The Future of eReaders

Amazon is the pioneer or eReaders with its Kindle being the most popular eReader of all time. Although with the passage of time, competitors like Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Readers have entered the market,  Kindle has dominated.

Amazon also has a knack of introducing cutting edge features in its eReader, just like Apple does for its tablet. According to the latest rumors and speculations, the next-generation version of Amazon Kindle would come with some kind of colored or lighted display.

At present, Kindle has an e-ink display that does not have any background light. With simple e-ink, it is next to impossible to read anything without light. So the idea of introducing eReaders with lighted background is certainly impressive and would increase the market worth of Kindle.

The need for new innovations in the eReaders was felt because the sales of these devices have dropped over the last few months.

The number of eReaders sold in the first quarter of 2012 was just 2 million, compared to about 9 million devices sold in the last quarter of 2011.

The reason behind this decreased demand is the dominance of tablets, since people tend to prefer tablets because of their multi-dimensional features, along with book reading facilities.

The information regarding the lighted displays was given by Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch, who appears to have taken a look at the prototype of such a device. According to him this device would most probably be introduced in the fall of 2012.

Other than lighted display, there are also rumors about Amazon intending to release a Kindle with color ink display. A Chinese source recently revealed that E Ink Holdings, a famous electrophoretic display (EPD), has received an order from Amazon to manufacture large amounts of 6 inch colored displays.

Other than Amazon, competitors have also been working to improve their devices. LG recently announced to release e-ink displays with flexible structure which won’t need any glass wall protection. So there is certainly a lot of innovation to be expected in the domain of eReaders in near future.