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Flexible Electronic Paper

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the roll-up-your-laptop-and-put-it-in-your-pocket dept.

shri writes "E Ink has just announced a breakthrough in flexible electronic paper displays. The new display which has a 100DPI resolution and is only 300 microns thick has the potential of truely changing the way we read our information."

14 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. FAX resolution by acariquara · · Score: 2, Informative

    100dpi = FAX resolution (low-quality)

    144dpi = dot matrix

    This technology will have to get a little better if it ever goes widespread.

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    1. Re:FAX resolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Considering that most of us are staring at a 96 DPI screen at the moment, I'd say that 100 DPI is pretty darn good for a digital screen. It's still behind paper, but not by too much. 150 DPI is excellent quality. Anything over that only increases sharpness and fidelity.

      144dpi = dot matrix

      This is somewhat misleading. Many dot matrix printers weren't able to produce dots without gaps, giving the paper a ridged appearance. As long as the pixels are flush on this display, you shouldn't have any problems.

    2. Re:FAX resolution by MaceyHW · · Score: 2, Informative

      The fact that people have faxed important documents around for years (and still do) is proof that it's an acceptable resolution for a lot of activities. Fax resolution would be fine for ebooks, for example.

    3. Re:FAX resolution by ucblockhead · · Score: 2, Informative

      100 dpi is about what current LCD monitors run. To get a monitor that does 1600x1200, you generally need to by a 20" monitor. Such a monitor has a screen that is 16" by 12".

      Higher end LCDs do better, but these are generally only available on laptops.

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    4. Re:FAX resolution by Red+Flayer · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your point is still valid, though, since 24-pin NLQ printers took over for the 9-pin printers until thermal printers really hit their stride. 24-pin dot-matrix impact printers (supposedly) had 360 x 360 dpi resolution, although the fonts were only 360 x 180 at best. Still far higher than 100 dpi, though.

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    5. Re:FAX resolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually, his sample is a crappy scan, not a representative sample. Note the dust showing up in spaces that should be empty, and the bumpiness around the letters. This is caused by the scanner picking up things that aren't actually visible. A 4 color greyscale picture shown on a 100 DPI display would look far better than that. Find a 300x300 GreyScale Palm Pilot sometime and look at the picture. You should find it to be more than acceptable.

      BTW, here's a far better 4 color 100DPI scan: http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/exhibits/riverplate/im ages/08-gauchos/1960_Elflein.txt4.100.jpg

    6. Re:FAX resolution by trb · · Score: 2, Informative
      This is fair comparison.

      That's not a fair comparison at all. Here is a gray scale 16-level version of the original image. To change topics, here's what I found strange about the article: They say:

      The contrast ratio is at a low 10:1 and the display can show 4 levels of grey. While this seems low, it is more than adequate for reading in well lighted conditions. Keep in mind that most printed books are at 2 levels (black and white).

      The point about books being printed in 2 levels is silly, because they are printed at very high resolution (at least 2400 dpi instead of 100dpi, and you square that because it's a 2D surface, so it's a difference between 5760000 dots per in^2 vs 10000 dpi^2, or 576 times as many dots on the same size screen.

      They also say ...keep in mind that thin materials can warp and melt quickly. Well, it's a flexible display. It's supposed to bend. Or when they say warp, are they talking about stretching?

      The technology does sound promising, but this article seems to be written by a spin doctor.

    7. Re:FAX resolution by trb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oops. I read 4-level image as 4-bit (16 level) image. The exmaple was still not fair, here's a 4-level gray image. Not as good as 16-level, but better than acariquara's image.

    8. Re:FAX resolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I think you are confusing DPI for LPI. In printing 150 DPI is very low however 150 LPI is what you find in quality art books. Newsprint is typially 65 LPI because higher would bleed causing dark and muddy pictures. LPI refers to the line screen used to optically convert pictures to spots of dark and light. These spots vary in size so it's difficult to create a conversion to DPI.

  2. FYI by Gruneun · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can order a prototype kit, including Linux on a Gumstix, through the E-Ink website. Provided, you've got a spare $3,000 lying around.

    If you have a spare $6,000, let me know. I'd love to try it out, too.

  3. Re:Needs battery all the time ? by SimilarityEngine · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to this page, the paper retains the image when the power is removed. Even more info here (PDF).

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  4. Re:04/06? Uses? by BarryNorton · · Score: 2, Informative
    but we're still far from a viable product
    No we're not - even before this improvement, the eInk technology is sucessfully deployed in the Sony Librie, a damned fine product (whose impact was only held back by initial DRM lock-in under bad terms, and a Japan/Japanese-only roll-out)
  5. Press releases by Peregr1n · · Score: 5, Informative

    The only new thing about today's press release is that it's bigger than before and higher resolution. But yesterday they announced a colour version, which is a bit more newsworthy.

  6. Re:what's the vapor-equivalent of hardware? by mcaycedo · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know of three: Sony Librie: 1st attemp, not bad, but so DRM riddled that's unusable. You didn't purchase a book. You rented for 3 months, and the cost is similar to death tree A prototype made by e-ink engineers. I don't have a link, but It was in /. not so long ago http://www.jinke.com.cn/english/index.asp. Very similar to Librie, but, run on linux and has an aditional LCD display for commands (e-ink is loooooow)