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Attack of the Book Worms!

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    #32
    Pigman II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,921 ✭✭✭✭Pigman II


    SimpleSam06 wrote: »
    The reason ebooks don't work is because you are looking at a luminous light source, which is sending information to your eyes in RGB (Red-Green-Blue). This is not natural, as in our eyes aren't built for it, so it becomes a lot of effort after a certain point in time.

    The answer to your woes is already in place, just not sufficiently developed to be on the mass market yet. This is called Electronic Paper. It is a non-luminous screen (you need a light source to read it), and produces images in the same way as paper (CMYK, Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black); as such it is the "natural" way to read, our eyes can handle it a lot better. It can be crumpled or bent like ordinary paper, and for ultimate win, it doesn't need power to keep an image on the sheet, so your battery life goes through the roof.

    Reading is not natural either. I've never seen a dog pick up a novel by Virginia Woof.


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    #33
    SimpleSam06
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    bedlam wrote: »
    The flickering you mention is the page refreshing. With out this there would be ghosting on the screen of previous pages.
    Roll on the day when they can get refresh rates similar to currently available monitors. How cool would that be?
    Pigman II wrote: »
    Reading is not natural either. I've never seen a dog pick up a novel by Virginia Woof.
    You missed the point there, which is that we did not, at any time in our evolutionary history, from monkey to steam age, stare at luminous light sources for prolonged periods of time. We are in no way built for it, it damages our eyes and is stressful. In terms of being "natural", as in non-damaging to our eyes, reading a book has little more effect on your eyes than staring at a rock for a few hours.

    Reflected light from books is fine; bright monitors are not. So by moving to a CMYK based colour scheme, the new epaper makes displays a hell of a lot more comfortable for us.


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    #34
    Agamemnon
    Registered Users Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭Agamemnon


    Pigman II wrote: »
    I've never seen a dog pick up a novel by Virginia Woof.
    They prefer Laurence Sterne.


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    #35
    Pigman II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,921 ✭✭✭✭Pigman II


    SimpleSam06 wrote: »
    You missed the point there, which is that we did not, at any time in our evolutionary history, from monkey to steam age, stare at luminous light sources for prolonged periods of time. We are in no way built for it, it damages our eyes and is stressful. In terms of being "natural", as in non-damaging to our eyes, reading a book has little more effect on your eyes than staring at a rock for a few hours.

    me, the new epaper makes displays a hell of a lot more comfortable for us.

    I'm sure the first people who picked up a book thought "hey I'm not built for this", "ideas should only be transferred orally!" Yet here we are. My point is you cannot say staring at a screen is "unnatural" unless you acknowledge that reading itself is also unnatural. Being unnatural in itself has never stopped us from doing things however.


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    #36
    Tar.Aldarion
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,089 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tar.Aldarion


    Has to be a real book for me. I love them.


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    #37
    fenris
    Registered Users Posts: 3,078 ✭✭✭fenris


    ubook works well on the axim, you can just tap the bottom corner of the screen to page forward rather than getting thumb ache from using the d-pad

    I normally set the font size and colur manually to something legible against a very dull/dark background.

    I think that there was a post on aximsite recently about a chm reader or converter.

    I went through the Wheel of Time, the Malzan series and the entire Game of thrones series on ebook recently and don't feel that I have missed out on the paper experience to an extent that counteracts the pleasure of being able to read a chapter while waiting for a meeting or even just over lunch.


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    #38
    humanji
    Registered Users Posts: 19,976 ✭✭✭✭humanji


    Pigman II wrote: »
    I'm sure the first people who picked up a book thought "hey I'm not built for this", "ideas should only be transferred orally!" Yet here we are. My point is you cannot say staring at a screen is "unnatural" unless you acknowledge that reading itself is also unnatural. Being unnatural in itself has never stopped us from doing things however.

    But reading is natural. When you are looking at things, you are reading, just not in the same literal sense as is meant with books. You recognise the shapes and objects and the symbols that can represent them. Reading words in a book isn't that different.


    Anyway, I don't have much time for books now. I listen to audiobooks when I'm at the gym because they help me forget that I'm suffering :D


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    #39
    Aseth
    Registered Users Posts: 421 ✭✭Aseth


    Read several books that way but still prefer paper ones


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    #40
    SimpleSam06
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    Pigman II wrote: »
    I'm sure the first people who picked up a book thought "hey I'm not built for this", "ideas should only be transferred orally!" Yet here we are.
    Gah no you missed it again. Biologically we have never spent large amounts of time staring at the sun, candles, lanterns or whatever. This is not a social statement I'm making here, its the how we are genetically. Therefore, luminous screens are bad for your eyes, and things like books are fine.
    Pigman II wrote: »
    My point is you cannot say staring at a screen is "unnatural" unless you acknowledge that reading itself is also unnatural. Being unnatural in itself has never stopped us from doing things however.
    I did clarify what I meant by natural earlier. I'd also say its not natural for us to strap 90 kilos of lead to our backs and go bungee jumping; by which I mean we aren't designed for it, and it will cause long term damage to our bodies. Unnatural in this case = not in our natures = not something we would do in the normal course of things. Such as staring at the sun for hours on end.

    Your eyes don't give a rats arse if you are looking for rabbits in tall grass or reading the complete works of Tolkien. They do give a rats arse if you are reading it from a luminous screen however. While we treat it as a neccessary evil, if technology advances to the stage that we can get away from it, we should certainly take advantage of that.
    bedlam wrote: »
    The refresh I am referring to is not the same as a monitor refresh rate. When you "turn" a page the device will clean the screen by filling the whole page with black, then white "ink" to remove any traces of the previous page before drawing the new one. This process which last less than a second is misconstrued by some as screen flicker

    Just like paper an eink screen does not refresh (unless changing a page) so has zero flicker.
    Yes, I know, thats why it uses no power to keep the image on the screen. What I heard with the Sony offering was that it took a couple of seconds and produced noticeable flicker. Still, maybe that was just the bibliophiles.

    What I'm talking about is the actual refresh rate, so they can be used as a replacement for monitors. At this stage, its only a matter of time, IMHO.


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