Enlightened Librarian: Enter the Iliad -- a wireless e-paper reader on the horizon

Enter the Iliad -- a wireless e-paper reader on the horizon · Dec 20, 06:42 PM

Since writing about the promise of electronic paper last spring, I’ve been waiting for a first-generation wireless e-paper reader to hit the market. Seems that will happen in April, although the “Iliad”—an e-reader with an eight-inch grayscale display and the capacity to download from the Internet—is being targeted for business-to-business applications, not yet to consumers.

The Dutch-based company iRex, a spinoff of electronics manufacturer Philips, announced the product today. It says the palm-sized device will include 224-MB of Flash memory, enough for over a month of newspapers and 30 books. In a one-page product description iRex describes the display as supporting 1024×768 pixels at 16 levels of gray and 160 dots per inch.

Underlying the device is the charged-particle technology of E-Ink, a Massachusets-based company that created a paper-like reading surface whose images and text can be rewritten, held in a static state with minimal power consumption and read in low light.

If the quality of the reading experience is sufficiently good, the market for a wireless e-paper reader could be significant. It would fill a gap between expensive and increasingly unportable laptops and versatile but ungainly PDAs, whose LCD screens have improved markedly in recent years, but which still do not lend themselves to extended periods of reading electronic text. Philips previously licensed its e-paper screen to Sony, which released its Librié reader in Japan; the device was praised for the clarity of its screen, but sharply criticized for its proprietary file format. iRex says the Iliad will accept a wide range of text formats, will include the ability to make annotations and will also play MP3s.

A number of manufacturers have announced that they are racing toward a marketable e-paper product in the next year or so. Some have questioned the longevity of a charged-particle display over a more conventional LCD that could also serve as a paper substitute, but iRex claims it has stabilized E-Ink’s technology.

In an interesting bit of related news, E-Ink’s primary competitor in charged-particle displays, the Xerox subsidiary Gyricon, announced last week that it will close at the end of December. Instead of focusing on e-readers, Gyricon had concentrated on the commercial signage market. The move will result in 50 layoffs.

See photos of the Iliad at iRex’s site

Read the closure announcement on Gyricon’s website

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