E Ink in Japanese supermarkets

[TadW]

Aren't you lucky if you live in Japan? If you want to experience E Ink, you don't have to spend $350 for an e-book reader if you live there. From Engadget:

While e-books might still be a bit out of the price range for most consumers, that quick trip to the store for a jar of mayonnaise might give the lowly proletariat its first glimpse at the wonders of e-ink, thanks to some new price tags from Sharp. The tags will include price info, along with extra data like place of origin and a sell-by date.

Link

[Anchoku]

Sharp hasn't released the announcement on their web page but this is the originating site for the Engadget blurb. The Fuji Sankei site states the Sharp displays are liquid crystal technology, not e-Ink, so Sharp is going into production with something like Nemoptics' technology. I see nothing to suggest it's flexible, either.

Here's the thing, though: the 2" display will sell for 2000 yen and the 3" display will sell for 2300 yen. Sharp claimed they'd do 10 billion yen in sales in their FY07 (beginning in April). Even if we're generous and only take two decimal places off, that's the same in sales as the capital raised for Plastic Logic.

[bruce]

Hmm. These things haven't yet appeared in my local marufuji or seijoishi. Maybe the larger chains like Tokyu will start using them first...