Who wants to take a look under the hood of the newest color ereader?

I have not quite gotten up the courage to crack open the review unit Pocketbook sent me, but someone over at MobileRead noticed that Pocketbook has sent the Pocketbook Color through the FCC (back in June, in fact). All of the photos and other interesting details have been left in the public view, which means for example that we finally know what CPU went into the Pocketbook Color.

According to the internal photos (PDF), Pocketbook put a dual-core Allwinner B288 chip into the Pocketbook Color. Allwinner  is not what I would describe as a top of the line chip maker, but this ereader’s performance fully justifies this decision.

Enjoy!

FCC

You just finished reading Inside the Pocketbook Color which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• Roland Denzel shares ergonomic tips for a better writing space. 
• Nine writers shared writing advice with The Cut. 
• How Many Books is Too Many? Ask the World’s 10 Biggest Libraries.
• AAP estimates that the publishing industry grew by about 1% last year. 
• Here are a hundred famous writers, and their writing spaces. 
• Big media might not be able to buy the copyright legislation they want here in the US, but they can buy the influence to get diplomatic pressure applied in other countries to get copyright legislation passed there. 
• Remember when Apple started demanding its 30% vig from ebook apps? We now know Steve Jobs set that in motion. 
• Libraries are quarantining returned books. 
• Mike Lundgren comments on the IA’s response to the piracy suit filed by four publishers. 

If you need a tech VA or help with your website, email me at Nate@the-digital-reader.com. Got a story that I should include in next week’s list? Shoot me an email.

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 3 August 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Tolino (or rather, its tech partner Rakuten Kobo) has just released a new version of the Tolino web app which takes a further step towards accessibility.

Tolino webreader v5.1 offers users a text-to-speech reading function which enables readers to have their ebooks read to them. The new function works with both ebooks bought via Tolino as well as the ebooks users have uploaded into the tolino cloud.

I can’t directly tell you anything about the tech involved (Tolino restricts access to only its target market), but Tolino said in its announcement that the web app does not have its own accessibility features. Instead, “the web reader uses the functions of the browser and operating system of the computer with which it is opened.  In this way, different speaker voices are sometimes available.”

Tolino also announced that the text-to-speech feature will also be available for the Tolino iOS and Android apps over the coming year.

Tolino

You just finished reading Tolino Adds Text to Speech to Its Browser App which was published on The Digital Reader.

When it comes to reading habits across generations, there are similarities—but also surprising differences.

The 5 generations—Gen Z, adults under 40, Gen X, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation—have different life experiences and expectations for everything from marriage to work to entertainment.

But what about their reading habits?

As the following infographic shows, reading habits vary wildly between generations.

via

You just finished reading Infographic: Which Generation Reads the Most? which was published on The Digital Reader.

I am still working on my review of Pocketbook’s new ereader, but I thought you might be interested in a follow up post on the screen tech.

The post I published last week sparked a number of requests both here and on MobileRead forums concerning the screen tech. The thing is, E-ink isn’t answering questions about the Kalreido screens, so we knew almost nothing about how it works or what it can do. So when everyone learned that I had a Pocketbook Color, they asked me to test it.

I still don’t really understand how the screenworks, but I was able to confirm that it can display black and grayscale at 300 ppi while simultaneously displaying color at 100 ppi.

I know that sounds improbable, but it’s really what we saw in the photos.

I am going to post the photos below, but first I want to link to the original photos in Google Drive (one, two). My website optimized image files, and that can affect quality. My photos are not of the best quality but I still want you to see the original.

Here’s Pocketbook Color displaying color text:

And here it is displaying shades of gray.

If you zoom in on the images to around 400%, you will notice that the black text and the gray text is displayed using considerably more pixels than the color text. It is quite clear that one is being shown at 300 ppi, and the other is not.

And what is especially interesting is that both the black and the color text are being displayed on the same screen at the same time, only at different resolutions.

I wish I could tell you more about how that was done, but I can’t.

It is cool tech, though, isn’t it?

You just finished reading Hands on with the Pocketbook Color, Part II which was published on The Digital Reader.

This question arrived in my inbox a few days ago, and I wanted to post my answer.

I would like to buy an ereader to read PDFs. I had thought about getting the Boox Note 2, but it would hurt to make such a big investment if Amazon launched a big-screen Kindle. Do you think there are possibilities of seeing a Kindle of more than 10″ in the short time? A color kindle perhaps?

If you want a color device or large-screen device for PDFs, don’t wait on Amazon.

We have no reason to expect Amazon to launch a large-screen Kindle, or a color Kindle. I want to see one just as much as you do, but any expectation that Amazon will launch such a device really comes down to wishful thinking.

Instead, you should look at buying a device now, and keeping it for several years.

My recommendation is to buy an Android tablet or an iPad. Yes, the question concerned an ereader, but I really feel that a tablet would be better for PDFs. Not only is an Android tablet half the price of a large-screen ereader, it’s also faster and more capable. And an iPad is even better, albeit rather pricy.

In my opinion it all comes down to getting the most for your dollar. An ereader is a limited function device, with most models having functionality limited to what the manufacturer decided to include. An Android tablet, on the other hand, can install apps from Google Play, giving it an infinitely larger range of possibilities.

P.S. Yes, I am aware of Android ereaders. I am rather fond of the concept, but I still think they came in second behind a real Android tablet.

You just finished reading Ask The Expert: What is the Best eReader for PDFs? which was published on The Digital Reader.

My competitor is reporting that Sony has thrown in the towel on its writing slate division, and he is very likely correct.

The main landing page for the Digital Paper devices has been removed from Sony’s website, and neither the 10.3″ Sony DPT-CP1 or the 13.3″ DPT-RP1 are available from Sony’s authorized retailers such as Amazon or B&H. In fact B&H lists both models as discontinued.

The first model in this product line was announced in 2013, and shipped in 2014 with a retail price of $1,100. The last two models, both of which used hardware developed by Netronix, were released two years ago and three years ago.

The models came in two different screen sizes, but they generally had the same software. They only supported PDFs, but made up for that limitation by offering first-class annotation features as well as cloud backups for the files and annotations.

It is unknown whether those cloud services will survive the shutdown.

BTW, if you like the hardware, you can still buy it as the Fujitsu Quaderno A4 or A5, or as the MooInk Pro. All 3 devices feature the same hardware that Sony licensed from Netronix.

You just finished reading Sony Shuts Down Its Digital Paper Division which was published on The Digital Reader.

Blurb has been acquired by Reischling Press:

Reischling Press, Inc. (RPI), a pioneer in the personalized print services market, has acquired Blurb, an industry-leading e-commerce platform of print-on-demand books, magazines, wall décor, and digital services for self-publishers and creative professionals, the company announced today.

The acquisition extends RPI’s overall strategy to offer a full suite of services and e-commerce platform solutions to businesses around the world, said Rick Bellamy, CEO of RPI.

“This is a strategic acquisition for us and culminates the long-term partnership between our two companies,” Bellamy said. “Blurb’s primary audiences are creative professionals and self-publishers, and this acquisition leverages the strengths of each organization to deliver a comprehensive e-commerce print solution for professionals, businesses, and consumer brands.”

It’s been some time since Blurb got a lot of press, but what they were chiefly known for was developing what I am told was a really awesome print layout platform. (I favor ebooks, so I never really noticed.) It would make a lot of sense for a printer to buy them for their tech.

BTW, there is one important detail not mentioned in the press release. This acquisition came out of the blue for my source; he told me that he didn’t even get to see a prospectus before the deal was announced.

If we put that detail together with the fact that Reischling is Blurb’s back-end print partner, we end up with a high probability that Blurb was in debt to Reischling, and was acquired as a way of settling the debt.

That is my guess, anyway.

Thanks, Steve!

You just finished reading Blurb Acquired by Business Partner which was published on The Digital Reader.

If you are on Twitter for long enough, you are going to run afoul of one of their rules, resulting in your account either being locked or suspended. It doesn’t matter how it happened; what matters is how you respond.

Here is some advice I had to learn the hard way. Do whatever Twitter demands. Don’t try to appeal, argue, or do anything other than follow their commands.

My recent experiences with Twitter have taught me that:

1. Twitter enforces its rules unevenly.
2. It does not follow its own internal processes.
3. There are no humans involved in enforcing the rules.

I have had to throw in the towel on my @ThDigitalReader Twitter account. That is a brand I have had for a decade, and it’s just gone because Twitter simply does not follow its own internal processes.

Please learn from my mistake, and do whatever Twitter demands. It does not matter whether they are right or wrong; what matters is they have all the power, and that power is being wielded by bots in a capricious and arbitrary manner.

Here’s what happened to me.

O O O

In late June 2020 one of the memes going around was to drink a glass of water one-handed. For example:

One hand pic.twitter.com/nrCOW27Yuk

— Henry Winkler (@hwinkler4real) June 22, 2020

You may need to read the responses to understand that this video makes fun of Donald Trump and his supposed disabilities, but it’s clear to me that everyone who saw it at the time understood that Winkler was making fun of Trump’s disabilities.

That is certainly what I thought he meant, which is why I responded by criticizing Winkler for making an Ablest joke.

This brings me to my first point:

1. Twitter enforces its rules unevenly.

Winkler’s tweet is still up, and yet my tweet where I rebuke him got my account locked by Twitter. (I did not think to save the tweet, sorry.) Clearly Twitter could not tell the difference between a tweet that broke the rules and one that complained about the earlier tweet.

I don’t know how locks usually happen, but I had to find out my account was locked by actually visiting Twitter. I was blocked from doing anything on the account, and offered two options. I could either file an appeal, or I could unlock my account by deleting the tweet.

Since I knew I hadn’t broken any rules, I filed an appeal. That was a terrible mistake, and I beg you not to follow in my footsteps.

This brings me to my second point:

2. Twitter does not follow its own internal processes.

While I was waiting for a response on my appeal, and while Twitter was still telling me I could unlock my account by deleting the tweet in question, Twitter suspended my account.

Again, I had to learn of this development by visiting the account. (For a company that facilitates communication, Twitter cannot communicate worth a damn.) One I saw the account had been suspended, I immediately deleted the tweet. After all, Twitter was still telling me that this would fix everything.

It did not.

After I learned my account had been suspended, I filed an additional appeal, and I reached out to Twitter several times. A month has passed and I still have not received a response. I have essentially given up on trying to get this fixed, and I have resolved myself to the fact that I will never get my account back.

I have also come to the conclusion that:

3. There are no humans involved in enforcing Twitter’s rules.

The next person at Twitter I interact with in this saga will be the first.

O O O

Folks, I got off relatively easy. I had a back up account I could switch to with little effort, so this whole incident is merely incredibly annoying.

You might not be so lucky. If Twitter takes down your business or professional account, it could be a fucking catastrophe. You cannot let that happen.

That is why I am warning you to just go along with Twitter’s demands. They have all the power, their bots behave erratically, and there’s no way for you to talk to a person.

When you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, your only option is to acquiesce. (Well, we could leave Twitter, but I for one need to be there for my job, which makes Twitter kinda like that abusive boss I can’t escape because I need the paycheck.)

You just finished reading So Twitter Has Locked Your Account – Now What? which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• The Bookseller has been sold. 
• Jamie Lee Gray asks whether social media is really necessary for authors. 
• Dave Chesson has a few tips on what authors can write on their blogs. 
• I do not know why Wired continues to try to cover cutting edge ebook tech; they are simply terrible at it. 
• Kate Reed Petty looks at how book events might change when they adapt to being online. 
• It turns out that Hemingway was no more immune to copyeditors introducing errors into his work than any other author. 
• Pretty soon you will be able to use a bot to generate image descriptions. 
• Your novel may be bad, but at least Gene Weingarten didn’t call it “The Worst Novel in the English Language”.
• Erin Davis explores the gendered language used to describe men’s and women’s bodies in books. 
• Journalist goes looking for quack cures on Amazon, and is shocked to find them. 

If you need a tech VA or help with your website, email me at Nate@the-digital-reader.com. Got a story that I should include in next week’s list? Shoot me an email.

You just finished reading Monday Morning Coffee – 10 August 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

The Chinese ereader maker Onyx has just put its first color ereader on sale.

The Boox Poke2 Color is a variant of the $189 ereader that Onyx launched in April. It has similar great specs, only with the addition of a Kaleido E-ink screen.

The Onyx Boox Poke2 Color runs Android 9.0 on a 2GHz octa-core CPU with 2GB RAM. It also has 32 GB storage, Wifi, and Bluetooth,. Battery capacity is 1.5Ah, which can be recharged through the micro-USB port.

This ereader’s 6″ E-ink screen comes with both a capacitive touchscreen and a frontlight (but not a color-changing frontlight).  Its most notable feature is the 6″ Kaleido E-ink display, which is capable of displaying grayscale at 1072 x 1448 (PPI), or displaying color at 100 PPI.

Retail is $299.

I had been hoping to get a review unit from Onyx, but I haven’t gotten a response yet. So I went out and bought one.

I am hoping it will arrive next week.

You just finished reading Onyx Boox Poke2 Color Now Available for $299 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Onyx has just managed to upstage themselves on their launch day.

Mike Cane has tipped me to the news that Onyx has sent an official letter informing the FCC that they are going to use the same internal electronics in multiple ereader models.

The ereader in question is the 7.8″ Boox Nova2, and one of the intended models has a color screen.

Launched earlier this year, the Boox Nova2 runs Android 9.0 on a 2GHz octa-core CPU with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. It has both Wifi and BT, speakers, and a microphone. The current model weighs  265 grams, measures 7.7mm thin, and packs in a 3.15Ah battery.

Its 7.8″ Carta E-ink screen has a screen resolution of 1872×1404 (300 PPI). It has a color-changing frontlight, and both a capacitive and stylus touchscreen.

Onyx has told the FCC that the The Boox Nova2 Color will have the same guts, which means it will have the same general specs. The one exception with be the screen; if it ships, the new device will have a Kaleido E-ink screen which is capable of displaying color at 100 PPI.

The Boox Nova2 costs $339. Assuming the Kaleido screen adds $150 to the price, the Boox Nova2 Color could cost around $500.

That is ridiculously expensive (you could buy a much more capable iPad for less) but damned if I am not tempted. A 7.8″ Kaleido screen backed by these specs would make an amazing Android ePaper tablet.

You just finished reading Onyx is Planning a 7.8″ Nova2 Color eReader which was published on The Digital Reader.

How would you like to get your hands on one of E-ink’s ACeP displays? Well, Waveshare has a 5.65″ screen unit which it will soon be selling for $75.

The expected ship date is October 2020:

ACeP is the seven-color E-ink display that E-ink unveiled about 4 years ago. It was developed for the signage market because its limitations made it unsuitable for devices such as ereaders.

It is limited to exactly seven colors, no more and no less. Like the earlier 3-color Spectra displays, ACeP displays don’t do shades of red, yellow, etc. All you can do is enable or disable a color when you refresh the screen.. Also, ACeP displays have a rather slow refresh rate (15 seconds).

But while this display is unsuitable for most uses, it can still be fun to experiment with. The unit that Waveshare is selling is compatible with Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Jetson Nano, and other project boards, so if you liked you could use this unit to add some color to one of your projects.

I don’t think it’s worth the cost, but it is cool to have the option.

P.S. Curiously enough, E-ink is selling the same screen unit without the mounting board for $150. I’d wait for Waveshare’s unit.

via CNX software

You just finished reading Waveshare Now Carries a 5.65″ ACeP E-ink Display which was published on The Digital Reader.

Foldable E-ink display prototypes are old hat in 2020 – the oldest prototypes are actually older than some of my nieces.

With just the one foldable ereader, the Polymer Vision Readius, hitting the market in 2008, the tech has continued to remain at the prototype stage while E-ink has made incremental improvements in resolution and folding radius.

The tech is still just beyond our reach, but now it is even more tempting than before. E-ink has taken the the 10.2″ foldable display that it showed off three years ago, and added a frontlight. According to a video posted online, they showed it off a couple weeks ago in Tokyo.

E-ink has not shared any specifics on the resolution, folding radius, or whether any companies have started developing a device that has this screen.

While this tech would be really cool, let’s get real here. Foldable screens have been floating around for well over a decade, and so far no one has solved the problem of the stress caused by repeatedly folding a screen. Even Samsung had had only marginal success; their first foldable smartphone died in the hands of reviewers. The screen was so fragile that taking the screen protector off actually broke the display.

Later models would appear to be somewhat more sturdy, but they are still ridiculously expensive, with each unit costing $2000 to $3000 at retail.

Most of that cost is due to the screen production and the high number of units that fail QA. While on the one hand that may be good news for ereaders (if the folding problem is solved, the tech can be applied to E-ink screens) but it also reminds us that until the folding problem is solved, we simply will never see a foldable erader on the market.

Liliputing

You just finished reading E-ink Shows Off (Another) Foldable 10.3″ Display, This Time With a Frontlight which was published on The Digital Reader.

Barnes & Noble isn’t just remodeling its stores during the pandemic; it’s also updating the Nook.

I was just reading over at MobileRead that B&N has issued an update for the Nook Glowlight 3:

I got an update on my 2015 Glowlight Plus and Glowlight 3.

The updates only said performance improvements and bug fixes. But I’m seeing some small, but nice changes.

On the Nook, I like stacking by author. Previously, if I did that, authors with a single book would show as King, Stephen. But stacked authors would show as Stephen King. With the latest update, all authors now show first name last name. It looks better. Less broken.

Also, on stacked authors if you’ve read some but not all of there books, there is a progress bar.

There’s likely other changes I haven’t noticed. But these little changes are nice.

I can’t find any relevant details on the B&N website, but I am thrilled to see that the Nook isn’t dead.

Have you spotted any changes?

You just finished reading Barnes & Noble Rolls Out an Update for the Nook eReader which was published on The Digital Reader.

Going by the reports from their latest firmware update, Kobo is apparently in one of those moods to reinvent everything.

The 4.23 update, which was released on Monday, includes a whole host of changes. It’s already been taken apart over at MobileRead, and all sorts of interesting details were uncovered:

• Top-left main menu (i.e. the one which appears everywhere except for the reader) is now a clock (everywhere, not just the home screen).
• New global bottom navigation (Home/My Books/Discover/More[My Articles/Activity/Beta Features/Settings/Help]). State persists between these views.
• New style for library tabs.
• No more pagination controls in the library views.
• There’s a new `org.bluealsa` DBus wrapper in libnickel, implying the next Kobo will have Bluetooth audio?!?
• There’s a new ReadingMenuTab widget (currently unused) with TOC and annotation items, implying they were testing making the reading view popup have toc/annotation tabs
• The web browser now appears as a pop-up with a huge amount of wasted space.

The firmware update will be distributed over the air, but  if you don’t want to wait you can find the download links over at MobileRead.

You just finished reading Kobo Firmware Update 4.23 Includes Major Changes to the Menus, Interface which was published on The Digital Reader.

Amazon announced on Friday that the Kindle Unlimited funding pool grew by $100,000 in July 2020, to $32.4 million.

The per-page rate, on the other hand, continues to vary wildly as a result of Amazon’s arbitrary changes to the funding pool.

• July 2020: $0.004294
• June 2020: $0.004547
• May 2020: $0.004203
• April 2020: $0.004226
• March 2020: $0.0046
• February 2020: $0.004547
• January 2020: $0.004411
• December 2019: $0.004664
• November 2019: $0.004925
• October 2019: $0.0046763
• September 2019: $0.0046799
• August 2019:  $0.004387
• July 2019 –  $0.004394
• June 2019 – $0.004642
• May 2019 – $0.0046598
• April 2019 – $0.0046602
• March 2019 – $0.0045124
• February 2019 – $0.0047801
• January 2019 – $0.0044227
• December 2018 – $0.0048778
• November 2018 – $0.0052056
• October 2018 – $0.0048414
• September 2008 – $0.004885
• August 2018 – $0.0044914
• July 2018 – $0.0044936

P.S. Here’s a list of the monthly funding pools. It does not include the bonuses paid out each month.

• July 2014: $2.5 million (Kindle Unlimited launches early in the month)
• August 2014: $4.7 million
• September 2014: $5 million
• October 2014: $5.5 million
• November 2014: $6.5 million
• December 2014: $7.25 million
• January 2015 – $8.5 million
• February 2015: $8 million
• March 2015: $9.3 million
• April 2015: $9.8 million
• May 2015: $10.8 million
• June 2015: $11.3 million
• July 2015: $11.5 million
• August 2015: $11.8 million
• September 2015: $12 million
• October 2015: $12.4 million
• November 2015: $12.7 million
• December 2015: $13.5 million
• January 2016: $15 million
• February 2016: $14 million
• March 2016: $14.9 million
• April 2016: $14.9 million
• May 2016: $15.3 million
• June 2016: $15.4 million
• July 2016: $15.5 million
• August 2016: $15.8 million
• September 2016: $15.9 million
• October 2016: $16.2 million
• November 2016: $16.3 million
• December 2016: $16.8 million
• January 2017: : $17.8 million
• February 2017: : $16.8 million
• March 2017: $17.7 million
• April 2017: $17.8 million
• May 2017 :$17.9 million
• June 2017: $18 million
• July 2017: $19 million
• August 2017: $19.4 million
• September 2017: $19.5 million
• October 2017: $19.7 million
• November 2017: $19.8 million
• December 2017: $19.9 million
• January 2018: $20.9 million
• February 2018: $20 million
• March 2018: $21 million
• April 2018: $21.2 million
• May 2018: $22.5 million
• June 2018: $22.6 million
• July 2018: $23.1 million
• August 2018: $23.3 million
• September 2018: $23.4 million
• October 2018: $23.5 million
• November 2018: $23.6 million
• December 2018: $23.7 million
• January 2019: $24.7 million
• February 2019: $23.5 million
• March 2019: $24 million
• April 2019: $24.1 million
• May 2019: $24.6 million
• June 2019: $24.9 million
• July 2019: $25.6 million
• August 2019: $25.8 million
• September 2019: $25.9 million
• October 2019: $26 million
• November 2019: $26.1 million
• December 2019: $26.2 million
• January 2020: $28.2 million
• February 2020: $27.2 million
• March 2020: $29 million
• April 2020: $30.3 million
• May 2020: $32.2 million
• June 2020: $32.3 million
• July 2020: $32.4 million

You just finished reading Kindle Unlimited Funding Pool Grew Slightly in July 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Someone asked a question in the comment section of the blog the other day about color E-ink screens. He wanted to know when we would see a color screen on a note-taking device, but I misunderstood and thought he meant better color screens.

After I realized my mistake, I thought this was a great question that merited getting answered in its own blog post. So here it is:

When Can We Expect Better Color E-ink Screens?

Well first of all, I think we have a decent color E-ink screen now. The Kaleido screen on the Pocketbook Color is a major improvement over the Triton color E-ink screens. I think either ereader with this screen (Poke2 Color, Pocketbook Color) is worth buying if you want a color screen.

There is a chance we could get a larger screen, but I do not expect a better quality screen any time soon.

I would not wait for the next-gen color screen because its launch date cannot be predicted (such as Amazon pulling a rabbit out of their hat). A better screen is going to require a breakthrough in screen resolution and another breakthrough in the number of shades supported by E-ink screens (currently 16).

I will need to address those separately.

Screen Resolution

Kaleido screens are limited to 100 PPI because because the highest resolution screens which E-ink can put on an ereader top out at 300 DPI (dots per inch).

We do not usually use the term DPI with respect to E-ink screens, but I am using it here so I can explain how Kaleido screens differ from Carta screens. The reason I use 300 DPI is to make the point that the highest resolution screen E-ink can put on an ereader squeezes 300 dots or addressable locations into an inch of screen.

Edit: And those 300 dots are measured on the diagonal, not vertically or horizontally. (Check the math, and you’ll find I am right.)

If it helps, you can think of the 300 DPI as 300 boxes which can each contain one value.  Actually, I think that is a great analogy, so I will use it for the rest of this post.

If you wanted to use those 300 boxes for grayscale, you can have a 300 PPI Carta screen such as on the Kindle Paperwhite.

But if you want a color E-ink screen, you’re actually going to need to use three of those boxes for each color pixel, giving you a 100 PPI Kaleido screen. The thing is, a color pixel is actually made up of 3 different color pixels (red, green, and blue), which means you need to have three different “boxes” for a color screen.

This usually never comes up for LED and LCD screens because everyone just assumes there will be RGB pixels, but with E-ink screens we are used to grayscale, where there is only a single color (shades of gray). We’ve spent years only thinking in terms of grayscale pixels, so it comes as a shock when we gain color but have to sacrifice screen resolution.

(BTW, the older Triton color E-ink screens required four “boxes” for each color pixel. That’s why it had such low resolution.)

In conclusion, we will not get a higher resolution Kaleido screen until E-ink can produce a higher resolution grayscale screen. Since that is by definition a breakthrough, there’s no way to predict when it will happen.

Color

The other major limitation for Kaleido screens is the number of colors supported. It can show 4096 colors, and due to the limitations of E-ink tech that is literally the best it can do at this time.

A pixel on an E-ink screen can display up to 16 shades of any single color. With most ereaders, that is 16 shades of gray (from white to black), which is great for displaying text (and really okay for displaying images).

But with a Kaleido screen we’re talking about 16 shades of red, green, or blue.

The reason the Kaleido screen can do 4096 colors is that the 16 shades of red crossed with the 16 shades of  blue crossed with the 16 shades of  green gives you 4096 colors. (Seriously, check the math.)

We’re not going to get additional colors on a Kaleido  screen until E-ink releases a screen which can do, say, 24 or 32 shades of gray. Since that is by definition a breakthrough, there’s no way to predict when it is going to happen.

* * *

Does that help any?

You just finished reading Ask The Expert: When Can We Expect Better Color E-ink Screens? which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• The “Reclaim Her Name” project is re-publishing the works of 25 female authors who had been forced to use a male pseudonym. 
• People are worried over the death of the used bookstore. I’m not, because the largest bookstore in my area is a used bookstore (it’s bigger than the B&N store, yes). 
• The Guardian thinks 600 books being published in one day is a lot, bless their hearts. 
• Texas libraries are banding together to negotiate better prices from extortionate journal publishers. 
• A used bookstore owner a couple towns over from me has been accused of raiding Little Free Libraries. 
• There’s an art exhibit in Genoa right now that focuses on imaginary languages. 
• Trad Pub is loath to admit it, but the pandemic is boosting ebook and audiobook sales. 

If you need a tech VA or help with your website, email me at Nate@the-digital-reader.com. Got a story that I should include in next week’s list? Shoot me an email.

You just finished reading Morning Coffee -17 August 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

It’s hard to beleive that it’s been, what, 5 years since we last played this game, but the US book publishing industry is back to its favorite pastime: complaining about how the biggest book retailer is violating antitrust law.

Twenty years ago their target was Barnes & Noble, but for the past decade the honor has gone to Amazon. Every few years the usual industry players come out with a screed about how this or that activity of Amazon was a violation of antitrust law.

This time around the ABA, AAP, and The Authors Guild sent a letter (PDF) to US  Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, chair of the House Antitrust subcommittee, accusing Amazon of the usual malfeasance.

Together, our organizations—the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the American Booksellers Association—represent thousands of authors, publishers, and booksellers in the United States who serve the democratic exchange of ideas by creating, publishing, and selling books. Our members rely upon a level playing field in the marketplace of ideas to reach, inform, and transact with customers for the delivery of books, whether in physical or digital form. Regrettably, as the Subcommittee’s hearings have laid bare, the competitive framework of the publishing industry has been fundamentally altered in recent years—and remains at serious risk of further diminishment—because of the concentrated power and influence of one company in particular: Amazon.

Amazon’s scale of operation and share of the market for book distribution has reached the point that no publisher can afford to be absent from its online store. A year ago, the New York Times reported that Amazon controlled 50% of all book distribution, but for some industry suppliers, the actual figure may be much higher, with Amazon accounting for more than 70 or 80 percent of sales. Whether it is the negative impact on booksellers of Amazon forcing publishers to predominantly use its platform, the hostile environment for booksellers on Amazon who see no choice but to sell there, or Amazon’s predatory pricing, the point is that Amazon’s concomitant market dominance allows it to engage in systematic below-cost pricing of books to squash competition in the book selling industry as a whole. Remarkably, what this means is that even booksellers that avoid selling on Amazon cannot avoid suffering the consequences of Amazon’s market dominance. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating the problem: it continues to threaten the financial well-being of authors, publishers, and booksellers, some of whom will not survive the year. Amazon, by contrast, with its ever-extensive operation and data network, has grown only more dominant, enjoying its largest-ever quarterly profits during April, May and June.

The hell of it is, they’re right. While it would be easy to simply dismiss this as the usual crying wolf, for once there is an actual wolf. Amazon really does control most of the book market in the US, and I might dislike two of the groups mentioned above (and the third – the AAP – hates my guts) but even I can see that concentrating so much economic power into one company is bad for the public.

Antitrust law originally came about for the express purpose of breaking up large companies such as Amazon because the concentration of wealth and power is harmful to the public. And while the latest thinking is that monopolies are okay so long as consumers aren’t harmed, that is really just one of those Reaganomics myths that were invented to justify gathering more wealth and power into fewer hands.

It’s about time we discarded that myth, and started busting up trusts again.

Alas, I don’t think that will occur.

image by joe.ross via Flickr

You just finished reading The Usual Book Publishing Industry Players Ask Congress to Bell the Cat which was published on The Digital Reader.