The Spectra 3 Color Display is the second new shelf label tech that E-ink is showing off this year. It’s based in part on Sipix screen tech that E-ink bought last year, a detail which the following chart made clear and which was confirmed by E-ink’s reps.

Click to enlarge

This is E-ink’s first practical example of a screen that uses more than simply black and white: it adds red to the mix. The screens I saw really were as red as the image at right, but sadly that is the only shade of red that this screen can show.

The downside to the Spectra screen tech (and the reason it’s only being offered as a shelf label) is that this screen can only show black, white, or red.

But what this screen tech cannot do is show pink, gray, or any shade in between. Spectra is exactly a 3 color display, in much the same way that a Pearl E-ink screen is a 16 color display (16 shades of black, white, and gray).

While I’m sure that E-ink would like to develop a variation on this screen tech that could be used for ereaders, they were not willing to even guess when that might happen. But they did say that it will be available as a shelf label later this year with screen sizes measuring from 2″ to 6″.

So when you see this video, don’t get too excited over the fact that this 6″ screen has a resolution of 1024×758:

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ePaper shelf labels are a well established market, but according to E-ink one problem that all the existing products share is that they don’t handle cold temperatures very well. The low temp might not kill the screen but it does stop working.

This applies even to E-ink screens like the ones used on ereaders, but not to the new Aurora shelf label. E-ink has developed a new suspension fluid to put in their screens. This fluid has a much lower freezing point than current E-ink, so it will continue to function when deployed in a freezer (as cold as -25 C).

They’re expected to hit the market later this year and be available in sizes ranging from 2″ to 7.4″.

press release

* A quick Google search indicates that several existing electronic shelf labels will reportedly work in a freezer case. I don’t know who to believe but I wanted to share my confusion.

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Here it is:

The image above shows 3 ten inch screens (as well as the recently announced 13.3″ screen). Two of the 10″ screens are in use now, with one on the Nexus 10, and one of the 10″ screens is Samsung’s next-gen “green panel”  display.

Yes, Samsung is calling an OLED screen “green”; now that was worth a giggle. They’re not producing the new screen yet but when they do it will use 30% less power than the screen in the Nexus 10 while offering the same resolution and screen quality.

The thing is, Liquavista can’t offer a similar high quality, high resolution screen. All it can offer is low-power and sunlight-visible. And since pretty is winning out over functional in the mobile device market (because Apple said so, that’s why), there was little chance that Liquavista would ever be used on Samsung’s mobile devices.

BTW, this is more or less what I said in January, but I think the label Samsung hung on their next screen was worth a comment. They chose to call this a green solution rather than deploy the truly low-power Liquavista screen tech. That more than anything should tell you that pretty won out over functional.

P.S. Samsung’s cutting edge screen tech is based on the Pentile family of patents. Here’s Wikipedia for more info.

P.P.S. The trick to reducing power in the new display is that 25% of the screen area consists of white pixels. Those pixels exist just to let more back light out so the screen looks brighter. This saves energy by letting the backlight be weaker. See Wikipedia for more info.

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According to BookNet Canada, Kobo is continuing to lead the pack as the preferred reading device, with 25% consumers picking that native Canadian ereader maker. They also report that the iPad comes in third (14%) with the Kindle in second place (18%).

There’s no publicly available info on ebookstore marketshare, but the report does note that the ebook market seems to have declined in Canada. eBooks made up just 15% of the market last year, and that is down from the first quarter of 2012 when ebooks made up 17.6% of the market. eBook market share declined for the rest of the year, hitting a low point of 12.9% in the fourth quarter.

Were you as surprised by the last figure as I was? I frankly don’t understand it why ebook sales declined after Kobo announced new gadgets. Canada was about the only country where they were available, and new ereader launches have usually resulted in increased ebook sales, not a decline.

The press release explains the decline thusly:

The 5% decline is likely due to heightened sales in Q1 after receiving new devices over the holidays followed by declining interest or having enough titles banked after the Q1 spike, as well as a preference for giving physical books as gifts. Further proof is that paperback sales had an inverse trend throughout the year and steadily increased in market share over the course of the year. Hardcovers also had their strongest quarter in Q4. 16% of book purchases were gifts in the holiday quarter.

So readers were choosing to go back to paper books? That could be true but I have trouble believing it.

The US ebook market may have fluctuated in 2012, but the general trend was a positive growth, not a decline. The US ebook market ended the year with ebooks making up 21.67% of AAP members reported sales, and a slightly higher percentage of the overall estimated book market. Given that Canada is the closest market I would have thought that it would have shown a similar growth pattern.

If any Canadians would care to chime in with an explanation, I’m all ears.

Update: A reader has pointed out a detail I missed (Thanks, FBone!). This isn’t a market report but a survey report. It’s based on monthly surveys of 4,000 Canadian consumers, with much of the data extrapolated from there. So that means that one possible reason for the decline in ebook market share is that the methodology was bad.

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The Chinese budget tablet maker Hisense has just released a new 7″ Android tablet that appears to match the Nexus 7 in almost every way, and it even one-ups last year’s wunder-tablet with a microSD card slot and cameras.

The Hisense Sero Pro isn’t listed on the Walmart website, but early reports indicate that it is available in select Walmart stores. And as you can see from the specs, this tablet not only matches the Nexus 7, it beats Google’s flagship 7″ tablet in the camera and storage dept.

The Hisense Sero 7 Pro is running Android 4.2 onan Nvidia 1.3GHz Tegra 3 CPU. It has the same 7″ 1280×800 as found on the Nexus 7 as well as 1GB of RAM. In terms of connectivity, the Sero Pro has Wifi, Bluetooth, HDMI out, GPS, and it even has an NFC chip. This tablet is a little short in the storage dept, since it has only 8GB installed, but it also has a microSD card slot. This tablet has not one but 2 cameras (2MP and 5MP) and the rear-facing camera comes with auto-focus and Flash.

This is a pretty impressive tablet in every sense of the word, especially given the price, but as with any budget tablet you’ll need to be careful to check to see where Hisense cut corners. My bet is that the camera might come up short, and the stereo speakers might not have as good of a sound as one might want.

But even with that caveat this is a tempting tablet. It offers everything you would have gotten from the Nexus 7, plus 4 or 5 things I had wished the Nexus 7 had like cameras and a card slot.

I looked at getting a Nexus 7 last year but passed. That tablet fell into a product niche that offered too little of what I need in a premium tablet and charged more than I was willing to pay for a budget tablet.

But the Hisense Sero Pro added the hardware I wanted to see in a premium tablet while still keeping the price down. This could be a serious contender for best budget tablet of the year.

Luckily for my pocketbook, I can’t find a place to buy one online. If you get one, let me know what you think.

Specs:

• 7 inch, 1280 x 800 IPS display
• 1.3 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• 1GB of RAM
• 8GB of storage
• MicroSD card slot, mini HDMI output, 3.5mm headset jack
• WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, NFC
• Stereo speakers
• 5MP rear camera with flash and auto-focus
• 2MP front-facing camera
• 4Ah battery
• 7.9? x 5? x 0.43?

source

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Amazon sent out a tweet last night with an attached photo that hints at the possibility:

Look who stopped by the #Amazon office today, it’s @levarburton! Good things to come… twitter.com/amazonappstore…

— Amazon Appstore (@amazonappstore) May 21, 2013

The link in the tweet leads to the photo at right, and yes that is LeVar Burton holding a Kindle Fire HD. I’m not sure what he is doing with it, though; with that much light on the screen it is unreadable.

This app isn’t currently available in Google Play, which means Amazon might be hinting that they have scored an exclusive. The Android version of Reading Rainbow might only be available via the Amazon Appstore. Given that the Amazon Appstore is freely available in much of the world and can be installed on virtually any Android device, there is little downside to RR taking Amazon’s money in exchange for the exclusive.

And if the exclusive bothers you, you will probably also be able to find this app on free app sites like the 1Mobile app store fairly soon after it is released.

Amazon has been making a big push to make the Kindle Fire family of tablets, including launching Kindle Freetime last Fall. They’ve also customized several sections of the Appstore so the apps are appropriate for small children.

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• Amazon Fights to Keep Secrets in E-book Trial (PW)
• Buying Tumblr Will Leave Yahoo With The Same Old Identity Crisis (ReadWrite)
• Califa Launches Enki, a Lending Platform for Direct Ebook Distribution (The Digital Shift)
• Daisy, You’re a Drip, Dear: Detestable Literary Characters Who Are Not Technically Villains (The Hairpin)
• Good Writing vs. Talented Writing (Brain Pickings)
• Marissa Mayer: Some Tumblr users “may never come to Yahoo,” and that’s OK (GigaOm)
• The One-Person Product (Marco.org)
• Profound and hilarious poetry written by arranging book spines (io9)
• What You Need to Know about Book Piracy (The Raynfall Agency)
• Writers should be paid (PandoDaily)

The post The Morning Coffee – 21 May 2013 appeared first on The Digital Reader, a site you can support by shopping at Amazon.

The new Polaroid PMID720 is only available in stores, and the flyer is a little short on details, but luckily at least one user over at the Freaktab forums bought one and shared their impressions online.

This tablet is running Android 4.1 on a dual-core CPU with 1GB of RAM, a front-facing VGA webcam, and Wifi. Storage is limited to a paltry 4GB, but this tablet does have a microSD card slot.

This tablet also has a single speaker (but no microphone) and it has HDMI out. And according to early user reports, screen resolution is a underwhelming 800×480.

So far this isn’t that bad of a tablet and you might think it’s worth buying. But after reading the first impressions over at Freaktab I certainly won’t be getting it.

According to CaptED, this tablet doesn’t ship with Google Play. That surprised me because I assumed that most if mot all new budget tablets would have that app store, but apparently this one didn’t pass Google’s certification.

Okay, that’s not much of a limitation given that you can install the Amazon Appstore or use a hack to install an older version of Android Market, but that might not be worth the effort for this tablet. Battery life was a disappointing 2 hours, and the general quality of the screen was described as low with a narrow viewing angle.

With all the issues, I think this tablet is probably one that is worth avoiding.

I think that the recently released Coby Kyros MID7065 is a better value (as well as easier to get). That is also a dual-core tablet, only it has a higher resolutions screen, better battery life, and it comes with Google Play – all for under $90 at Amazon.com.

The MID 7065 also has better early reviews than the Polaroid tablet, making it a better choice all around.

source

The post $99 Dual-Core Polaroid Tablet Now Available at BigLots appeared first on The Digital Reader, a site you can support by shopping at Amazon.

Here’s more from the announcement:

Readers of the Book Review will notice three changes instituted this week, two involving our best-seller lists. The e-book list has migrated online, the digital world being its natural habitat. Given the fluid variety of pricing in today’s marketplace, we have also stopped including cover prices on the lists.

Snark aside, I am surprised that any of the lists were still available in the newspaper.

Tell me, do you really think anyone is getting the Sunday Times any more so they can get a copy of the best seller list? I doubt it. The online list is too convenient. Some might have been buying it so they could frame a copy as a keepsake, but that’s about it.

They’re also dropping prices from the list, which makes sense given how often online prices change (even for print books). Then again, the list price for print books can sometimes be a useful data point, even if the books are always sold at a discount. A higher-priced book beating out a cheaper book shows that it succeeded in spite of the higher price.

source

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The Dutch book market was down 4.5% last quarter when compared to the same period in 2012, and it was down 20% from reported sales in the first quarter of 2010. The fiction segment saw a drop of 3.9%, while sales of informative non-fiction dropped by a mere 3 tenths of a percent.

But in spite of the general drop in sales the report wasn’t entirely bad. Children’s books rose by 1.7% in the first quarter, and leisure non-fiction increased by 3.3%. And sales of ebooks also increased, though they are a negligible part of the market. According to GfK, Dutch ebook sales grew by 45% last quarter. They now make up 3.9% of the overall Dutch book market, with more than 330,000 units sold.

That is a relatively tiny percentage, and not just when compared to the US book market where ebooks are now estimated to make up over 20% of sales. 3.9% is small even compared to the UK book market, where ebooks accounted for an estimated 13% of sales in 2012.

Curiously enough, the Dutch ebook market is growing at about the same rate as the US ebook market, and that raises a question. Has the growth in Dutch ebook sales already slowed down (like in the US) or is it still getting ready to explode?

source

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