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Bridgestone Shows Off Ultra-Thin, Full-Color e-Paper

Bridgestone, the company which debuted the "world's thinnest" sheet of two-color e-paper last year, has turned around and delivered a new version which is capable of displaying over four thousand colors. "In case that wasn't enough, the company is also touting what it calls the "world's largest full color e-paper that is A3 size, which is equivalent to a 21.4-inch screen." As you'd expect, the latter is expected to be used solely for advertising and could hit the market as early as next year, while the former technology is set to be commercially available in 2009."

13 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Don't make them too thin... by hack++slash · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Now is everyone ready for 'digital paper' "DRM" ???"

    "This message will self erase in 5 seconds"

    --
    To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
  2. Slightly better picture by pavon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, the e-paper he is holding in that picture has a full 4,096 shades of brown. Perfect for Doom!

    Seriously, Here is an article with a better picture. Still not much contrast, but getting better.

    1. Re:Slightly better picture by matlhDam · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wow, the e-paper he is holding in that picture has a full 4,096 shades of brown. Perfect for Doom!

      "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Steve?"
      "Order the entire production run for our next Zune model! And bring me more chairs!"
  3. Now about distortion... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...can you bend the critter (or at least build it as a wrap-around type screen), without optical distortion (or at least some sort of compensation against it by a GPU)? It would add one hell of a dimension to gaming, simulators, immersion-type entertainment, things like that.

    I realize it's probably possible to do when building it, but it takes a pretty (relatively) hefty chunk of time to do anisotropic conversions of flat images (e.g. when creating image-based lighting maps for CG artwork raytracing and such), but if that could be fixed, a semi-spherical screen with the focal point being a person's head would be hella nice.

    (of course, they'd still have to add about 15.9-something million colors in capability and perhaps a tighter resolution to it as well, but still... looks like it could go to some interesting places if they actually get it working).

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  4. Bridgestone, huh? by Trogre · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not meaning to tread on their parade, but won't these people ever get tyred of re-inventing the wheel?

    *rimshot*

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  5. Re:Two Words: Refresh Rates by pavon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would love to have an A3-sized e-reader for schematics. Having the ability to search my documents (where is R217?) without having to deal with the cumbersome laptops with small displays, would be great. I imagine a scroll with the batteries and processor in the center, or a folding book. Either way you would have the option of using it in A3 or A4 size depending on what you need to do. It wouldn't need a huge amount of memory, especially if it had WiFi. It wouldn't need a high a refresh rate or many colors - I could get by with monochrome, 16 colors would be nice, 256 would be exorbitant. Just high resolution PDF view and file browser and I'd be happy. Bonus points for excel documents.

  6. Re:Plugging the analog hole by TrnsltLife · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought you were going to say: Poke out people's eyes and make them install DRMed optic sensors. The Microsoft version would be ViziOrbs - Human Light Interface. And the Apple ones would be iBalls.

  7. programmable clothes are coming! by victorvodka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Make clothing from this material and see what it does to fashion! I'm a tech guy and shouldn't be allowing my brain to go here, but imagine: as with your dumb-ass you-paid-$2.99-for-what? ringtones, you'll be able to download patterns for your shirts, slacks and skirts! Hooked up to your cameraphone, hell, you could even be invisible!

    --

    The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg

  8. Re:Finally... by Z34107 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone thought of the trees!

    ...and replaced them with horrible, toxic, non-renewable phosphorescent chemicals and heavy metals!

    --
    DATABASE WOW WOW
  9. So... Dither by DumbSwede · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So many comments about the small color range, but really this isn't a problem if the dot pitch is small enough. Printed paper only has 8 colors (16 if you include black in CMYB). Back in the day with only 4-16 colors we dithered to get a better range of colors, the look was similar to old comic books and for much the same reason. With 4096 colors to choose from dithering is very subtle and hard to notice. My 1998 laptop monitor only had 4096 colors, but dithering made it look fine. It's unclear to me whether most LCDs even today have full true 24 bit color.

  10. Re:Two Words: Refresh Rates by jimmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I like where you're going with this. A dual A3/A4 device would be incredibly useful in workplace, where most stuff is printed in A4 but you often need to go to A3 for diagrams (especially Gantt charts).

    The beauty of ISO standard paper sizes is that each in the series is exactly half the size of the next largest - i.e. the long edge of A4 is the same length as the short edge of A3. Therefore, if you want an A4 display you unroll your scroll half way. If you want an A3 display then you unroll it all the way.

  11. Re:Plugging the analog hole by brusk · · Score: 4, Funny

    REAL geeks use BSD (Bispherical Seeing Device).

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    .sig withheld by request
  12. Re:Two Words: Refresh Rates by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, but just watch out for the older engineer with his red pencil.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.