Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like the battle for e-reader dominance between Amazon and Barnes & Noble could soon expand beyond the recent spate of price drops and into the courtroom as well: the USPTO just granted a 2006 Amazon patent on e-readers with secondary LCD displays (like the original Kindle’s scroller-navigation panel), and several of the claims are potentially broad enough to cover the Nook and many other devices with both electronic paper and LCD displays. What’s more, Amazon agreed not to file for any corresponding foreign patents during the four-year approval process and thus wasn’t required to publish the patent application — meaning this is likely a complete surprise to the entire industry. Yeah, it’s juicy. Here’s one of the claims that could cause problems for Barnes & Noble — in plain English, it potentially covers any device with both an electronic paper display and a second smaller LCD display next to it.

A handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; an electronic paper display disposed in the housing and having a first surface area; and a liquid crystal display (LCD) disposed in the housing proximate the electronic paper display, the LCD having a second surface area that is smaller than the first surface area of the electronic paper display.

That’s pretty sweeping — it doesn’t take much to look at the Nook and see that it has both an electronic ink display and a smaller LCD located next to it. Now, we don’t know if Amazon has any plans to actually sue anyone over this patent yet, but we’re guessing there’s a flurry of legal activity happening at all the major e-reader manufacturers right now, and we’re definitely curious to see what the fallout looks like — remember, Barnes & Noble is already involved in a trade secret dispute over the Nook with Spring Design, which claims that B&N saw its Alex reader under NDA and then copied it for the Nook. That case isn’t scheduled to wrap up before November, so there’s a chance B&N and Spring Design could end up simultaneously fighting each other in one case while taking on Amazon as allies in another, which would be… messy. We’ll see what happens — while we’ve no doubt Barnes & Noble will put up a serious fight if it comes to that, we’re curious to see if the shift away from e-reader development to general-use tablets hastens as the market contracts, margins shrink, and the cost of litigation becomes prohibitive. The ball’s very definitely in Amazon’s court now — stay tuned.

[Thanks, Anand]

Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Barnes & Noble Nook potentially in trouble originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got a netbook? Specifically, got a Samsung N130 or a Lenovo S10-2? Even more specifically, do you use it in and outdoors, but find it hard to read in the sun? We have good news! The Maker Shed will sell you one of Pixel Qi’s dual-mode displays as a straight swap-in for your existing LCD-panel.

The 10.1-inch screen runs in one of two modes. When indoors, or watching video, you use the regular LCD display, which will look pretty much the same as the one you already have. When you’re in to mood for some reading, or you are outside in bright sunlight, or you’re just running low on battery power, you can switch to the e-ink mode.

This disables the backlight and shows you hi-res, grayscale pixels, much like you’d see on the screen of the Amazon Kindle. Because it only uses power when updating the screen, it sips power.

There is also a hybrid mode, which lets the sun reflect off the back of the display assembly and back out through the color LCD. This both saves battery power and lets you view a normal color display outdoors.

The panel will cost you $275, which puts it out of the “merely curious” bracket but is still cheap enough for people who do a lot of outdoor computing. The Maker Shed store page also says that the panel will likely work in any netbook: the Lenovo and the Samsung are just the only ones so far tested and guaranteed.

And according to the Pixel Qi blog, which first described the plan to sell these panels separately from the company’s own notebooks, the swap-operation (swaperation?) is easy:

It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting [sic] the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation.

Available now.

Pixel Qi display [Maker Shed]

See Also:

• Up Close and Personal With the Pixel Qi Display
• Pixel Qi Offers DIY Swap-In Screens for Notebooks
• Pixel Qi Offers Peek at New Display
• Pixel Qi Promises Cheap, Readable, Low-Power Displays
• Pixel Qi

Remember Que, Plastic Logic’s large screen e-reader that debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year? It’s increasingly looking like vaporware.

Plastic Logic isn’t shipping the Que e-reader, though the company is officially calling it a “delay.” Plastic Logic has canceled all pre-oders and is no longer offering a date as to when we can see the Que in the real world. It has also stopped taking pre-orders for the device.

“We need to let you know that since your unit will not ship on June 24 as planned, our automated ordering system has automatically canceled your order,” Plastic Logic sent in an e-mail to its customers.

Billed as an e-reader for business users, the Que had an 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen display and the ability to handle Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, digital books, PDFs, magazines and newspapers. The device could also synchronize with Microsoft Outlook to display e-mails and calendar.

A 4-GB version of the Que with Wi-Fi and storage for about 35,000 documents was priced at $650. The company also announced a $800 8-GB version that includes Wi-Fi and 3G capability from AT&T.

It was an ambitious move and one out-of-sync with the trend in the e-reader market. Amazon’s large screen Kindle DX is priced at$490. Meanwhile, Apple has launched its iPad tablet with iBooks, an iTunes-like book store. Starting at $500, the iPad offers readers access to e-mail and books with a large color touchscreen. So far, Apple has sold 3 million iPads. About 7 million e-readers are expected to sell this year, estimates Forrester Research.

Not surprisingly, Plastic Logic has failed to get off the ground. A month before it promised to to ship the Que reader in April, the company announced to customers that it is delaying the launch to “sometime this summer.” In an e-mail  then, Plastic Logic said it needed the time to “fine-tune features and enhance the overall product.”

This time around, it is offering the same reason.

“Plastic Logic wants to make sure that the product they deliver is the right one for their target business customers in the rapidly changing marketplace,” a spokesperson for Plastic Logic wrote in an e-mail to us. “They are continuing to refine the product, technology and features, and are anxious to get in the marketplace as soon as possible.”

Unless Plastic Logic can bring the price of the Que down significantly and offer greater value than the iPad or the Kindle DX, it is likely to be a product that will be dead on arrival–if it ever makes it to market.

See Also:

• Plastic Logic Aims New Que E-Reader at Business Users
• Plastic Logic Delays Que E-Reader
• Plastic Logic E-Book Reader to Use AT&T Wireless
• Gallery: E-Readers Push Boundaries of Books

Photo: Que/Priya Ganapati

Well what do you know, turns out the LB4400 was a harbinger of things to come. LG Display and iriver just announced a $5M joint venture to manufacture e-book readers. The new China-based company, L&I Electronic Technology (Dongguan) Ltd, sees iriver doing the platform development and product design (thank gawd) while LG provides the EPD displays. It’s interesting to note that the company will act as an OEM/ODM to anyone looking to slap their brand on an e-book reader… after iriver — the company’s first customer — takes the pick of the litter.

Continue reading LG Display and iriver enter joint venture to make e-book readers pretty, affordable

LG Display and iriver enter joint venture to make e-book readers pretty, affordable originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After the Asus Eee Tablet launched yesterday, I was able to grab a few minutes with Will Chuang, a product manager who handles the device, and shoot this video. At first glance it looks like an E Ink display, but the reflective TFT is MUCH faster.

The product is still months away from shipping, so expect the interface to change a lot. And of course, the all-important question of battery life (10-hours?!) is still untested. Still, this video will catch the eye anyone who has every played with an Etch-a-Sketch.

Take a look at our ever-growing slideshow of Computex 2010 at PCMag.com.