US-Taiwanese creation sparks e-reading rise
By Annie Huang |
August 21, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE marriage of an American technology firm and a Taiwanese display panel manufacturer has helped make digital reading a possible challenger to paper as the main medium for transmitting printed information.
Four years ago Cambridge, Massachusetts-based E Ink Corporation and Taiwan's Prime View International Co hooked up to create an e-paper display that now supplies 90 percent of the fast growing e-reader market.
But questions hang over the Taiwanese-American venture, including the readiness of the marketplace to dispense with paper-based reading, in favor of relatively unfamiliar e-readers.
"It's cockamamie to think a product like that is going to revolutionize the way most people read," said analyst Michael Norris of Rockville, Maryland, research firm Simba Information Co. Americans use e-books at a rate "much, much slower than it looks."
Another challenge for the venture is whether key customers like Amazon and Sony can withstand the onslaught of multifunctional computing devices that have e-reader capability, particularly Apple's iPad.
Researcher Chris Hung, of Taiwan's Institute for the Information Industry, says iPad sales are expected to reach 9 million this year, a figure that took e-books two years to reach.
Still, e-reader manufacturers appear to have a lot to be happy about -- at least for now. Sales in 2010 -- four years after the first devices hit the market -- will probably reach 10 million units, according to Austin, Texas-based research firm Display Search, up from the 4 million sold in 2009.
Kyle Mizokami, a 39-year-old freelance writer in San Francisco, has finished two dozen books in the last year on his Amazon-marketed Kindle, and counts himself an e-reader enthusiast.
"Having a Kindle has actually increased my reading," he said. "It's distraction-free reading, and I find it just as enjoyable -- if not more so -- than reading actual books."
Scott Liu, chairman of the US-Taiwan venture, now known as E Ink Holdings, has an optimistic view of the e-reader's future, reflecting his confidence not only in the willingness of the marketplace to embrace e-readers in general, but also in his customers' ability to fend off iPad competition.
The display module Liu's company churns out is deceptively simple. It is produced by attaching a glass section to the back of a panel--a thin film produced at E Ink of millions of tiny microcapsules, each containing positively and negatively charged particles suspended in a clear fluid to show white and black spots. A processor and other chips are attached to the panels.
"People read on digital paper exactly like reading on conventional paper, using natural light in the environment," Liu said.
He said the iPad's liquid-crystal-display panel is vulnerable because it depends on backlight sources that cause eye fatigue.
The iPad "is fascinating ... a multiple-purpose device," he said. "But it is not built for reading for long hours."
Four years ago Cambridge, Massachusetts-based E Ink Corporation and Taiwan's Prime View International Co hooked up to create an e-paper display that now supplies 90 percent of the fast growing e-reader market.
But questions hang over the Taiwanese-American venture, including the readiness of the marketplace to dispense with paper-based reading, in favor of relatively unfamiliar e-readers.
"It's cockamamie to think a product like that is going to revolutionize the way most people read," said analyst Michael Norris of Rockville, Maryland, research firm Simba Information Co. Americans use e-books at a rate "much, much slower than it looks."
Another challenge for the venture is whether key customers like Amazon and Sony can withstand the onslaught of multifunctional computing devices that have e-reader capability, particularly Apple's iPad.
Researcher Chris Hung, of Taiwan's Institute for the Information Industry, says iPad sales are expected to reach 9 million this year, a figure that took e-books two years to reach.
Still, e-reader manufacturers appear to have a lot to be happy about -- at least for now. Sales in 2010 -- four years after the first devices hit the market -- will probably reach 10 million units, according to Austin, Texas-based research firm Display Search, up from the 4 million sold in 2009.
Kyle Mizokami, a 39-year-old freelance writer in San Francisco, has finished two dozen books in the last year on his Amazon-marketed Kindle, and counts himself an e-reader enthusiast.
"Having a Kindle has actually increased my reading," he said. "It's distraction-free reading, and I find it just as enjoyable -- if not more so -- than reading actual books."
Scott Liu, chairman of the US-Taiwan venture, now known as E Ink Holdings, has an optimistic view of the e-reader's future, reflecting his confidence not only in the willingness of the marketplace to embrace e-readers in general, but also in his customers' ability to fend off iPad competition.
The display module Liu's company churns out is deceptively simple. It is produced by attaching a glass section to the back of a panel--a thin film produced at E Ink of millions of tiny microcapsules, each containing positively and negatively charged particles suspended in a clear fluid to show white and black spots. A processor and other chips are attached to the panels.
"People read on digital paper exactly like reading on conventional paper, using natural light in the environment," Liu said.
He said the iPad's liquid-crystal-display panel is vulnerable because it depends on backlight sources that cause eye fatigue.
The iPad "is fascinating ... a multiple-purpose device," he said. "But it is not built for reading for long hours."
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