Return of the eBook?

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smartphone and PDA screens are not primarily made for reading eBooks. It’s not ideal to stare at them for long periods of time, and in some cases the screen resolution on offer is less than wonderful – though that is improving all the time.

What some people say is needed are screens that look more like paper than computer screens. Recently, I met with a representative of iRex Technologies, a company that thinks it has come up with the goods. (as does Sony, with its eReader - ed). I spent an afternoon in the company of a prototype of a forthcoming reader, which is called the iLiad, and was impressed in many ways.

I should say at the outset that the iLiad is not intended only for eBook reading. Indeed during our conversation the iRex representative and I talked about a lot of potential uses, from people wanting the newspaper on the train on the way to work, to engineers needing to view schematics, and many shades in between.

The iLiad is about A5 in size, and is mostly screen. It has a limited number of buttons around the sides, including a rather clever long bar that you push to move from page to page. You can interact with it using a stylus too, and can write onto the screen, annotating documents or making your own drawings onto ‘blank paper’.

The 1024 x 768 pixel screen is ideal for reading texts. It has a flat mat finish rather than a shiny bright one so that it doesn’t glare at you like PDA and smartphone screens can. Consequently it can be stared at for long periods of time. And it is graphically rich enough with 16 shades of grey to show enough colour gradation to give a good approximation of newspaper print.

The screen uses technology from a supplier called E-Ink. This is very different from the types of display technologies we are used to. It has low power consumption, can be read in the sunlight, and produces text which is remarkably clear and well defined. iRex isn’t the first to use E-Ink, and you can find more examples at the E-Ink Web site.

One of the most interesting things about the iLiad’s display is that it relies on black and white particles which are electronically charged - or not - and behave accordingly, moving around so that they are visible or not visible to the user depending on their charge. When you power an E-Ink device down, the particles retain their charge status, so the image they project is retained.

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