-paper display can have for different kinds of devices.

The Tech

I’m going to do just a brief overview of the tech behind Mirasol’s displays. If you want to find out more, you can take a look at our more detailed analysis located here. Like most e-paper displays, it uses a reflective technology to get a clear, crisp easy on the eyes image in ambient lighting that does a good job replicating plain old print technology. It uses a process that works similar to butterfly wings, by changing the wavelengths of light it reflects back different colors to the human eye.

Unlike the more common E Ink style electrophoretic technology, they don’t have to worry as much about screen refresh time, or applying filters to create the illusion of color. Like electrophoretic technology, the Mirasol screen only requires power when it changes its image. Which keeps Mirasol’s electronic footprint low. About as low as the current models of e-paper.

The Products

Where most e-paper products just have an e-reader or two (or three, or twelve, or fifteen…) to showcase/sell it’s technology, Qualcomm has a far wider range of products for Mirasol. There is a stereo bluetooth headset device from Acoustic Research, an MP3 player from Freestyle audio and another from Skullcandy. So far, Mirasol is proving to be the most diverse e-paper in products so far. While most e-paper is content on either being created for use in a netbook or an e-reader, Mirasol has proven to be versatile in it’s uses.

The refresh rate might have something to do with this. James Cathey, Qualcomm QMT’s vice president of Mirasol, recently said in an interview that, “The next thing is you need to be video-rate and have color. If you can’t do video rate and color, you’re not going to be able to support a handset. Just to text, for example, that screen is refreshing at 60 Hz. If you can’t do that, let alone 30 Hz, you can’t do text messaging. You don’t want to wait a second for each letter, right? That would be a huge drawback. So video is not just running video—it’s scrolling, it’s texting, it’s a fast response from the display. ”

Which is an extremely good point. The main reason e-paper hasn’t found a lot of uses other than text-based rendering is because the refresh rate is too slow to support anything else. A lot of the companies that have added color filters to the existing technology get even slower refresh rates- and this keeps e-paper solely in the domain of e-readers and simple flashing advertisements. But Mirasol’s technology, with it’s lower power, high color, and fast refresh rate, shows that it can be used in any number of devices.

People are already getting sick of hearing about e-readers. If e-paper is to survive it needs to move past this hurdle, and Mirasol just might be the company to do it. Not that it doesn’t have an e-reader of it’s own coming out soon- they showed it off at CES 2010, and it was very impressive. They just understand that the future is in more all-purpose devices. Once audio was completely digitized, MP3 players moved over to cellphones and all-in-one devices like the iPod Touch. It’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens to book and e-readers.

Q. From AUO’s perspective, what do you see as the potential for the e-paper market?

Liu: AUO had studied e-paper technologies for a few years and decided to start this business by adopting SiPix technology in Q4/2008 because SiPix shows the most promising roll-to-roll manufacturing capability. We believe the e-paper should eventually be made by printing process similar to publication industry for printing out the newspapers, books, magazines, and articles. With this kind of manufacturing for real paper replacement, it will definitely impact our living style in the near future. (Note: In mid-2009,  AUO became a major shareholder (over 30%) in SiPix Imaging.)

Q. Is AUO working with SiPix on other applications of e-paper technology and when might they be introduced?

Liu: In addition to the e-reader, we are also working on e-tag applications, which had been mass produced in Q3/2009. In fact, the real paper replacement is what we really care because the total available market size is immense and can reduce a lot of carbon emission beneficial to human beings.

Q. What were the challenges to developing a flexible reader? What are the main features of the flexible display?

Liu: The most challenging point is the large quantity supply with comparative low cost for flexible e-reader. Currently, the TFT backplane is prepared by sheet to sheet process on glass or plastic substrate by utilizing glass substrate as a carrier. The manufacturing cost is relatively high due to the small scale production.

Using SiPix’s exclusive Microcup® technology, the flexible e-paper incorporates a plastic substrate, so that the display can be repeatedly bended, allowing it to match even more closely the functionality of real paper. While the curved radius of this e-paper reaches 100mm, it remains flexible and features 16 gray levels, a 9:1 high contrast ratio, and a reflectance of 33%. The size of the flexible e-paper is able to be tailor-made based on customers’ needs. AUO expects to distribute samples to customers in 2010 and to start volume production then.

Q. What differentiates the AUO E-reader from those currently available on the market?

Liu: The roll-to-roll process based on SiPix technology is the ultimate goal to success regarding to the cost point of view as well as the potential of color and flexible technology in one shot. We are speeding up the development to have these delicate products to the market.

Q. Commercial product is planned for next year for the flexible e-reader . I presume that is a black-and-white device. Are color and/or video devices in the plans for the future? When might those be introduced for commercialization?

Liu: We have set a step-by-step milestone toward flexible and color, which will be announced sometime this year. Keeping the relative good whiteness is crucial for bringing the color to e-paper. Otherwise, it will become one kind of TFT/LCD panel instead of e-reader.

Q. What kind of demand do you foresee for the flexible e-reader? Has AUO planned any manufacturing expansion to accommodate the demand?

Liu: From small to large size application, they all need the non-fragile and slim style, which are the characteristics of flexible substrate. Eventually, most of the e-paper products will be replaced by a flexible one, and hence we are reuniting all the resources internally and externally to be ready for this transition.

There is no longer any question whether e-readers will become accepted in the marketplace. According to research firm iSuppli, global shipments of e-paper displays projected at approximately 3.6 million units in 2009 are expected to rise to 18.3 million units in 2012. Revenues for global e-paper displays are forecast to reach US $291.2 million by 2012, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 143% from US$3.5 million in 2007. Rather, as competition heats up, the question becomes which e-paper technology will become dominant and which company will become the market leader. Until now, E-Ink (now a subsidiary of Prime View International) has dominated the market with its electrophoretic technology. However, with AUO’s support, SiPix electrophotetic technology, with its potential for roll-to-roll manufacturing, is poised to provide serious competition. There is also no question that 2010 will provide some of those answers.

Linda Casatelli

CES 2010 was a huge splash this year, with the a ton of new e-paper devices being announced. The only devices to gain more hype than those powered by e-paper were tablet computers, which also seemed to be just about as abundant. We’re going to take a moment here, and talk about some of the bigger e-paper products shown off. A lot of the stuff we were expecting, but a few manufacturers had some really cool surprises up their sleeve.

Cool-ER, Amazon DX, and Alex Reader Get Enhancements

The Cool-ER series of e-readers announced that they will be getting 3G wireless access and some limited touchscreen capability. It’ll even have something the Nook has and the Kindle doesn’t–WiFi connectivity for transferring books and browsing the web in free wireless hotspots. They also announced a Cool-ER slim model that’s wafer thin and has a 6″ viewing screen.

Spring Design, who recently sued the Nook for stealing their look and feel, just struck a huge deal with Google Books, allowing users to download millions of free books directly to their e-reader, The Alex. The Alex runs on Google’s Android operating system, and has an LCD screen embedded in the bottom half of the device, allowing you to browse the web and then print e-books into the e-paper screen above it. Since Google is working on a settlement that allows them to sell e-books as well as give away public domain books, the Alex could end up being a big competitor to the Kindle and the Nook.

Amazon announced world-wide 3G support for their large screen Kindle DX, and will be selling these devices to well over 100 new countries. Right now they are only taking pre-orders through Amazon US, and is shipping out January 19th.

Entourage Edge, eSlick, iRex 800, Plastic Logic’s Que on Display

The much waited Entourage Edge was on display, allowing users to come and try out the dual screen for themselves. iRex’s new 800 showed off it’s light pen support and world wide 3G capability, including the ability to support subscriptions for newspapers and download books ala the Kindle or the Nook. Foxit’s PDF based e-reader, eSlick was also on display, showing that it could do one thing but do it exceptionally well: display PDF’s on an e-paper screen.  The long awaited Plastic Logic Que Pro-Reader was also on display, with a large viewing area (8.5×11inches) and 3G wireless system that could connect to many different bookstores (including Barnes and Nobles ebook store). It’s price was the heftiest of the bunch, retailing at about $649-$799.

The Skiff E-Reader

One of the biggest surprises was Hearst’s new announcement for the Skiff e-reader. We’ve known for quite some time that the Skiff Platform would be getting it’s own dedicated e-readers, we just didn’t know how cutting edge it was going to be. This is the first e-reader coming to market that uses LG’s metal foil technology, that gives you a rollable, bendable, flexible e-paper service.

The screen is the largest e-reader screen we’ve seen yet (11.5 inch, touchscreen display without added glare), and since it you can roll it up and take it with you, it acts just like an old fashioned print magazine or newspaper. Since Hearst owns a majority of the Magazines and Newspapers in the country, this could be the ideal Magazine/Newspaper based e-reader.

New E-Readers Announced from Samsung, iRiver, RCA and Copia

To round off all the news and announcements, we’ve heard that there are a few new players in the e-reader market, bringing in their own unique take on the device and hoping to cash in on the latest in publishing trends. Samsung announced it’s own e-reader, telling us it will be between 6-11 inches in size and use a touchscreen interface with an electrostatic pen (similar to how Irex’s devices work).

iRiver announced its own e-reader, called The Story. It looks a lot like the Kindle, with a 6″ display and a full QWERTY keyboard attached to the bottom. It’s aimed more toward office work, with a built in voice recorder and the ability to take memo’s during a meeting. RCA also plans on getting into the e-reader gig just as fast as they got on the MP3 Player bandwagon, with their newly released Lexi-Reader.

And finally, Copia announced an e-reader that plans to merge reading electronically and social networking.

Lots of E-Readers…

The one disappointment in this year’s CES was the lack of e-paper technology in any other market. E-paper is applicable to so many other devices, yet all the announcements involved an e-reader of some sort. The only non-e-reader technology on display that used a form of e-paper were netbooks powered by Pixel Qi’s hybrid screens (like Notion Ink, which we covered earlier) and Mirasol showing off it’s fast full color e-paper display (which might power the Kindle 3 later this year).

Maybe next year, after this year’s e-reader explosion, we can see some new and interesting announcements at CES involving e-paper.  We can certainly hope so, a lot of people are starting get sick of hearing about e-readers, allowing one commentator to say that there are officially too many e-readers at CES.

We think that e-paper (and e-readers in general) really can save print publishing’s newspapers and magazines, and that this year will be the year when the technology starts to ramp up and make the transition from paid print services to paid electronic services. Sure, in the last year we’ve seen both the Kindle and the Nook allow for subscriptions to a few magazines (and a handful of blogs), but in 2010 we will be seeing e-readers built with magazines and newspapers in mind from the ground up.

Size Matters

One of the key enhancements to the current e-readers and their screens is the size of the screens. Magazines and newspapers are much larger than books, mostly because of their layouts and use photography to enhance their content. Add in a large amount of content shoved into as few pages as possible, and you have the need for a wider page size. So far, devices like the Nook or the Kindle are perfect for paperback sized book reading, allowing you the portability and size of small book. These displays become cramped and impossible to read easily when trying to view newspapers or magazines.

A larger screen is then a must. And a lot of different e-readers coming out in the next year mimic the Kindle DX, giving them newspaper or magazine size layouts on an e-paper screen. Hearst’s e-reader for it’s Skiff platform is rumored to be about the size of a magazine, as is Plastic Logic’s up and coming e-reader platform. Bridgestone recently released a video of it’s own newspaper sized e-reader, although the speed in which it refreshes is painfully slow, even for an e-paper platform.

Portability is Preferable

The main problem with larger e-paper screens is the lack of portability. What makes newspapers and magazines so enjoyable is the ability to roll them up and take them with you. You can read them on the bus, on your lunch break or even while sitting on the bench in the park. The current technology for e-readers makes this nearly impossible. You can’t fold or spindle your e-reader without probably breaking it first.

The next generation of e-readers will have ways around this. We’ve already seen reports of Flexible, bi-stable LCD’s that allow you to roll up your device and take it with you. This method mimics the portability of newspapers and magazines manufactured the old fashioned way, and allows for cold manufacturing, which is better on the whole for the environment.

Color is Key

For magazines (and a few newspapers, like USA Today and Newsweek) color is an important aspect of getting the look and feel down just right. A lot of new technologies are promising color e-paper in the next year, giving people exactly what they need in a portable e-magazine. Some companies are skipping over the e-paper aspect and just creating single-purpose tablets (like Sports Illustrated’s new device). These seem to be missing the point. If people wanted to read a magazine on a tablet PC, they would.

Others, like Mirasol or PixelQi are bringing in some interesting new ways in displaying full color e-paper, and keeping the benefits of e-paper that people enjoy, like low-battery consumption and easy reading without glare or eye-strain. They also seem to be leaping beyond the low frame rate problem, and even enabling video on their devices.

Is it Necessary?

The real question is, is this even necessary? Do we really need a single purpose device for displaying magazines and newspapers? Since e-readers are currently between 200$ to 300$ a piece, it makes it difficult to think we need two devices, one for books and one for magazines. Should magazines and newspapers evolve by creating their own e-reader like the Kindle DX or Plastic Logic’s up and coming device? Or should they resize and reformat for the Kindle or the Nook?

Either way, the future for these two print technologies is going electronic and fast. The old methods of subscription and distribution are slowly falling behind, each of them losing more and more subscribers as time wears on.

Then there is the Iliad, a pricey device also with a touch screen interface. This interface used a lightpen, which was able to read your position on the surface without adding a layer of glare. But, it relied too heavily on the pen, which could be easily lost and pricey to replace. It also had the problem of using only a single touch point on the screen, and anyone that has used an iPhone or an iTouch can tell you that dual touch is the wave of the future when it comes to user interfaces.

The Nook has a capacitive touchscreen on the bottom of it’s device, but that too was filled with problems. Strange response times, odd behavior and significant eye-strain from moving from e-paper to the touchscreen caused many complaints. All of these devices have tried to move e-readers and e-paper into the next generation, and each one has proved more flawed than feasible.

Enter Touchco, with their multi-touch technology that fits hand in glove with e-paper products. Even though they plan on using Touchco’s new technology with a slew of different devices, a majority of the demonstrations and listed products all used e-paper in some form or another.

The Technology Behind the Tools

Most multi-touch tracks fingers using either a small web camera (like Microsoft’s Wall demonstration) or they use something called Captive Touch Technology (like the iPhone) that registers contact with skin. Touchco’s new implementation uses a technology they call interpolating force-sensitive resistance, or I.F.S.R.

It uses force-sensitive resistors which can scan different levels of input and pressure, allowing for a more dynamic and sensitive touch screen interface, with an even smaller electronic footprint. This means that you can keep e-paper’s low battery use intact even when using a touch surface for navigation. The price of the technology is also a major selling point–it is the cheapest of the touch screens by far, coming in as little as $10 per square foot.

They’ve listed a large number of e-readers coming out with this technology in the up coming year, including some interesting design interfaces for things like musical composition and a sketchbook replacement that could the difference of sharpness/softness between a pencil, pen or paintbrush. The technology could revolutionize the way we interface with computers, providing more sensitive and realistic feedback for a fraction of the cost.

Benefits for E-Paper

Unlike the current models of touch screen combined with e-paper, this Touchco system works naturally and seamlessly with any e-paper display/device. Unlike Sony’s PRS-700, there will be no added glare or eye-strain from a surface layered over another. Unlike the Iliad, there won’t be any problems using more than one touch point on the surface, nor will you have to worry about replacing an expensive pen if you lose it.

The battery footprint is about on par with most e-paper devices, allowing you to have the same long lasting battery life without getting rid of the intuitiveness of touch. And, since it can work natively with the e-paper screens themselves, you don’t need an extra LCD touch-strip on the bottom of the screen like the Nook has, so you no longer need to worry about additional eye strain.

If the technology for e-paper keeps ramping up with all these new advances, 2010 will definitely be the break out year for the technology. A device that uses QualComm’s Mirasol display, or Pixel Qi’s new display combined with this touchscreen could easily rival products like the iPhone, or iPod Touch.  Allowing you full color, touch displays with ultra sensitivity and low battery life.

Slow and Sluggish

Most e-readers are chastised for their display speed, since the current technology only allows for a slow refresh while all the particles update for each virtual turn of the page. But the Nook has been criticized as having the worst frame rate–almost 14 seconds. Compared side by side with other e-readers, there is a noticeable difference in speed. This is even more obvious when you compare it to the speed of the touch screen LCD on the bottom of the device. Speed is a critical factor in Usability Design, and the Nook fails miserably in this area.

The LCD screen is fast and responsive, but the E-Ink screen is not, and this creates a strange lagging effect between the user-interface (selecting books, turning pages) and the actual display of the books. You flip through your library, make your choice. The LCD screen moves lightning fast. Then you need to wait for the e-paper screen to load the image. The same goes for adding in notes, turning pages, anything. There is a strange disconnect that is disorienting between the two technologies. And instead of the LCD screen enhancing the experience, it muddles it and makes it even more confusing.

Not to mention the constant eye-strain from moving to the LCD backlit screen to the e-paper device and then back again. Your eyes constantly need to refocus, and this causes the same eye-strain that e-paper was invented to prevent. Certainly, there is a rumored Nook update that fixes some of these problems, like the buggy LCD screen interface and the lagging e-paper refresh rate, but it won’t be able to fix the eye-strain from moving between the two screens. Not to mention, some users have found the second screen to be more of a distraction than a benefit.

Usability is Key

It was nice to see another e-reader step up to the plate and take the Amazon’s Kindle head on, with improvements over some of the features and matching other features right out of the box. There was so much promise to be had. Being able to lend books? A great idea, badly implemented (buggy, barely supported by publishers). Reading a book for an hour for free while in Barnes and Nobles? Again, buggy and barely supported by the publishers. So far, the only thing it delivers is the wireless connectivity and instant book buying, both things that the Kindle already has.

Even though the Kindle has been criticized for it’s basic design and layout, it does have the usability down right. It does one thing and does it well–reads e-books. The whole device works on this sole concept, and in the end it makes some sacrifices of features to the benefit of usability. It doesn’t have a touch screen, but it doesn’t need one, it works like you expect it to right away without any problems. Even though you can wirelessly order books on the Nook from the Barnes and Nobles webstore (a recently acquired Fictionwise), you can do the same thing through the Kindle much faster and easier.

This is why the iPhone is still the must-have cell phone, even though the Android machines have more features out of the box than the competition. The iPhone does usability very well - it is simple and intuitive. The Kindle is the same way, even though it’s stripped down it’s very easy to use and very simple to order books without having to connect to a computer. Buying, reading and browsing books is intuitive.

That is probably why the Kindle sold more e-books than Amazon sold physical books during the Holiday Season. With the advent of full-color e-readers coming out next year, as well as more companies joining the fray (including Lenovo), it seems pertinent that they need to keep up with good usability and design techniques. They need to look beyond the feature creep that users say they want, and go for what works well with creating a book-like environment electronically.

The e-reader market is ramping up, with more and more companies joining in and creating their own devices. We will need more innovation in the market, and less features that feel more like a gimmick than an advance in technology.