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Electronic Paper Plant to be Built in Germany
Aqua_boy17 writes "BBC News is reporting today that Cambridge based firm PlasticLogic is set to build the world's first manufacturing facility dedicated to producing plastic circuits. In particular the company is focused on developing flexible plastic circuits that cost much less than silicon and would soon enable electronic paper devices that could be used to store large amounts of text and other data. The company has secured $100 million in venture capital and is set to build its first facility in Dresden, Germany. Construction of the facility should be completed by 2008 according to the article. Industry experts expect market demand for this technology to approach $30 billion by the year 2015."
The company has secured $100 million in venture capital and is set to build its first facility in Dresden, Germany
:-)
Yep, looks like a contradiction to me. You're 100% wrong
Recently, I was viewing a TV program reviewing a number of cell phones (which are the current craze in India). And their findings was in terms of cost effectiveness and design, the Motorola MotoFone F3 was their choice. This cellphone is sold for just around $25. And how did they cut the cost so much ?
Enter their unique display which uses Electronic paper which is developed by the US based E-Link. This cell phone doesn't need power to constantly display an image on the screen. It only needs a little charge when the text (or whatever) needs to be changed. The display stays on even when the battery is pulled out! And more over it is a beautiful phone sleek and thin.
I believe more and more gadgets are going to be manufactured using this new technology. Sony has already released its e-book reader which has the same effects of reading a real book. So PlasticLogic the company is on to a good thing.
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As the owner of one I really couldn't be happier with the device itself(the software that came with it is another story). I recently did a trans-atlantic flight and the device was a hell of a lot easier to take with me than even one book, let alone 2 or 3. Sharp display, and very readable text.
Sony's software sucks, but there are plenty of ways to get around having to use it, and they REALLY need more books in their bookstore. BTW, it costs $350USD.
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Electronic paper is a display device, not storage.
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I, too, have one of the new Sony e-book readers (QReader) and I can say the screen is simply outstanding for book reading. The screen is as easy on the eyes as reading on regular paper. It is a vast improvement over the PDAs I've used in the past for e-book reading.
Due to the backlight, I've found that using a PDA for e-book reading becomes hard on the eyes after several minutes, plus the size of the screen is a disadvantage when reading e-books. Besides the screen quality of the QReader, another advantage is that the screen is larger than a standard-paperback-book page, allowing you to put a large amount of text on a single screen.
Although the $350 price tag seems a bit high, it is the same price range as some PDAs, and some Compressed Digital Audio players like the iPod. Two of the less-noticed features of the Sony QReader is that it can also display pictures and play MP3 and AAC files (I think by AAC files it means AAC files without the Apple DRM attached). I think that, like with the iPod, more players will appear and the price will drop in time.
The battery life on the device is terrific. I've been using mine every day for about two months and I've only had to charge it (meaning the battery was near empty) one time. Often, the charge the device receives when connected to the computer gives you a day or two of use. I've found that the battery life is so long that I don't worry about leaving the device on by mistake since it will turn it will automatically turn itself off after an hour.
I agree that the desktop software and the QReader could use improvement (such as the an automatic method of syncing between the computer and the reader, and the ability to use playlists when playing MP3 files) but it is functional and fairly easy to use, it just requires you to manually move the files from the computer to the reader. But this is the first version of both the reader and the software and I'm sure that it will be improved in future versions.
One of the best features of the reader, and the reason that I bought one, is that I can put my own content (such as my address book) on the reader: I'm not limited to what I purchase from the Sony Connect Store. In addition to the Sony e-book format it supports the following formats: PDF, text, and RTF. One of the problems I've had with e-book readers in the past is that the displayed formatting tends to be unpredictable (such as a blank line between the paragraphs in the source document disappearing when displayed on the reader). With the Sony QReader, the standard formatting of my documents (such as bold, underline, line spacing, indents) is predictablity rendered on my reader.
Returning to my original point, I've been very pleased with the QReader. It was good buy for me. Thanks for reading.
Electronic paper is not made of paper. It's a marketing term for flexible displays made from charged two-colour particles that can be realigned. Electronic paper is infact (confusingly for you) made from plastic. So there is no contridiction in the title, it is an electronic plastic plant that will be used to make "electronic paper".
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What the summary is missing is that the polymer electronics built in this factory will be laminated to electrophoretic imaging materials made by E Ink Corporation to form flexible electronic paper displays. Thus, the final output of the factory will indeed be electronic paper.