Electrowetting color displays coming up in 2008

[godidog]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It'll be interesting to see if they are able to make the transition from a technology demonstration to large-scale industrial production. That's a leap that many technologies fail to make.

Look up the board member quoted in the press release, Hermann Hauser, and I think you'll agree his companies have a reasonable history of making that transition.
I'd bet on 3 years before we're buying them in a colour ebook though.


As with all display technologies, I just want to know if I can stick two together to make one bigger display. And if not, why not ?

[axel77]

iRex and Liquavista. Since both are Phillips Spinoffs, and both seem to be located in Eindhoven, how connected are they?

How much dots per inch will this have, can it compete with e-ink?
EDIT: Answer 160 ppi. This really seems to be an alternative to e-ink. Okay, so when can we buy the Liquavista Iliad?

[msundman]

The white area shows a steady increase upon increasing
voltage. The in-pixel reflectivity is proportional to the white area and can be as high
as 70% for a white area of 80%. All intermediate optical states are stable, implying
that analogue, voltage-controlled grey-scales can be realized

Sweet! No more "4 shades of gray", but 8+ bits/channel.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The long haul result of this technology - if it scales up industrially <and> when the Colorfull is readily available <and> is competitvely priced with other display technologies (3 ifs!) - is the currently mythical all-in-one gizmo. The web browser/music player/video player/e-book reader/portable game player/cell phone/texting device/ect., with a relatively long battery life, weighing less that a 1/4 kilo (size your choice). It may not be better than, and possible worse that, e-ink technology for reading, but I suspect mass market will want the "Jack-of-all-trades" gizmo over the "master-of-one" e-reader.

Hey Ralph Sir, you left out wal paper in the "all digital home of the future".

[NatCh]

That gives me a vision of the "walls" in Fahrenheit 451

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by slayda

Hey Ralph Sir, you left out wal paper in the "all digital home of the future".

It's kind of hard to make a portable wall, but that'll let me have that easy-reading font for my tired old eyes!

[shousa]

To be honest one of the main things I like about my sony 505 is that it does not have a color screen.

I want to escape with a book. I want the computer interface to drift away....like I am reading a real book.

I want to slow things down and concentrate on reading only.

BTW for a fussy dude like me (you would not believe by how much) converged devices will never cut it. I am a one device for a few purposes or even one purpose only kind of guy.

My 2 cents.............

[chef]

Originally Posted by axel77

iRex and Liquavista. Since both are Phillips Spinoffs, and both seem to be located in Eindhoven, how connected are they?

How much dots per inch will this have, can it compete with e-ink?
EDIT: Answer 160 ppi. This really seems to be an alternative to e-ink. Okay, so when can we buy the Liquavista Iliad?

How does Polymer Vision fit in to your scheme of things? They meet all the above criteria too.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by chef

How does Polymer Vision fit in to your scheme of things? They meet all the above criteria too.

I thought polymer vision is e-ink technology. Not?

[axel77]

Originally Posted by shousa

To be honest one of the main things I like about my sony 505 is that it does not have a color screen.

I want to escape with a book. I want the computer interface to drift away....like I am reading a real book.

I want to slow things down and concentrate on reading only.

I'd like reading like a real book too, but I'd *love* to have a "texthighlighter" with it. Especially for texts you need to actually learn.

[Alisa]

Would there be a reason you couldn't read text in black and white on something like this?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Would there be a reason you couldn't read text in black and white on something like this?

Heh, if you can't do that then whole technology would be pretty useless, wouldn't it?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Would there be a reason you couldn't read text in black and white on something like this?

Certainly not, but it may not be as clear as a grey-scale display.

It is always worth bearing in mind that a colour display only has inherently a third the resolution of a black and white display, because each colour pixel is made up of separate red, green and blue pixels. To match the 166dpi of the current grey-scale eInk readers, a colour screen would need to be 500dpi.

[Greg Anos]

Possibly not. I looked at their website and saw that one of the methods they could use was three stacked panels. If they used subtractive colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) and good registration, you could get close to the full DPI. The implication was that they could use transparent oil/pigments, rather than opaque oil/pigment (think of a Kodachrome slide.) Just a thought.

[HarryT]

Interesting! Thanks, Ralph.