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E Ink Partners with Progress Technologies to Deliver a New Comic Book Experience
By: Robert Diamond Sep. 20, 2017
Japanese manga comics have drastically grown in popularity year-over-year, accounting for $3.91 billion in physical and digital sales in 2016. Of that total, digital manga alone represented $1.28 billion. While the sales of eBooks have stabilized in some markets, the Japanese market has seen steady growth. Japan's Research Laboratory of the Publishing Science revealed that the eBook market increased by 13.2 percent in 2016, totaling 25.8 billion yen in sales.
"With the increasing popularity of manga comics, avid readers are clamoring for a convenient solution that can store their collections in one location for easy, on-the-go reading. However, they have found that current market options do not offer the same benefits that only their paper counterparts can provide," said Mr. Toru Konishi, Executive Director at Progress Technologies. "Typical LCD screens often distort or fail to convey the fine details of comic book art and many readers experience eye fatigue after long periods of staring at the screen. To address these issues, we saw an opportunity to partner with E Ink to use their ePaper technology to create a solution that could house an entire manga collection on one device, while preserving the experience of reading a paper comic book."
The eOneBook solution is made up of two (2) 7.28" E Ink electronic paper displays (EPDs) enclosed in a paper casing, resembling the desired look and feel of a paperback comic book. The device features both Japanese and English language settings, the ability to loan comic books to others and is expected to ship in April, 2018 with a planned retail price of 37,800 Japanese Yen (Japanese Tax Inclusive).
"As we have seen with many of our applications, customers choose E Ink technology because it gives the sense that they are reading actual paper," said Dr. Paul Apen, Chief Strategy Officer at E Ink. "With manga comics growing at such a rapid rate, we knew that this was a market we needed to enter and felt that our displays provided a natural fit. We are excited to collaborate with Progress Technologies to create a unique device that uses our advanced ePaper technology, while mirroring the appearance of fans' favorite comic books."
The first manga E-Cartoon collection will be the "Hokuto-no-Ken" (Fist of the North Star) series. All 246 chapters and 18 volumes of the manga series will be accessible on the device. The eOneBook is scheduled to launch on Kickstarter starting September 13, 2017 and will be on display at the following upcoming events:
- CEATEC 2017 from October 3-6 in Chiba, Japan
- Digital Content EXPO from October 27-29 in Tokyo, Japan
- Embedded Technologies from November 15-17 in Yokohama, Japan.
For more information about the eOneBook Kickstarter, please visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196861017/fist-of-the-north-star-innovative-ebook.
About E Ink Holdings
E Ink Holdings Inc. (8069.TW), based on technology from MIT's Media Lab, has transformed and defined the eReader market and is redefining the signage, architecture and design, mobile, wearable and retail markets with its ePaper technology, enabling a new multi-billion dollar market in less than 10 years. Its corporate philosophy aims to deliver revolutionary products, user experiences and environmental benefits through advanced technology development. This vision has led to its continuous investments in the field of ePaper displays as well as expanding the use of its technologies into a number of other markets and applications including smart packaging and fashion. Its Electrophoretic Display products make it the worldwide leader for ePaper. Its Fringe Field Switching (FFS) technologies are a standard for high-end LCD displays and have been licensed to all major liquid crystal display makers in the world. Listed in Taiwan's Taipei Exchange (TPEx) and the Luxembourg market, E Ink Holdings is now the world's largest supplier of ePaper displays. For more information please visit www.eink.com.
About Progress Technologies, Inc.
Progress Technologies has more than 400 technicians with engineers in the mechanical, electric, and software fields Specialist group. With the theme of manufacturing innovation, technical services in the design development process. We are offering to major manufacturers. We also plan, manufacture and sell products that can provide new experiential value. On the tsumikii team, an education that allows you to experience programming beyond real and virtual boundaries We also offer various experience devices including robot TABO. (http://www.progresstech.jp)
SOURCE: BUSINESS WIRE. ©2017 Business Wire
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