iRex used Linux and an electronic paper display to build a portable reading device that ‘reads just like paper, and is perceived as such by the human eye’. The device can save students from having to carry around heavy stacks of text books, and might also be popular with doctors, lawyers, and technicians.
I was wondering how they managed to get this device to be so incredibly slow, even though it has a relatively fast CPU. Maybe linux is the problem.
A boot time of less than a second would be good, one of 2 seconds would be acceptable, 5 would be annoyingly slow, but the current 60+ seconds is completely unacceptable. Count in the time it takes to select a book and open it and it’s even more absurd. By the time you actually have e.g. a dictionary opened and ready for use you’ll have long forgotten what word you wanted to look up.
I think I’ll just wait for the next gen reader devices.
well, Linux isn’t the problem. The developers of the device are the ones at fault. Look at many of the Linksys boxes running Linux, they don’t take as long to boot. I believe the problem is the developers of this device aren’t capable of stripping down the linux kernel to allow it to boot in a sufficient time.
As time goes along, there will be better players out there to use. I think 800 dollars(USD) is too much for this player. At least it could use better software, a stripped down/and fast linux kernel, or a proprietary OS which is just as fast. I think the linux kernel was used so the developers could save a buck, screwing out the customers in the long run from the boot time.
no, I will definitely not get one of these devices. If i need to read ebooks, or do anything else, than the Nokia 770 is a better buy. Yes, comes with a touch screen. Built in internet access, and yes, it is linux based.
> If i need to read ebooks, or do anything else, than
> the Nokia 770 is a better buy.
Haven’t a lot of people been complaining about how buggy and unstable the 770 is? Also, AFAIK its battery will have to be recharged several times a day if you read a lot on it. 🙁
Edited 2006-08-27 00:20
I tried Nokia 770 in LinuxWorld SF 2006 from Linux Magazine with the latest update. Neat and stable. I haven’t heard complain about battery though.
I agree $800 (USD) is waaaaaay too much. This device should only cost like 200 USD. Afterall, it’s still a book. :-p
Linux is probably not the problem, given a recent OSNews link that showed a Linux-based SBC booting in 1.7 seconds.
The boot-up time is probably mostly irrelevant, since I’m guessing that they would have a suspend mode built in. However, that’s just a guess. Another option might be that the CPU itself cycles on and off with user input, since technically the screen consumes no power to maintain a static display…
Btw, where are you getting these boot time figures from?
Edited 2006-08-27 01:19
I can’t help getting the feeling that msundman is being little more than a troll, considering he refers to 5-hour battery life (false according to the article) and 60-second start up time without referencing sources.
Edited 2006-08-27 01:46
> he refers to 5-hour battery life (false according to
> the article) and 60-second start up time without
> referencing sources.
I have seen several videos of it in action. I think this was the lates from which I got the numbers I mentioned: http://www.amniotic.net/mobileread/dr_iliad_review_divx.avi
My apologies for the accusation. Still, I’ll wait till the final version is in review before I believe any of the specs I’m reading.
i can’t wait until the day such devices actually become affordable. i have been waiting for a cheap e-ink device that can read pdfs but this thing doesn’t seem to use e-ink and is expensive.
> this thing doesn’t seem to use e-ink
Umm.. it does use an E Ink display.
However, it still somehow manages to have a poor battery life of only some 5 hours or so.
Edited 2006-08-27 00:12
so thats what epd stands for 😉
According to the article, the battery lasts a week, using it 3 hours per day. That’s 21 hours battery life…… Where are you getting your figure of 5 hours?
Edited 2006-08-27 01:12
> According to the article, the battery lasts a week,
> using it 3 hours per day. That’s 21 hours battery
> life…… Where are you getting your figure of 5
> hours?
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35283
Sure, it’s not the final version, but I don’t believe for a millisecond that they would manage to increase the battery life by over 400%.
This thing looks like just the thing we need to replace our textbooks and soforth…. Too bad no average student will ever buy it because the price is so prohibitive… Aside from that, what’s the point of mp3 capability with just an incredibly skimpy 128 mb of memory?
it have both a CF and a MMC port, grab some extra memory if you need it
i want one, but right now its just to expensive.
i see some complaints about boot time and battery life.
and i think i can see a reason why this may appear, on a badly configed unit.
first of it have networking capabilitys. and if it have a non-multitasking init system, and a network setup set to get its ip address from a dhcp server, it may stall while waiting for the dhcp request to time out.
allso, this networking support includes wifi. and as we all probably know by now, wifi is a drain on battery. so if its left on, even with the power savings on the screen itself, the battery life may well be fairly short.
in many ways it seems that they have stuffed to many features into this one. i would have created a second cheaper device, without the touch screen and without the networking. basicly a pure reading device, not some pseudo-pda.
edit:
ugh, just did a quick check and this thing is as expensive as a low end laptop! and while one could probably mod that linux config its using (why did they go 2.4 rather then 2.6?) one could just as well get a nokia 770. ok, so it does not have that fancy screen but come on. its like the engineers on this didnt know what they was creating and ended up with something that is a underfeatured pda…
Edited 2006-08-27 02:34
650 Euros just to read ebooks/docs and access content over wireless network, not worth the cost product lines need more refinement across the board. No sense in buying just yet. Have to give it to ’em though device is a step in the right direction.
Edited 2006-08-27 04:33
Price will come down with Volume.
There is no way an entirely new device with an unproven market is going to be produced in a batch of a quarter million units necessary to get fully discounted components.
That is a why they are targeting enterprise handheld markets first.
Looks very cool and I would definitely consider such a device in a year or two should it take off and the price come down by about half. Also for EUR 650 I think it should come with more storage. Sure you can buy an SD card, but memory is cheap so it wouldn’t add much to their manufacturing cost, and it would make it more appealing to first-time buyers if it had more memory to start with.
I personally would go for the Nokia 770 in the meantime, but I can see the appeal of this unit for those who need something with much longer battery life.
the thing that will always make books better is “flip through the pages” factor, especially in reference books you use frequently – you get a feel for where in the book something you need to look up is at.
As for textbooks though, I’m all for busting up that racket as much as possible. Some of the best teachers I’ve had have been ones though that on the first day of class say “leave the book at home because its useless” and always do notes and handouts instead anyway. Oh classes with books filled with tiny print and far to much for anyone to memorize are different of course (such as science, health, some computer courses) but a lot of core ones the books are useless for “US History Revolution to 1800” for example is far better with handouts and notes.
> the thing that will always make books better is “flip
> through the pages” factor, especially in reference
> books you use frequently – you get a feel for where in
> the book something you need to look up is at.
That can easily be simulated. Besides, the ability to search makes up for “pageflipping” a million times over. Add the ability to easily add hyperlinks, flexible bookmarks and notes (that might even be shared with others), and it should be more than obvious that paper doesn’t stand a chance.
Pretty much the only thing that paper might always be better at is its power consumption.
I’m one of those crazy owners of an iLiad (that is, crazy by having bought a 640EUR ebook reader that is still under development).
The units are shipped with firmware version 2.4, and they have ssh enabled, so one can login to the unit from another machine when the iliad is connected to a network and peek and change things. Basically: Linux version 2.4, KDrive X server, xpdf for viewing PDF files, Mozilla minimo for viewing HTML files. That version is easy to hack so as to be able to use minimo for browsing the web (by default they have minimo locked down so as to only view local files).
After some networking configuration and pressing the upper right button, the iliad updates the firmware to 2.5b (some fixes, no ssh installed) and to 2.6.
Version 2.6 has not been hacked (yet) and doesn’t allow for the user to login to the linux in the iliad (no ssh instlled
). Other users have reported 10 hours of uptime using that version (I cannot confirm it because I have settled in version 2.5b, that lasts about 5 hours).
I’m very pleased with it, because of the display (it’s incredible, it really feels like paper, more or less like a newspaper, and it’s even more readable at sunlight).
They have promised to release an SDk in October-November timeframe, but they are usually late for everything (launch date, fixes date…), so don’t hold your breath…
Questions?
is that time with wifi on or of?
The battery duration times quoted in the mobileread.com forums are with wifi off, AFAIK.