Let’s not get too excited just yet, but a study performed by Dr. Andrew Steckl at the University of Cincinnati’s Nanolab has shown that electrowetting (the process by which current e-ink displays work) works just as well with a paper substrate as a glass one. The implications are… far off at the moment. But still cool.
Despite being paper, the screens still wouldn’t be disposable, exactly, since the expensive part of an e-ink screen isn’t the substrate, it’s everything else. So while you could conceivably crumple this one up and throw it in the trash — certainly something you can’t do with a Kindle, unless you’re very strong — it doesn’t mean you should.
It also doesn’t mean that the display would be flexible or foldable, though to be sure paper is a good deal more so than glass. It will depend on whether the mechanisms, fluids, and circuits can handle the deformation you apply to it, something unconnected with this study. Science is about baby steps, people, and this was one of those — important, yes, like all steps.
You can read the whole paper here if you subscribe to Nature, and if you do, I have to ask, why are you reading this site? Shouldn’t you be doing science?!