Comments on: Time Inc. is planning in e-reader to help magazines—but can you really enjoy Sports Illustrated in E Ink?

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:01:00 +0000

Great hunch, Pond! Certainly Pixel Qi would offer color AND more text-background contrast than E Ink. Furthermore, for those who didn’t mind the contrast reduction, it would offer an E Ink-style mode.

Thanks,
David

By: pond

pond — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:35:48 +0000

Pixel Qi! Pixel Qi! Pixel Qi!

Does anybody doubt that the Asus biscreen/single screen ebook device, in color, will feature a Pixel Qi screen(s)?

Therefore, what seems likely to me is that Time will be rebadging some of those Asus gems.

By: Felix Torres

Felix Torres — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:23:43 +0000

Sooner or later somebody will realize that if you take netbook electronics and screens and ditch the keyboard and HDD you’ll have a fine slate-format color platform for digital content that can profitable sell for US$300-400. (Won’t even need a touch screen if they do the UI right.)
I mean, they can’t *possibly* be that clueless, right?
There’s only 50 million netbooks out there, after all…

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:11:11 +0000

Excellent points, Steve. By the way, let’s hope that any Time initiative will indeed be big on e-books, too, not just mags. Thanks. David

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:06:50 +0000

C’mon, Time Warner… don’t be stupid.

Of course they need color for their digital material. And if they do things right, they could help kick off the digital magazine revolution that I expect will pull e-books along with it into full development.

Digital mag development has been dragging behind e-books, mired in even worse e-babel and conflicting presentation/intent models than e-books have ever had to deal with. What the industry needs is a major player to start to make coherent decisions and form things up. TW could be that player.