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."

Comments

e-book vs dead-tree formats

[Mogster]

I know a few people, myself included who dislike reading e-books due to the nature of the screen. Also it's not easy to curl up with a good e-book on a computer (laptops are too bulky and pocket pc screens are too small)

If this works and can link with eInk screens to create an easily held, clearly visible book format then I'd be happy to switch away from the dead-tree format.

And we'd save a few trees along the way

And who else is based in Dresden?

[Flying pig]

AMD, that's who. Apart from the obvious concentration of necessary skills in the area, what a good idea to start up right next to a large semi company that is expanding its product spectrum.

Cambridge, Mass. and Cambridge, East Anglia. There must be something about those freezing cold winters that encourages people to stay indoors and invent things.

Re:Interesting but...

[rolfwind]

I assume you mean the plastic used to build e-readers.

But imagine if e-readers take over. Less newspapers and books. Less logging and distribution of paper products - daily newspapers and magazines. Shipments from Amazon.com. Less factories set to refine paper and recycle it (our biggest export to China is used paper so they can print their newspapers). Less printers to print crap. Less storage cabinets to store paperwork. Less oil and other materials used all around.

I also imagine companies like Amazon.com should be eager to get on the ebook boat early on - they rather missed the chance to have an iTunes like store even though they sell CDs. The writing is on the wall for companies whose business model revolves soley around shipping data on a physical medium - like Netflix. They'll be viable for another 15 years no doubt - but after that, if they haven't set themselves up as the goto place for electronic distribution of the same products early on, they'll won't survive IMO.

ObGodwin

[dgm3574]

But will this new electronic paper combust at 451F like the old stuff? Or will the thought police simply be able to turn off electronic paper which displays ideas they don't like? ;-)

Re:Kinda dumb

[Idbar]

There are still people like me that still found unpleasant reading articles or books from pdf files on your LCD (or anything with light on the back). What they propose is a display that looks like paper. I was recently in a seminar from e-link and I found it really nice.

Try look for the Sony Reader. They are recently going with color screens that look amazing as portraits and the power consumption is really low.

Re:Kinda dumb

[ILuvRamen]

electronic circuits (without LEDs) don't work as displays, displays like plasmas, LCDs, and CRTs work as displays. And it specifically says "electronic paper devices that could be used to store large amounts of text and other data" so like I said, they can't seem to decide what it does...but it's gonna be big! lol