Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: I hate the Palm operating system, the web browser is awful, the screen's > too small, and technical stuff doesn't work so well. And a back-lit LCD > screen isn't ideal to start with (Kindle's presumably much better on > that score).
It is "digital paper," not back lit at all. I saw one briefly in a store and I got the impression that the contrast is not as good as real paper. The resolution is low enough that the text is slightly grainy. Sooner or later the resolution and contrast of these gadgets will become as good as a cheap paperback book or newspaper . . . and then a quality hardback . . . and eventually even better I suppose, to the point where improvements no longer matter. I think digital cameras are starting to exceed the resolution of cheap 35 mm film. I once estimated that a fairly good 35 mm print had about 16 mega-pixels of data, based on a high resolution scan I made of it. Once technical improvements reach a certain level and no longer matter to the customer, manufacturers are jolted and have to look at other ways to appeal to the customer. Christensen described that situation with insulin, after researchers bio-engineered bacteria to produce it, replacing bovine insulin. The product could not get any purer or safer, and the drug companies were at a loss as to what to do next. Getting back to digital paper, I saw an digital ink announcement board outside a Japanese hotel room that I thought a first was real paper. You have to look closely to see that it is slightly gray and grainy. The room announcements change as various meetings and weddings and so on are held. I guess this was done by printing or writing before that. - Jed
