Hasta La Gadget!

When will books benefit from the addition of multimedia magic? Narnia may hold the answer.

HarperCollins has released an enhanced e-book for C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in advance of the film adaptation of the same. The book is a perfect test case for the promises and flaws of the enhanced e-book market.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn’t an app, but a multimedia EPUB book. EPUB is as close as we have to a universal e-book standard. This immediately makes it multi-platform and multi-device — no need for separate iOS or Android code, or store approval. All you need is an application on those platforms that can read EPUB, and a touchscreen. EPUB books can’t be read on the Kindle, but the Kindle isn’t a multimedia touchscreen device either, so that’s no loss anyways.

The book is available for iBooks now, and according to the press release, “will be available on a number of handheld multimedia readers and touchscreen devices” — read: the forthcoming Nook Color, and possibly other Android tablets too. On all available platforms, it will cost $10.

Sometimes, enhancing e-books with multimedia seems like a solution in search of a problem. Generally, readers aren’t clamoring for enhanced books. Writers and publishers don’t always understand them, and there isn’t always good content to put in them.

Lewis’s Narnia books are different. They have a well-established readership and are broadly popular with both adults and children. They’ve already gone transmedia, spinning off games and movies; the writer’s estate is willing to develop and authorize new media, and companies like HarperCollins and Disney have the tools and incentives to develop them. The serial nature of the books, in turn, gives the books continuity and room to evolve.

What’s more, the visually rich and conceptually encyclopedic nature of the books means that adding maps, illustrations, animations, reference guides, and timelines actually become very useful reading aids. Add in audio readings and commentaries, critical essays, and you have something that could become the equivalent of a deluxe DVD edition of a beloved book.

Really, the deluxe DVD editions of The Lord of the Rings were enhanced e-books without us fully realizing it — at least those portions devoted to author JRR Tolkien, the writing of the books and the world of Middle Earth. That’s the standard against which we should judge enhanced e-books.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader doesn’t quite get there. I reviewed the iBooks version, which costs $10, $2 more than the $8 “non-enhanced” version. It gets the Pauline Baynes maps and illustrations, animation and reference encyclopedia right. This material alone is worth the extra $2.

But a promising “read along” feature, using audio from Shakespearean actor/audiobook standout Derek Jacobi’s reading of the book, is hopelessly crippled, providing just the first few paragraphs of each chapter. If you want to hear the whole thing, you’ll need to buy the separate audiobook, which costs another $17 from iTunes. Putting snippets of audio in the e-book feels like a terrible tease.

Again and again, enhanced e-books bump up against rights that have already been sold and assigned. The video content, including an animated timeline/summary of the story, is solid, but considering the e-book is intended as a cross-promotion with the film, it’s sad that it doesn’t even include previews from the film.

It’s a worthwhile object for what it is. But it’s ultimately frustrating, because the potential for an integrated object on video-capable e-readers like the iPad and Nook Color is so clear, at least to me.

The publishing industry, though, is so knotted — the media streams so legally and functionally fragmented — that the opportunities for a clear case study, an example that everyone can point to as a standard, get squandered again and again.

See Also:

• Toshiba, Blio Jump In With Enhanced E-Books For Laptops
• Why Metadata Matters for the Future of E-Books
• Stephen Fry and Our Transmedia Reading Future
• Barnes & Noble Aims to Bring Color to E-Books
• Report: Nook Color Will Be Android-Based Reader/Tablet

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch tablet powered by the Android operating system, has made its rounds with gadget reviewers, and consensus says it’s a solid but pricey device.

Reviewers at tech blogs and mainstream publications, including Wired.com, found that the Galaxy Tab offered a pleasing user experience despite some flaws. Many complained that the Galaxy Tab, priced at $600, is too expensive when pitted against Apple’s larger $500 iPad.

The Galaxy Tab is the first official Android tablet on the market to compete with Apple’s iPad. Samsung has marketed the smaller, pocketable size of the Galaxy Tab as ideal for commuters, while  highlighting Adobe Flash as a key feature that the tablet supports, unlike the iPad.

Reviews of the Galaxy Tab were mostly positive, but the most dissenting opinion comes from Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo, who described the Galaxy Tab as a “pocketable trainwreck.” A list of excerpts from reviews of the Galaxy Tab follows.

Christopher Null, Wired.com:

“The Tab ultimately reveals itself not as a competitor to the iPad but as a new class of mobile devices: a minitablet that is designed to go everywhere you do.”

Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal:

“The Tab is attractive, versatile and competitively priced, though monthly cell fees can add up. It’s different enough from the iPad, yet good enough, to give consumers a real choice.”

David Pogue, New York Times:

“With the Samsung Galaxy Tab, you’re also buying delicious speed and highly refined hardware. It’s just a shame that you’re buying all that for $600.”

Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo:

“This thing is just a mess. It’s like a tablet drunkenly hooked up with a phone, and then took the fetus swimming in a Superfund cleanup site. The browser is miserable, at least when Flash is enabled. It goes catatonic, scrolling is laggy, and it can get laughably bad.”

Joanna Stern, Engadget:

“It’s the best Android tablet on the market. Now, that’s not saying much given the state of the Android competition, but we can also assuredly say that the Tab is the first true competitor to Apple’s iPad. Its crisp display, compact form factor, touch-friendly software and dual cameras undoubtedly have what it takes to win over the average tablet seeker.”

Melissa Perenson, PCWorld:

“The Samsung Galaxy Tab lives up to its promise as the most credible Android tablet to date. Though it isn’t perfect, it is a strong first-gen device. It isn’t for everyone: The high cost without a monthly contract ($600) underscores that. Nevertheless, if you’re planning to get a mobile broadband data device, the Galaxy Tab’s potential as a mobile hotspot makes it more attractive than some of its competitors.”

Chris Davies, SlashGear:

“Its 7-inch display may offer only half the usable area of the iPad, but the high resolution and responsive, accurate capacitive touchscreen add up to a user experience that’s significantly better than a regular smartphone for browsing, multimedia and – thanks in no small part to Samsung’s custom apps – messaging.”

Donald Bell, CNET:

With the Galaxy Tab, Samsung has created a true peer of the iPad–an uncompromising product that stakes out new territory in terms of both design and features.

At last, DC Comics has a home on the iPad. Forget about the X-Men and all that other kids’s stuff: now you can buy and read some of the best comic-books ever made.

DC, like Marvel, is on the iPad in two forms. First, this standalone app in which you can browse, buy and read the available titles. This is powered by the same Comixology engine behind most branded comic-book apps. But while this is a nice way to get your favorite DC titles, it may be better to just grab the free Comics app, which is exactly the same but also contains the catalogs of Marvel and a heap of indie publishers. Some DC titles are already available in the Comics store, but now they are all in one DC store, so you can go straight for the good stuff.

Why am I so excited? Because DC comics were the ones I bought when I was a teenager, and a lot of those old titles are here. Hellblazer, Grant Morrison’s stunning Invisibles, the Sandman, and the comic book which arguably kick-started the whole comic-books-are-not-for-kids movement, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. And not as a trade paperback, either, but in its original separate issues ($3 each).

What are you waiting for? The DC app is free, and also available on the iPhone. And one more thing: Look at that picture up top, or rather, that Photoshop disaster up top. Who the hell did that “iPad” illustration?

DC Comics iPad App [DC]
DC app [iTunes]
Comixology App [iTunes]

See Also:

• DC Comics Brings Batman and Pals to iPad, PSP
• First Look at Marvel Comics' iPad App
• Shazam! Marvel Comics for iPad
• Top Five iPad Comic-Book Apps Reviewed

Well, well, well. What could Samsung be planning to do with this 10.1-inch LCD panel? The screen is on show at the the FPD International Green Device 2010 trade-show in China, and is displayed naked alongside versions in a prototype “e-reader” and a small notebook.

Clearly, that “e-reader” is really a 10-inch Galaxy Tab: It’s making a video call (not something you’d do on, say, a Kindle) and it has the same row of buttons on the bottom bezel as the smaller 7-inch Tab. The screen has a 1024×600 resolution and a 1,000:1 aspect ratio, but that’s not the most interesting part. Not nearly.

The panel is built using Samsung’s existing manufacturing processes, only instead of using a glass substrate for the TFT it uses resin, which results in a tiny reduction in thickness (fro 0.5mm to 0.44mm), but a huge reduction in weight from 130g to just 28g, excluding backlights.

This could lead to a significant reduction in the weight of tablet computers, which right now are a lot heavier than similar sized e-readers that lack glass in their screens. One spec that isn’t mentioned is whether or not this screen is capable of multi-touch. We’d assume so, given the software and form-factor of the demo device. There appears to be some more work to do, though. Take a look at the right side of the screen in Tech-On’s picture, above, and you’ll see that it is slightly warped. Still, it’s only a prototype.

Samsung Unveils 1.8mm-thick 10.1-inch LCD Panel [Tech-On]

See Also:

• Galaxy Tab
• Samsung Galaxy Tab: Cheaper Than iPad, But Not Really

E Ink’s new Triton line give the company’s displays a long-desired new feature: color. Most of the E Ink team is in Japan this week, demonstrating their new screens in Hanvon’s new e-reader. I spoke by phone with E Ink’s Lawrence Schwartz, who broke down the technology behind the new screens, Triton’s importance for his company, and where their displays fit into the broader ecosystem of readable screens.

“All of our screens have been building towards this,” Schwartz said. “The contrast and brightness we were able to add to the Pearl’s black-and-white screens, paired with a color filter — that’s what lets us bring color to the display.”

Schwartz emphasized that the company’s primary focus is still developing low-power, high-contrast surfaces for reading. “What’s unique about color in reading,” he added, “is that while most textual content is still in monochrome, we can introduce color into cover art, children’s books, newspapers, and textbooks — places still in the reading field where color is at a premium.”

E Ink developed the Triton screen in conjunction with a group of partners, including Epson, Texas Instruments, Marvell, and the semiconductor companies Maxim and Freescale, all of whom worked on the electronic components of the Pearl screen. In particular, Epson played a key role, providing the color filters’ controller chip.

Underneath, it’s still the same white, black and grayscale electrophoretic pigments; it’s only when filtered through the RGB overlay that the image appears in color. To reach for an historical analogy, it’s not totally dissimilar from film’s Technicolor process, which shot in black-and-white film strips through color filters, then reverse-processed.

Because the underlying technology is identical, Triton’s contrast, energy usage, viewing angle are all essentially the same as the Pearl. The image update or refresh rate for monochrome is the same (240 ms), but color animation can take up to about one full second.

Unlike a LCD display, though, pictures on the Triton don’t need to update the entire screen: a moving figure in the foreground might be refreshed while the background remains identical — just like traditional cel animation.

E-readers are the high-profile example of E Ink in action, but the company’s screens are also used in watches, battery indicators, printers, calculators, signage, end-cap displays in stores and a wide range of industrial displays. All of these displays, Schwartz said, could benefit from the introduction of color. And in the vast majority of these use cases, LCD or other full-video displays simply aren’t feasible, either for reasons of power conservation or the inherently limited nature of what’s being shown.

While Hanvon is the first company bringing the Triton screen to market, Schwartz said E Ink had other customers working with Triton screen technology who haven’t yet made announcements about their forthcoming products. Otherwise, he couldn’t comment on future devices or availability.

The most exciting innovations, Schwartz said, were the experimentations with user interface in conjunction with E Ink screens, whether using multitouch, stylus, or other NUI. E Ink, he said, works to optimize each of its displays for every one of these interfaces, which has required the company to be increasingly flexible in how it thinks about its products.

In the meantime, E Ink’s goal is to continue to improve their existing product line: get higher contrast, brighter colors, faster screen refreshes, and continue to find better ways to optimize their screens for every interface, use case and use environment.

E Ink Triton Imaging Film [E Ink]

See Also:

• Why E-Books Are Stuck in a Black-and-White World
• Color E Ink Readers Coming to China in 2011
• World's First Color E-Book Reader Goes on Sale
• Qualcomm Aims to Bring Color, Video to E-Readers
• Barnes & Noble Aims to Bring Color to E-Books
• Pixel Qi Hybrid E-Ink LCD Screens for Your Own Netbook
• Tokyo Flash E-Ink Watch
• Sony Pocket E-Reader Combines Touchscreen, E Ink
• Western Digital Adds E-Ink to Mac-Friendly Pocket Hard-Drive …
• Kindle Case from Moleskine Mixes Paper and E-Ink