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Rollable E Ink Displays Get Real
An anonymous reader writes "Two years ago Philips unveiled a prototype of a functional electronic-document reader, called the Readius, which could unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. Unfortunately, that was only a prototype. According to Cnet, however, Polymer Vision, which spun out from Philips in 2006, has redesigned the Readius and turned it into a real product that it is going to be available by the end of this year. There are some notable differences between this Readius and the prototype version, in particular, the ability to display 16 shades of grey instead of just 4 and the connectivity options. What doesn't make sense though, is given the energy efficiency and easy-to-read high contrast functionality of E Ink, why other than Motorola with its Motofone, has no other cell phone manufacturer incorporated E Ink technology into its handsets?"
A friend brought over a non-rollable unit (think tablet) that was loaded up with several books. It uses that E-ink also. I don't recall who makes it, (phillips?) but it was easy to read with just ambient light in the room, and had a backlight for low light use. The screen looked like crisp jet-black typeset ink on a slightly off-white page, it was very easy to read and did not put any strain on the eyes. It did take a second or so to switch pages though which I was not expecting. I don't know if that was a limitation of the device or of the screen, but when it switched it was a snap switch, not where you see the text being drawn vertically.
It wasn't very portable in the modern sense though. This unit was about 5.5" x 8", hardly pocket-size. I don't know how portable they will be able to get these - you can only roll it in one direction, so at best that one would have to be at least 5" in some direction. This screen was perfectly flat of course, and I wonder how much it would mess with your vision to read a page with a curl or warp to it? I know it bugs me to try to read a newspaper if it's not laying flat. I suppose this would be ideal for say, a long plane flight or while waiting for a connecting flight at a gate.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Blerg.
It has indeed been over 2 years since this was announced. I wonder what is going wrong ? Are these displays too expensive ? Too many patents ? Difficulty in designing ? What is going wrong here ?
They're not expensive compared to LCDs, but they're expensive compared to paper. Since e-ink is supposed to make cheap and portable e-books a reality, you need to have an e-book that's cheap enough for consumers to want--the technology isn't well-suited to anything but static text and images, so you can't try to sell an e-book that, for example, also plays video games.
Since more people want to make phone calls than read books, e-books need to be pretty darned cheap to sell well (schools could be a prime market, but they're all broke, too). Personally, I wouldn't buy one until it broke the $99 barrier AND was as small and portable as a paperback book, and they haven't gotten to that point yet.
Grandparent post has a good point. I'll see if I can add to it.
Most cyclists don't have rearview mirrors; they use their ears. They can tell a car is just-behind-and-to-the-left or riding-my-arse by the engine noise. You can hear that fool doing twice the speed limit well before he passes you, assuming you can hear. Now, yes, I agree: every cyclist needs to look around and be aware of the traffic around them, the same as a driver in a car. But would you drive a car with *no* rearview mirrors at all? By shutting off your ears as a cyclist you are doing the same thing.
Yes, I'm a cyclist. I ride in traffic. I don't wear my iPod unless I'm on a separate cycleway/path. I would use a rearview mirror if I could find one that actually works.
The reason none of these rollable devices have been brought to market yet is not the E-ink display, their grey scale display is quite good, and already used in consumer products (the Sony E-reader for example). The problem is the flexible back plane needed to drive the display. Currently, every system demonstrated including the Readius uses organic polymers for the drivers, which have a shelf life of a couple of days if you're lucky. They are incredibly sensitive to moisture, and the only system so far capable of protecting them requires the deposition of many layers of transparent metal oxides, which alone cost somewhere in the range of $60/ square foot. Anytime you see news about a flexible display, look to see if they are using organic drivers, if they are and they don't explicitly address the moisture issue, the product will never reach consumers.