Last week Amazon launched its long anticipated e-reader: the Kindle and unless you live in a cave it was kind of hard to miss.

Here at iRex, we would like to congratulate the Amazon Kindle team with the launch of their reader. Seeing such a big name as Amazon making a move into the electronic reading business is very re-assuring for a company like iRex Technologies, who stood at the cradle of this display technology. It is certainly a sign that the electronic paper technology is here to stay.

With the launch, Amazon created a significant hype and wave of interest in the media, and at this stage the first priority and concern for e-reader manufacturers is to develop the market rather than to compete for market share and in that perspective the entry of another big name like Amazon is certainly stimulating the market growth and will benefit all the current active players on the market.

More important, maybe, is that the launch of the Kindle is also a good thing for the consumers, who see their options grow with the introduction of another e-reader. And the Kindle certainly offers some nice new features like the EVDO connectivity that gives you a convenient way to connect directly to the Amazon store. Which provides a wide variety and large volume of content ranging from e-books and newspapers to magazines.

All this content is available in a special Kindle format, based on the Mobipocket format, but unfortunately is not compatible with other devices that support Mobipocket. In addition Amazon also offers access to over 300 blogs and the possibility to send your own documents to the Kindle, but both at a fee. To subscribe to the blog you’ll pay $1.99 and to have your documents converted and send to the Kindle will cost 10 cents.

Personally, I am bit puzzled by this and the choice of format and I wonder if the world really needs another. The Amazon owned Mobipocket format is already widely available and supported across many platforms including other e-readers like the Cybook and the iLiad. By supporting only a single format unique to Kindle, they have created another closed system.

They certainly didn’t needed to ask for a fee for subscribing to a blog feed or converting your own documents with the Mobipocket format. Over 300k RSS feeds from major blogs and other news sources are available from Mobipocket for free and with the Mobipocket Creator, you can easily convert your own documents into a Mobipocket document.

Correction: It does not need to cost money to convert documents for the Kindle. This can be done by yourself and you can place them on the Kindle using the USB cable. However if want to have documents converted and send to a Kindle, it will still costs 10 cents.

All things considered, the Kindle is a very attractive e-reader, although it is open for discussion if this includes the appearances of the device, but the features and the amount of available content and the ease of acquiring this content makes this reader certainly an attractive option.

Please do note that although I try to provide objective and accurate information, I am still a human being who is entitled to his own opinion and, as such, the above is my own opinion that I am sharing with you: please feel free to share yours as well because that’s what i-to-i is all about :-).

I wanted to take a minute to inform you folks that there is a “new” PDF Scribble Merger available. This is a small application for your PC that allows you to quickly and easy merge the scribbles you made in a PDF document on the iLiad into the document without the need for the iLiad Companion Software.

The PDF Scribble Merger can be downloaded here.

P.S. For those wondering why it has been a bit quiet on i to i lately. Well, it’s not because of the new kind(le) on the block :-), but I have been on holiday in NY last week and in the coming weeks you can certainly expect to hear more again.

Earlier last week, I picked up a few interesting discussions on mobileread.com in regard to the iLiad display and how it is different from other electronic paper displays. But what makes our electronic paper display so different?

To get my facts straight, I had a chat with Dr. Alex Henzen, one of the founders and VP Research and Development and Patrick Janssen, Senior Optical Engineer.

To understand the difference we first need to take a closer look at the different components of an EPD and for simplicity sake we will separate the following components:

The Electronic Ink
The electronic ink is a transparent liquid with microscopic charged pigment particles captures inside micro-capsules. This electronic ink is processed into a sheet of plastic film for integration into electronic paper displays. The electronic ink used in the different e-readers on the market today is produced by the E Ink Corporation.

The Display
The FPL (Front Plane Laminate) is composed of a sheet of plastic film with the electronic ink material which is laminated to the active matrix back-plane, a layer of circuitry, much like the ones used in a TFT LCD display. The circuitry forms a pattern of pixels that can be controlled by a display driver. The manufacturer of the EPD for the different e-readers, including the iLiad is Prive View International. In case of iLiad, the TFT array is a proprietary design.

The Waveform
The electronic ink in the display needs to be driven. This driving algorithm is called a waveform. It is a wave or sequence of different voltages that repel or attract the white or black particles in order to pull either the white or black particles to the top. If the waveform only pulls the particles shortly white and black get mixed, which we perceive as grey.

The E-paper controller
The waveform is software that needs to be controlled by a chip or ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). This ASIC controls all the switches of the matrix and in simple terms tells the pixel when it is activated. This together with the waveform tells the electronic ink when and how it has to make black, grey or white. This is the beating heart of the electronic paper display. For the iLiad, iRex Technologies has developed the Delta ASIC which in contrary to the industries standard E-paper controller is able to handle 4 bits gray scales (16 gray scales).

Eye-Print
In order to optimize the performance of the EPD, iRex Technologies have developed the Eye-Print™ technology. The Eye-Print™ technology makes use of an advanced driving algorithm or waveform controlled by a custom build E-paper controller (ASIC), the Delta Chip, and the result is a seamless integration of the different components like the TFT panel, the electronic ink layer, the display controller and the user interface.

One of the main advantages of the E-Print technology is the ability to make an advanced and custom waveform that allows iRex Technologies to increase the number of grey levels that the display can handle but also the integration of other technologies like the WACOM Penabled™ technology that enables the writing functionality on the iRex electronic paper displays.

Another advantage is the ability to optimize the performance of the electronic ink material. Due to the complex creation process of the electronic material, which is a fusion of chemistry, physics and electronics, each batch is unique and can be slightly different in performance. Therefor each batch of electronic ink is analyzed by our optical engineers, who in turn develop a custom waveform for each batch that optimizes the performance of the material, resulting in a brighter display with better contrast and less ghosting.

Vizplex™

Earlier this year the E Ink Corporation has introduced the Vizplex™ Imaging Film. The key improvement of the Vizplex™ imaging film is a slightly faster response time. Currently iRex is in the process of testing the Vizplex™ material and developing a custom Eye-Print™ waveform for it.

In the coming weeks we will compare the display performance of the current iLiad with a Vizplex™ prototype and analyze the differences. So stay tuned.

illustrations - (c) 2007 www.kennisinbeeld.nl

Today we have launched our new support website, which contains a comprehensive knowledge base that allows you to easily and quickly find a solution for an issue.

In case you do not find a solution on the support website, you can now also submit a ticket directly to our Tech Support Center using the Submit Ticket option on the support website.

In addition to that, you are able to post your comments on articles and vote if you found the information helpful or not. This will enable us to improve our support and give you a better service, so make sure to let us know what you think of it.

All in all, the new support website will make life a lot easier for those of us that run into an issue with our iLiad.

Visit the new support website here: http://support.irexnet.com

At the Universita della Calabria in Italy a group of 4 students have started with an experiment using the iLiad as their unique support to follow their course in Public Communication. For the experiment all the study materials used in the course were converted into files optimized for the iLiad in order to allow the students to read and study their material using the iLiad.

During the experiment the students will regularly discuss their experiences with the iLiad on their blog. The blog is in Italian, but there will be some translations in English.

At the end of the experiment the students will summarize their findings in a paper which will underline the merits and flaws of using this method of study. For more information check out the blog here.