Why I love Japanese
Dec. 28th, 2006 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoActually, I don't care either way about Japanese. But the written forms of Japanese and Chinese are complex glyphs, not easily rendered by low resolution displays. And that's why there's a big push towards higher resolution displays in cellphones and pocket computers of all sorts -- so that the Japanese can read more than a few characters at once. This serves my desire -- a high res display for reading books.
Now, a standard mass market paperback is basically a stack of 6" x 4" readable areas. At 300 dpi, that's 1800 x 1200. 300 dpi is basic laser quality -- you'd see smooth fonts, and given a decent contrast ratio, would never get eyestrain. At 120 dpi, that's 720 x 480 -- conveniently, the same size as a widescreen DVD. It might not be paper-perfect, but it's certainly adequate for text display. Consider that a standard Palm screen is 160x160, and the top-of-the-line is 480x320.
Hitachi just announced an 800x480 2.9" color display suitable for portable devices.
Now, a standard mass market paperback is basically a stack of 6" x 4" readable areas. At 300 dpi, that's 1800 x 1200. 300 dpi is basic laser quality -- you'd see smooth fonts, and given a decent contrast ratio, would never get eyestrain. At 120 dpi, that's 720 x 480 -- conveniently, the same size as a widescreen DVD. It might not be paper-perfect, but it's certainly adequate for text display. Consider that a standard Palm screen is 160x160, and the top-of-the-line is 480x320.
Hitachi just announced an 800x480 2.9" color display suitable for portable devices.
google books
Date: 2006-12-28 11:39 pm (UTC)I'm not even sure what their intention is. The have to OCR the text so that they can index it, so why not show us the interpreted text. That way we could use all the usual tools of size and font to adjust it.
Are they going to say in a couple of years, "oops we should have scanned at better resolution, but the cost/technology didn't permit it"?
I don't know why a usable electronic book reader is taking so long. Sony's latest doesn't seem all that wonderful. This simple device might save the planet. Just think of all the trees saved...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-29 12:06 am (UTC)Sony's ereader is about one generation short of where it needs to be, and is largely handicapped by Sony itself. Compare it with Nokia's 770 "Internet Tablet" and E70 smartphone. The 770 is limited mostly by battery life. We're getting there...