The E Ink eBook Reader - A Short History on the Origins of Digital Book Readers

With the interest shown in e Ink eBook Readers of late, many people will be unaware of how this technology works and how it has changed the whole digital book readers industry.

In the 1970s e-paper was developed by the Xerox company. The technology did not alter a great deal in the years between it's conception and some point in the 1990s, when the idea was taken up by Joseph Jacobson. He set out to improve on the technology and the micro capsule was born. This used the same idea of black and white particles but, in contrast to the earlier technology, he used white particles that where electronically 'loaded' and a dark coloured oil in which the white particles were dissolved. The improvements made where so encouraging that in 1997 Joseph Jacobson personally funded a new company to run with the developments primarily for commercial use. That company was E Ink who furthered the development into some thing akin to what we have today, white and black particles in a clear (transparent) oil.

While all this was taking place with electronic paper, eBook readers appeared on the scene. Those early models where based on the relatively new LCD screen technology. Although they where well received in the beginning, they very soon fell foul of two, very important, stumbling blocks. LCD screens where not that easy on the eyes for long periods of reading and they just did not react well to bright sunlight. In addition these first digital book readers had the added pressure of the appearance of PDAs that had colour screens opposed to the black and white (grey scale) display of those first attempts at eBook readers. They where doomed to an uncertain future, in their original guise anyway, from the very outset.

This was all falling into the hands of the fledgling e-paper technology and in the first half of 2004 Sony, the Japanese consumer electronics company, announced the inaugural E-Ink eBook reader to be available commercially. This has since been followed up by the company with the Sony Reader prs505, prs700 and the newest models the Pocket Reader (prs300) and Touch (prs600), the latter of which incorporates the latest E-Ink touch screen technology.

The original Sony E-Ink book reader was followed into production by the Dutch iLiad, from the Philips subsidiary company iRex. Since that time, a whole host of companies have utilized this break through technology. Digital book readers such as the Amazon Kindle 1 and 2, the KindleDX, the iRex range, BeBook and the funky Cool-er amongst others.

But as we all know, technology does not stand still and with the introduction of Vizplex so the possibility of larger screen digital book readers became a reality. Displays using Vizplex technology handle the problem of flicker on page turn a lot better than any previous E-Ink eBook reader, give faster page turn and vastly improved contrast characteristics which has enabled the introduction of near A4 1:1 reproduction on the KindleDX and iRex iLiad DR 1000S E-Ink eBook Readers.

With more and more eBook Readers entering the market people looking to Buy An eBook Reader are faced with some very difficult choices. Noels eBook Reader Review blog guides potential purchasers through the maze of book readers towards the perfect eBook reader at the right price.