This 6-inch screen displays black and white e-ink text and images at 800×600 pixels and can roll around a tube the circumference of a dime. If this isn’t the future of print, I don’t know what is.
Designed and manufactured by Polymer Vision, the screen can be rolled and unrolled 25,000 times. The question, obviously, is why would you need a rollable display? Well, as ereaders become ubiquitous the need for them to be almost indestructible. I could see a day when kids get their own ereaders for the nursery a la the Diamond Age. Interestingly, Polymer Vision isn’t the company of note when you think of e-ink displays so either they will license this technology or they could start taking more and more market shares from leaders like Eink. → Read More
Electronic paper as a technology somehow evolves relatively slowly, but it evolves. Today Epson and E Ink announced they have co-developed a new ePaper display that’s sized at 9.68 inches and boasts 2,400 x 1,650/300 dpi quality. By way of comparison: the Kindle DX (9.7 inches) comes with 1,200 x 824 pixel resolution at 150 ppi. → Read More
It seems like everybody and their dog is trying to get a flexible display out there. TDK, Sony, LG, HP, and most recently Bridgestone are all going nuts trying to make this happen
E Ink is no exception, and although they’re not planning on putting out a successor to their Pearl screen this year, they aren’t standing still, either. Check out these videos. → Read More
Phosphor watches can be credited with a very special honor. That being of the brand the officially popularized and mainstreamed e-ink watches. While they didn’t invent the concept, they made them cool enough and affordable enough for mainstream adoption. With prices under $200, now everyone can have a neat looking, easy to read e-ink watch on their wrist. The newer World Time watch adds just that to the mix – a world time complication. In addition the time and a calendar, you can now scroll through time zones of the world. Aside from one minor drawback, the watch is a nice addition to the Phosphor watch collection. → Read More
Let’s not get too excited just yet, but a study performed by Dr. Andrew Steckl at the University of Cincinatti’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. → Read More
If you’ve been looking to slap a little E-Ink on your wrist and didn’t want to go the Phosphor route, Seiko has the watch for you. The Seiko E-Ink watch is essentially a high-tech LCD watch using E-Ink as the display medium, thereby reducing battery drain. → Read More
We all knew this was coming, though whether the first to market would be the frontrunner, E Ink, or one of its competitors, has always been up in the air. Other color e-paper technologies have been bumbling along for years; Fujitsu’s FLEPia jumped the gun on color e-readers way back in 2008, and technologies from Ricoh and Qualcomm might easily have taken the lead.
But for now, it appears E Ink Inc. will maintain their grip on the e-reader market. Their Pearl greyscale displays are in all the major e-reader devices, and chances are that will continue to be the case for some time, as they have introduced a color e-paper display for commercial use well before their competition. → Read More
I’m not a big fan of gimmick watches. While I love that guys like Tokyoflash are pushing design forward when it comes to wrist wear, I worry that much of their work is too esoteric and could alienate some potential watch nerds with their complexity. The biggest problem, I feel, is that on the low end the watch world is separated, like computer RPGs, into two two camps – the Tolkein-esque “fancy watch” (think Fossil watches that look like they’re from the 1930s) and the Final Fantasy-esque “tech watch.” Luckily, the Phosphor E-Ink World Time straddles the line quite nicely and, as a result, will please almost any watch lover. → Read More
Sony joins LG, HP, and… themselves (just noticed that) in the race to put out a decent flexible display. This one, being shown at a dealer convention, is an e-ink based display with a plastic substrate, allowing it to be flexed and possibly rolled. I’m guessing that picture pretty much shows the limit of its flexibility, though. Can’t wait till you can write on one of these, then fold it up and put it in your wallet. So awesome. → Read More
The digital watch is back. Seiko’s new Active Matrix EPD watch will get you excited about non analog quartz timepieces once again. Digital has been here all along you say? Yea, that is true, but no self-respecting watch lover would wear one unless doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, or engaging in some other highly pedestrian activity. Go to any country that is “watch civilized” (sorry fellow Americans, that doesn’t include the US at this point), and wear a digital watch in a business meeting or with a suit. Sure that was OK in the 1980s, but that was 20-30 years ago. This new product from Seiko reintroduces you the hassle free lifestyle of the digital watch in a polished, and highly functional little package. The holy trinity here is a great display, always accurate time, and a battery that does not need changing. Read on for all that it does below. → Read More
We first blogged about it back in April this year, and now it’s here: the world’s first world’s first watch with an active matrix e-ink system. Developed by Seiko, the “Active Matrix EPD” watch [PDF] crams a total of 72,000 pixels into a 2x3cm display. → Read More
If you doubt the efficacy of the new Pearl e-ink displays, take a look at these comparison photos. It looks like a pretty serious difference to me, although we’re still talking dark grey on light grey as opposed to black and white. I didn’t alter the pictures other than cropping them; take this comparison with a grain of salt, as it’s not exactly scientific. → Read More
E-ink, you are everywhere already. But LG wants you even more everywhere. So they’re putting more effort into the production of bigger, better E-paper displays. They’re showing off a couple new models, though nothing radical. Still, a 9.7″ color E-ink display and a gigantic, flexible tabloid-sized one? Sign me up. → Read More
In my hands right now, ladies and gentlemen? The latest version of the Amazon Kindle, known colloquially as the Kindle 3. Here’s what’s what. → Read More
Sony looks set to re-launch its presence in the e-reader space. (Is that an artificial enough sentence for you?) The company, which has clearly mastered PowerPoint, plans to release new e-readers with a new E Ink-developed display. And yes, that display will be a touchscreen display. → Read More
Right now, there is an e-paper display battle. The Kindle currently offers a display from E-Ink, a market leader known for using electrophoretic e-paper. The iPad uses an LED-backlight display soon to be OLED. There is also the new Pixel Qi’s with its amazing transflective LCD that may kill the E-Ink display used in the Kindle. Now next and new to the scene is a display from a company called Nemoptic. → Read More
The real “winner” of the e-book wars is E Ink, the Mass.-based (it was spun off from a project at MIT) company that develops the technology behind the screens of all the top readers, including the Kindle and nook. If you’re holding a Kindle or a nook, congrats, you’re holding the same core technology: E Ink’s display. The company has announced that its next-generation display, named Pearl, will be available in “Q2.” Pretty sure the second quarter of the year ended yesterday, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that the next new version of the Kindle, nook, etc. will use the new display. My bad: the new Kindle DX has the Pearl display. That’s even better news, yes. → Read More
Yeah, “looks promising” doesn’t need a hyphen, but it just felt right. The device in question is a color e-paper tablet from Delta Electronics called the e-Magazine. Not the most creative name, but it gets the point across. It’s 13.1″ diagonally and weighs about 1.6 pounds (730 grams).
The color is low-contrast, unfortunately, but e-paper is a moving target technology-wise, and the next version of this thing will probably be much more vibrant. → Read More
This video shows off EliteGroup’s new e-reader with large E ink display, a Marvell CPU, and 3G, Wi-Fi, and WiMax. It looks like a freaking monster – probably a full 8 1/2 x 11 screen. → Read More
Here’s an interesting little tidbit; Seiko just announced that they are going to producing the world’s first active matrix e-ink timepiece. That’s right, a wristwatch that uses e-reader technology to display the time. Could we be looking at the next LCD display technology? → Read More
