Prototype Rollable Paper-like Display Ready Early

freitasm writes "A few months ago Philips promised a rollable, paper-like display in two years, but it only took them a few months to have a prototype ready. From the article: 'The Readius is the world's first prototype of a functional electronic-document reader that can unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. With four gray levels, the monochrome, 5-inch QVGA (320 pixels x 240 pixels) display provides paper-like viewing with a high contrast ratio. Once the user has finished reading, the display can be rolled back into the pocket-size (100 mm x 60 mm x 20 mm) device.'"

Comments

need higher resolution and more gray level

[yagu]

From the article: With four gray levels, the monochrome, 5-inch QVGA (320 pixels x 240 pixels) display provides paper-like viewing comfort with a high contrast ratio for reading-intensive applications, including text, graphics, and electronic maps.

This is the type of screen resolution for my Digital Reader, the resolution that made me send it back the day I got it. There's nothing paper-like about reading dot-matrix like resolutions. The eye doesn't adapt but instead becomes increasingly fatigued.

This technology may have some application for computer-like applications. I was hoping for e-books. This screen resolution won't cut that....

Re:need higher resolution and more gray level

[mughi]

This is the type of screen resolution for my Digital Reader, the resolution that made me send it back the day I got it. There's nothing paper-like about reading dot-matrix like resolutions. The eye doesn't adapt but instead becomes increasingly fatigued.

This technology may have some application for computer-like applications. I was hoping for e-books. This screen resolution won't cut that....

It all depends on the specifics of the device. I'ved used a Handspring Prism with a resolution of only 160x160 for years for an ebook reader, and it's great. I've gone through quite a few, especially from Baen

It ends up with a column width around that of an article in a newspaper or magazine, and is quite readable. Even when only using a limited number of colors (default fonts are only 1-bit) ti works well. I think much of it is due to having a white background. So the reflective properties and contrast of the display itself could make a huge difference.

Re:need higher resolution and more gray level

[jcl5m]

This comment and the parent comment frustrate me. They are short-sighted criticisms of a fundamentally new technology. I've held samples of this technology in my hand, and its potential is staggering. Sure, the current prototypes are a bit crude in terms of contrast and resolution, but these are engineering issues that will go away with time and more R&D money.

The two key features that make this a revolutionary new display technology is that it is thin and flexible (and can be manufactured and processed as giant sheets) and that it is bi-stable, meaning once you set the image it takes no power to retain that image. These two features are unlike any other display technology we have today, and unltimately will define the applications it is appropriate for. This really does have the potential to radically change periodical print media, personal printing, and poster/billboard advertising.

In the future, I would encourage you to learn a little bit more about a new technology before saying it sucks.

Re:need higher resolution and more gray level

[Afrosheen]

If I were to bet on a winner in the race for flexible displays, I'd put my money on Fujitsu. Just a month or so ago they had an article on their prototype color (!) roll-up display that looked much better. It was also bi-stable. I'll take two when they're ready. :)

Re:need higher resolution and more gray level

[DrKyle]

If you look at this picture the display actually looks quite readable with quite a few lines of text. I imagine in a few years they will double the pixels, increase the contrast and use font smoothing to make it all the better.

And I too have read ebooks on a smaller 320x240 display and found it easy enough to keep using 5 hours+ in a row during reading sessions.

Re:need higher resolution and more gray level

[gabuzo]

Well you're partly right however this is only a consequence on the press release. I'm sorry but 320x200 on a 5 inch screen is really far from "paper-like" viewing. Laser printing got a par with classical printing when it reached 600dpi. So I doubt you can get "paper-like" without at least 300dpi and a really high contrast.

Also interesting for the thin, flexible and "no need to maintain power" part, the displayed prototype on have 80dpi resolution and AFAIK a really poor constrast. So I don't want to bash new technology but the step need to go from the prototype to actual paper-like display if really beyond engineering issues.

Ready for primetime?

[gbulmash]

Cool prototype and proof of concept, but is it ready for primetime with the specs? Four levels of gray are good for text, but poor for B&W photos and certain types of graphs. I'm not trying to denigrate it as an achievement, but as a product... I have some issues with it. Until it can do more shades and possibly a higher resolution, would it be more than a status gadget?

- Greg

Re:Ready for primetime?

[agent0range_]

"Polymer Vision does not intend to commercialize this concept as a product in the market. Instead, it is demonstrating the fitness of its rollable displays for use in future mobile devices."
It's a good start. They said they'd have a prototype in 2 years, it took a few months... but it's nothing more than a proof of concept.

Re:Ready for primetime?

[mabinogi]

Are there really so many people that don't know what a prototype is?

A prototype isn't "Well, it's got a couple of bugs, but otherwise it's ready".

A prototype is "if we cobble together these bits and pieces, you can get a general idea of what it might possibly look like once we've actually developed it"

Re:Ready for primetime?

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

A prototype isn't "Well, it's got a couple of bugs, but otherwise it's ready". That's a product, isn't it?

Oh oh!

[saskboy]

This is going to completely ruin the blonde joke involving computer screens and white out!

Re:Oh oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to completely ruin the blonde joke involving computer screens and white out!

Yeah but it will introduce a new joke about the blonde wiping her ass with her monitor.

Give it some time.

[CyricZ]

There was a time when the best personal computers had screens of that quality. But over time the technology develops, and things will improve. While not perfect, I would hardly suggest that this technology is useless. It is merely a stepping stone to far greater achievements.

Re:Give it some time.

[QuantumG]

Yes, but the difference is that producers of four greyscale monitors actually sold units which gave them money to do development to produce more capable monitors. These guys, on the other hand, are likely going to not bother trying to get sales until they have a 256 greyscale display and then they'll charge too much for it to try to make up their development costs and the technology will fade into obscurity.

Re:Give it some time.

[Com2Kid]

Supply and demand.

Well mostly just that you can sell suckers (most buyers) a low rez 17" LCD screen and they don't know the difference.

Heck look at what prices 15" LCD TVs go for! You can get a 15" LCD Monitor for less.

And a computer with a TV tuner!

Re:Give it some time.

[Threni]

> Possibibly. It's what happens to lots of Philips' ideas.
> CD-I... what?

Yeah, and CDs. CD players are just too expensive. They'll never catch on.

Re:Give it some time.

[Vesperi]

Hey, I used to work for what was left of the CD-i wing of Philips - pmpro. It got spun off and we took all the CD-I hardware and titles still in stock. We we're still doing CD-I title development work up until 2000. At that point times got tough and I had to find other work.

Basicaly DVD functions on normal CD-Rom media.

How tough is it?

[mashade]

This looks like a cool new technology, but how useful can it be? I'm wondering how durable the 'film screen' is. Can I accidentally rip it, pulling it out of a pocket? I'm interested to see prototypes in other such designs, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how useful something like this may be.

Re:How tough is it?

[OzRoy]

From the picture it seems to just give devices the ability to expand the screen out so you can have a very portable device with a large screen.

So think of a mobile phone sized device that can expand out to screen size of a PSP (or something like that). Then give that screen touch pad or stylus abilities, and a powerful CPU and you have an ultimate generic portable PC with game, mp3 and organiser abilities.

Big version of the image in the article...

[mrchaotica]

...here , and other images here.

omg...

[EtherealStrife]

Earth: Final Conflict, anyone?

E:FC MCI "Global"

Yet another case of companies ripping off scifi inventions. The only difference is the EFC ones were badged MCI. And of course, the Philips ones are functional. :)

That having been said, I can't wait to pick one up!

press release from polymervision

[maroonhat]

a press release from the screen's manufacturer can be found here:
http://www.polymervision.com/New-Center/Press-Rele ases/Article-14693.html

This will revolutionize schools

[Crimsane]

Now, instead of finding little jimmy reading a penthouse stuffed in between pages of his math textbook, we will catch him salavating to Debbie Does Dallas.

Now thats progress.

Re:This will revolutionize schools

[CyricZ]

Had Jimmy lived in a society that wasn't so fucking stuck up about the very natural concept of sexual relationships, then he wouldn't have to be whacking his peter to pornography in his arithmetics class.

Re:This will revolutionize schools

[Jeremi]

You'd prefer to live in a society where it's normal for people to whack off in math class?

Better watch where you put your textbooks....

Red Planet

[gkozlyk]

Now all we need is a computer device like the ones they used in the movie 'Red Planet'.

The Ultimate PDA

[KrackHouse]

PDAs leave an unsightly bulge in my pants. If I could install Skype on something like that and use it as a cellphone when rolled up - I'd have everything I'd ever need in a communications device - for reals.

E-Ink

[foniksonik]

Furtherdown in the article it mentions very blithely that the technology powering it comes from none other than E-Ink which explains the quicker than expected turn around. It's Phillips branded and integrated but the tech that makes it work is E-Ink Corp's.

Check out their site to see the roadmap... we should be seeing much improved versions of this gadget very soon.

Re:E-Ink

[Bender_]

It's Phillips branded and integrated but the tech that makes it work is E-Ink Corp's.

That is not true. Each display has a frontplane (the display mechanism) and a backplane (the transistors that control it).

As far as I understand it, only the front plane is by e-Ink. The back plane was apparently entirely developed by polymer vision.

An interesting fact is, that it is based on organic electronics. (check out the tech section). If they manage to bring this display to market, it will probably be the first commercial application of organic electronic.

Re:Looks good...

[Virak]

How about Linux? Now whenever a slashdotter asks, you can truthfully say "Yes, Linux *does* run on my porno mag!".

Buttons on the top

[Dan East]

I read ebooks daily on my 240x320 Pocket PC (I use it landscape for reading at 320x240, just like in the article photo). I seldom hold the device in one hand, as they indicate. The most comfortable method for me, allowing for reading for long periods of time, is to use both hands and "encircle" the device with my fingers. If you touch your index finger-tips together, as well as your thumb-tips, forming a rectangle that would encircle the device, you'll see what I mean.

My Pocket PC (Asus a716) has buttons on the top (when held landscape) that I can push with either index finger.

The main problem I see with this prototype is they force you to hold the device with your left hand in a specific position to operate the buttons. Hopefully an engineer will have the foresight to put multiple sets of page up / down buttons on the device so it can be utilized in different ways.

Dan East

Re:Looks good...

[Anonymous Cowterd]

that would suck. command line on a piece of paper? you would need to plug in your paper keyboard because paper kde would be just awful (not to mention you'd need a paper mouse to do anything useful). also, linux would only be (partially) useful if you plugged your paper computer into a network to download modules and dependancies. like i said, CE would own

Here's a better image

[elronxenu]

Early Prototype - note some burn-in and also edge distortion. I'm looking forward to seeing a more advanced version soon!

Re:Great military potential

[taniwha]

well provided you're trying to hide on a chessboard, or around dice - you might have to wait for them to do color first ....

Nattering Nabobs of Negativity

[Continental]

Christ, if the moon was made of cheese you people would complain that it wasn't Brie de Meaux. This is the first step to e-paper! Any tech that gets us closer to a more interesting future I'm all in favor of. The first car didn't go 120 and have heated seats. The first e-paper won't be hi-def and touch sensitive. Or whatever else you're complaining about.

best use for this:

[OwlofCreamCheese]

wallpaper

Gripe Gripe Gripe

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats with some of you people? You're all technically competent, probably more so than I. Yet when reading your comments, it's clear you're not looking beyond even today. Look at some of these gripes...

"There's nothing paper-like about reading dot-matrix like resolutions."

"this stuff is much greyer than even newsprint. There's a reason real paper is white"

"Cool prototype and proof of concept, but is it ready for primetime with the specs?"

Of course it isn't! Thats why it's a prototype!! It'll get brighter and more... erm... contrastier... and the resolution will increase. It's not like they expect you to buy and use one today.

If they can mass produce it ...

[TeXMaster]

It depends on application. If you had read the article, you'd have seen that they do not intend to market the thing directly, but rather

the Readius was created in order to demonstrate the viability of the rollable-display concept in mobile applications and to gain customer feedback at the IFA 2005.

There are things that could benefit from this kind of advancement, even at the current state of things: GPS devices, for example, and even cell phones: even though these days we're used to colorful thingies which can do everything but guarantee you can make phone calls, there some of us (*raises hand*) which want nothing more than the ability to make phone calls and write and read SMS. The ability to do it on a wider screen extensible on purpose would be an extremely nice thing. Think about a one- or two-lines display that can roll up to enclose an entire SMS or addressbook without the need to scroll.

Another major selling point could be the ability to stay 'on' the whole time while still sucking up less battery. How much battery is sucked up by current displays? After all, there is a reason why all cellphones have screen savers or at least the ability to choose for how long after the key presses the display has to stay bright. Of course you might not be able to use your cellphone or iPod as nightlamp anymore ...

While an extensible, always-on display could be a selling feature of some such portable device (oh yeah, did I mention portable music players?) it would still need to be priced reasonably. In-between the current B&W braindead displays and the current fancy color displays of phone-cams.

Re:If they can mass produce it ...

[JunkmanUK]

That's just nuts. You're disallowing people to demonstrate proof of concepts on the basis that it's not a marketable product? Not only that, but they *have* made a product, albeit a non-commercial one.

There are more reasons to demonstrate this than 'we can sell it'. By doing this they are not only getting feedback from potential customers and hardware developers but also cementing themselves as being one the pioneers of the technology.

If a company designed a new type of PC memory I would imagine they would build a prototype motherboard to demonstrate it to the professional motherboard manufacturers. They may not concern themselves with building the commercial motherboard as it's not in their expertise, rather develop business relations with motherboard manufacturers to allow them to embed it.