Many companies this year have demonstrated concept prototypes that are able to play video on an e-ink display. A few months ago, Bookeen showed off a great looking video from their research and development labs. Freescale—who makes the internal processors for almost all of the current generation e-readers like Amazon, Sony and Kobo—showed off a new video that shows off 30 frames per second using e-ink Pearl.
Who really knows if this tech will make it into any e-readers in the near future, but it does allow for some interesting aspects that could appeal to some companies. For example, if you look at the Amazon e-readers and their special offers, the adverts are all static. If they were to use some of the tech found in this video, their advertisements could display small frame rate animations. This would allow them to be more dynamic and appeal to more potential partners. Other companies could benefit by taking a loss on the hardware and make up the cost by getting more advertising partners on board. With the tremendous discounted costs on the next generation of Kindles, other companies need to be able to offer their devices at lower rates in order to compete. Utilizing video technology in e-readers would add some separation from the competition and allow for some savvy options to take advantage of it.
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Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.