Worldreader is a non-profit organization whose mission is to spread literacy in underdeveloped countries by providing ereaders free of charge to school kids. These ereaders are filled with hundreds of books, providing access in a way that most of these places have never seen. The results have been impressive. As reported by Gigaom.com:

• Kids learned to use e-readers quickly even though 43 percent of them had never used a computer before. Also, not surprisingly, they were quick to discover “the multimedia aspects of the e-reader, such as music and Internet features.” (Kindle has an experimental web browser and can play MP3s.) Worldreader is “exploring ways to limit functions on the e-reader such as music” so that kids don’t get distracted during class, but points out that e-readers can also be a useful “bridge” device for students who’d never used a computer before.
• Near-zero theft. Only two e-readers (out of 600) were lost in the whole study, partly because “community involvement was encouraged through e-reader pledges, community outreach programs, and support from community leaders.”
• Kids got access to way more books. Before the study, primary-school students (whose average age was 11) had access to an average of 3.6 books at home. Junior-high students (average age 13.5 years) had access to an average of 8.6 books at home and high-school students (average age 16.6 years) access to an average of 11 books (mostly textbooks they had to buy for school.) With the e-reader program, kids had access to an average of 107 books, including books Worldreader “pushed” onto the Kindles as well as free e-books that kids downloaded themselves.
• Primary school students’ test scores improved, but effects on older kids were less clear. The reading scores of primary-school students who received e-readers increased from 12.9 percent to 15.7 percent, depending on whether they got additional reading support. That was an improvement of 4.8 percent to 7.6 percent above the scores of kids in control classrooms without e-readers. But results for older kids were mixed: “Student reading was affected almost exclusively at the primary level, and not at the junior and senior levels. This conclusion supports external data that students are most affected by reading interventions at the primary school stages between the ages of 4 and 10.”
• Students sought out access to international news. “Amazon data revealed that students were downloading The New York Times, USA Today, and El País etc., demonstrating that students want to access a wide range of reading materials that were previously inaccessible.”
• Some teachers worried kids became too dependent on the e-readers.  ”For example, one teacher stated that students thought that everything on the e-reader was the ‘absolute truth.’ He had to correct them by  explaining that the e-books may contain mistakes just as paper books do. Teachers also observed that some students have started to favor classes that use the e-reader and neglect classes that do not.”
• Kids shared their e-readers with their families and friends. Students, even primary schoolers, got to take their e-readers home at night and many reported sharing the devices. Kids in the study had an average of five siblings, so “the e-reader’s reach potentially extended to many people beyond the device’s owner.” Some kids whose parents were illiterate read to their parents from their e-readers.
• Kindles break too easily. Worldreader had not predicted how many Kindles would break: 243 out of 600, or 40.5 percent. Each time an e-reader broke, Worldreader sent it back to Amazon to conduct “a post-mortem analysis.” Turns out “fragile screens are the main weakness” and Amazon is working on Kindles with reinforced screens (at the same cost), which started shipping to Ghana in October 2011. Plus Worldreader is providing more rugged cases for the Kindles and providing more instruction on how to use them (don’t sit on it, for instance).
• The program appears cost-effective. Worldreader estimates that “for the years 2014-2018, using a calculation focused strictly on the provisioning of textbooks, the e-reader system would cost only $8.93-$11.40 more per student over a 4 year period [$0.19 to $0.24 per month] than the traditional paper book system.” That calculation is made with the assumptions that e-reader prices will fall and e-readers will become more rugged (so they break less). And of course, e-readers give students access to many books, not just textbooks.

Into this attractive mix, the graphic cites that advertising will be coming to an ereader near you. And since Bloomberg predicts that ereaders will be a 77 billion dollar industry within 3 years, there will be lots of ereaders near you.

Source of original graphic.

Qualcomm has come out strong with the new e-paper technology in their Mirasol Ereader.

The display offers color, video capability and, best of all, a battery life of up to 3 full weeks, which monochrome ereaders should already be accustomed to. With a 5.7-inch (1024 x 768) display, the Mirasol ereader uses front-light LED technology that both makes ereader useable in darkness, and at the same time makes it easier to use in direct sunlight. It is far superior to backlit devices when reading at the beach, for example. The refresh rate is another improvement in this model, and shouldn’t leave anyone frustrated.

Kyobo is Korea’s largest bookseller, and started the Mirasol-based Kyobo ereaders off at around $300 retail.

The Kyobo eReader delivers three weeks of battery life by assuming use of 30 min of use each day, WiFi Off, standby power the rest of the time. In addition, 25% front light brightness is used.

This doesn’t mean that the screen is darker at all. The new display technology works by reflecting ambient light, and in darker environments uses an integrated reading light. By taking advantage of existing light, and supplementing as necessary, the battery demands for light are greatly reduced.

Mirasol is hitting the Korean and Chinese markets first, but it shouldn’t be too long before we see these products Stateside.

According to the website:

What is a Refurbished eReader? Its an eReader that Kobo has returned to its original specification and tested to ensure it looks and operates just like a brand new eReader.

So, be the first to know the next time they try this, and get yourself a bargain ereader.

Ebookfriendly.com has posted an interesting infographic with the details:

Sources:
Harris Interactive
Ebookfriendly

E Ink Triton Imaging Film from E Ink Corporation on Vimeo.

There is no such limit imposed by Amazon, who we presume has plenty of Kindle’s in supply for the Christmas shopping season.

Will readers relegate their consumption of books to an application on a multimedia device that is not optimized for reading?

The eReaders Conference in San Francisco will have plenty of people on hand to address this. From their brochure:

While I would dearly love to attend, it’s out of the question. What is interesting, though, is how consistently ereaders (and readers in general) have been under-estimated by the generation of the net. While video always draws the eyeballs, reading continues to draw the real attention. It’s as though certain companies would just prefer readers to go away, so they could fire videos and sound bites at us 24/7. It ain’t gonna happen. And I expect many of the reasons why will be discussed at this conference, which – despite the massive growth of ereaders – will go under reported.

Imagine that.

The upside to all that was there was no spam. If spamming involved the heavy labor of chiseling stone all day, spammers would be off doing something easier, like digging latrines. (Which, frankly, I wish they would do.)

And, on top of that, people thought long and hard before chiseling a tablet – you can bet on it. I’m not chiseling at rock unless I have something damn important to say. Who would?

Then scrolls came along, and people started to write more… a whole lot more. In fact, scrolls brought us the Bible and several epic poems. We had lift-off. Still, this involved a fair bit of work, so little that was written was crap. Besides, trolls were generally illiterate in those days.

Then came books, and people started to write more… a whole, whole lot more. With printing presses and eventually desktop publishing, every joker under the sun (and elsewhere) could finally spit their words out for the word’s consumption. Books brought us pulp fiction, yellow journalism, and ads for x-ray glasses. (They didn’t work.)

And finally, we moved to the pinnacle. Or it will be once we realize it. Ebooks and ereaders.

And of course, people started to write more… a whole,whole,whole, gigalot more. And almost all of it was crap. Yet, here we are with new filters coming in, and curation websites to help us out. Ereaders are the bomb. The good bomb.

People don’t quite see that yet, because many ereaders were dazzled by the next shiny object to come along… the tablet. The name alone should tell you it’s not a step forward. Unless, of course, you prefer video to reading, as most spammers and trolls do. But they suck for reading. They always will. The same way the fork on a Swiss Army Knife sucks for eating. Sure, it works, but you only use it in a pinch.

The quiet revolution is that many people are doubling up on devices, especially as prices fall. It hasn’t been noticed by most of the internet illuminaries, because most of them grew up on MTV and don’t care for reading. But the rest of us adults are buying ereaders. We won’t end up like the monks in the Norwegian video below:

Posted originally on: June 15, 2011