E Ink goes color with new advanced electronic paper

[Brian]

E Ink have unveiled a prototype color electronic paper display at the FPD International trade show in Japan. Made in conjunction with the Toppan Printing Company Ltd., the world's leading supplier of color filters for the flat panel display industry, the prototype 6 inch 400x300 12-bit color display with a resolution of 83 pixels per inch offers excellent readability in direct sunlight, making it suitable for use in a variety of devices including digital cameras, ATMs, kiosks, and GPS units. From the press release:

"No one has ever shown a low-power color display that looks this good and can be mass manufactured in a practical way," said Russ Wilcox, CEO at E Ink, "The gates are finally open for product designers to use color electronic paper in mobile devices."

E Ink's electronic ink technology creates an image that looks like a printed page from all angles and maintains the same contrast ratio under all lighting conditions, including direct sunlight. Aimed at handheld devices, the display uses up to 100 times less energy than a standard liquid crystal display (LCD), so product designers can shed weight and greatly extend battery life.

"Supporting a graphical user interface is critical for mobile devices," said Ryosuke Kuwada, VP of Sales and Marketing at E Ink, "Unlike printed paper, our display can be updated in a fraction of a second, enabling menus, scroll bars and animation. The screen can easily switch between black and white text or color windows and icons."

Mass production of the new color display is expected to start in late 2006 with flexible versions planned for the future.

Related: More e-paper promises..., E-books could be more than just type

[Press Release via Yahoo! Librie Group and TeleRead]

[Bob Russell]

Forgive my skepticism, but we've seen a lot of promise and very little progress! Doesn't sound like great resolution, and when they say the display can be updated in a fraction of a second, I wonder if that fraction is 1/2... pretty slow for a typical handheld device.

So my guess from the info you've share with us is that (if it ever makes it to market at all) it's really likely to be only for niche devices, not smartphones or pdas.

But I sure hope I'm wrong!

[cervezas]

Originally Posted by BobR

Forgive my skepticism, but we've seen a lot of promise and very little progress! Doesn't sound like great resolution, and when they say the display can be updated in a fraction of a second, I wonder if that fraction is 1/2... pretty slow for a typical handheld device.

So my guess from the info you've share with us is that (if it ever makes it to market at all) it's really likely to be only for niche devices, not smartphones or pdas.

I don't know, I think this sounds *very* promising if only because it eliminates one the biggest battery hogs on a mobile device: the LCD screen. It may not be something for a high-end status-symbol PDA, but it would be fantastic for mobile devices that have to do real work for hours on end in the outdoors. It also opens up the possibility of scarce battery power being used for better things than the display, like GPS receivers, wireless radios and/or fast processors that could better handle stuff like voice recognition.

[Henrycat]

If they make it able to refresh part of the screen instead of the whole page (like Librie) i can see it used on a mobile phone for showing menus and static elements.

Anything more "dynamic and fluid" will have to see, since i can't quite compare it to the Librie :P