E Ink company celebrates Kindle 2: Sales up 800%

[TadW]

Emphasis mine.

This is a huge week for E Ink, which was launched out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Amazon.com's brand-new Kindle 2 digital book and media reader is built around E Ink's "electronic ink,'' the stuff that puts the words on the screen of the kind. E Ink chief executive Russell Wilcox said one of the company's key contributions to the Kindle is how little energy it draws. "It will let you read up to 8,000 pages on a single battery charge,'' Wilcox explains. "The electronics that are in here turn on different pixels and the pigments will move to create the correct color.''

Thanks to the deal with Amazon, and another to power Sony's PRS 700 digital book, E Ink's sales are up 800 percent from last year. Staff's grown 10 percent to 128 people. All in all, E Ink sounds just like President Barack Obama's vision of how America's economy will come back. "The answers to our problems,'' Mr. Obama said in his address to Congress Tuesday night, "don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs ... ''

Link: Article + video

[Alexander Turcic]

Interesting link, thanks! Here is another recent interview with E Ink where the CEO explains how the Kindle 2 and Sony PRS-700 are the only two devices using the most advanced E Ink implementation available today:

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/0...of-publishing/

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Here is another recent interview with E Ink

Interesting interview, for example:

For the upgrade from the Sony Librié to the PRS-500 we upgraded the ink. And for the PRS-700 and the Kindle 2 we have upgraded the electronics.

This suggests that the EInk film is still Vizplex (introduced on the PRS-505), and confirms that the Kindle 2 (like the PRS-700) uses the Epson Broadsheet controller. Also:

What you’ll see next is a great range of screen sizes. So far the industry has been using the 6-inch size, which has helped to drive down the cost for everybody, by consolidating on one manufacturing process. But we are starting to introduce displays that are in many different sizes. And you will see flexible displays going to market, at small volumes this year, but 2010 will be a big year for flexible displays. And then at the end of 2010, you will start to see improvements in the ink. We will have a whiter white and a blacker black, and we will start to experiment with color. You will probably see 2011 be the year of color.

[Gaurnim]

TadW, can you add PRS700 to the thread title ?
The increase is not due only to Kindle 2, from the excerpt you quote.

Apart from that, thanks for sharing this info, it's nice to see E Ink is doing fine.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

We will have a whiter white and a blacker black, and we will start to experiment with color. You will probably see 2011 be the year of color.

OHH!!! Yea.

BOb

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

This suggests that the EInk film is still Vizplex (introduced on the PRS-505), and confirms that the Kindle 2 (like the PRS-700) uses the Epson Broadsheet controller. Also:

Yes, and they actually use the same CPU as well (Freescale iMX31L).
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/Kindle-2/624/2 (Step 13)