http://www.eink.com/press/images/JadeEmpire_acryl_2_sm.gif
Advertizing may be the killer app for Eink that will cause the colorful low-power displays to come down drastically in price over the next few years. The photo above shows a display that will run off of a couple of AA batteries for up to six months! Read more about Ink-In-Motion (http://www.eink.com/products/ink_in_motion.html) here.

If you have three or four thousand dollars you don't know what to do with, you can spring for E-ink's prototyping kit. It makes a good demo of what is possible in developing your own reader and can be had with a variety of display sizes. It is a hacker's dream. It comes with a Gumstix (http://gumstix.com/index.html) computer that runs Linux. You can add whatever reader software you like. See E-ink's site for details (http://www.eink.com/kits/index.html).
http://www.eink.com/image_share/h2.jpg
How low can we go?

Actually, the killer app will be for discount retailers (like Wal*Mart). They spend a great deal of money changing shelf tags and signs in the stores.

They would pay alot to have shelf tags and signs that can be automatically updated from a central source.

Yes, I saw tags like that somewhere -- being sold in Japan I believe. The animated gif in my post appears to be a book ad for display in a bookstore. Soon everything around us will be moving! :oops2:

The green color and the XBox logo means it is a XBox game.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/01/sharp-e-ink-supermarket.jpg

Here is a bit about the wireless Eink price tags (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01).

Huh. Bulkier than I expected them to be. :shrug:

Nemoptic will produce this kind of display too, before using their technology for reading devices.

How long before we see them on the packages themselves?

How long before we see them on the packages themselves?

Very good question.... ^_^

Nemoptic will produce this kind of display too, before using their technology for reading devices.

I completely forgot Nemoptic. That's right, I think this kind of shelf label applications is actually their primary target.

How long before we see them on the packages themselves?

That is a frightening environmental puzzle! We're having problems with the present wrappings. Eink screens with batteries? Add this to food packaging and you also have a possible toxic mix.

So at the point where we basically have throwaway signs, we can go back to buying eBooks complete with throwaway eReader. We can carry the book and read it or put it in proximity to our good permanent leather bound eReader to transfer the file.

How would this affect DRM?

That is a frightening environmental puzzle! We're having problems with the present wrappings. Eink screens with batteries? Add this to food packaging and you also have a possible toxic mix.

The first group that figures how to create packages that can built and broken down with easy will make a bundle. To me that would be some interesting tech.

When are we going to throw out that throwaway culture?