Full colour e-papers could hit the streets in 2 years

Whilst first versions of the epaper have been prodiuced to give black and white content, Mike Nelson, general manager of sales for Fujitsu Europe said that full colour epaper is possible in two years.

It makes sense that new technology moves more towards consumer demand – and that appears to be full colour content. Many newspapers are moving towards full colour versions, particularly in the UK.

Nelson spoke to Journalism.co.uk at the conference saying: "All the print media has moved to colour. When you read your newspaper its in colour. I don't believe the industry will accept going back to a black and white format just to embrace the new technology.”

He went on to say: "It's probably two years away before we can get the screen manufacturing technology up to scratch for an A5 or bigger size in colour. That is when we can talk about distributing magazines and so forth on it."

The way to make a success of this market is through a collaboration. It's not just a product market where we make the screens and someone else integrates than and sells them to a third party who distributes media on them."

Much better to have all the elements of that business together from the start to make sure the end product and the end distribution is viable."

Source: Journalism.co.uk

E Ink 2007 Global Mobile Awards winner

BARCELONA (3GSM World Congress) - February 16, 2007 - E Ink Corporation announced today that two products featuring its industry-leading electronic paper display technology received top honors at the GSM Association's 2007 Global Mobile Awards. The awards celebrate the highest achievements in the mobile communications industry. Polymer Vision received the Most Innovative Technology Award for its unique rollable display. Motorola won the Best Ultra Low Cost Handset Award for it MOTOFONE F3 GSM mobile phone.

"These global awards are the latest recognition of the cutting edge products now reaching consumers with E Ink's electronic paper displays," said Russ Wilcox, president and CEO of E Ink. "Our technology is bright, ultra low-power and paper-thin. This is a leap forward for anyone who wants to view information on a portable device."

Polymer Vision was honored for developing a GSM mobile phone with a foldable display, putting a big display into a small handset for the ultimate in convenience. Polymer Vision's displays are powered by E Ink's High Resolution electronic paper displays. The displays are bistable, meaning they only use power when an image is changed, so the Readius device can support the increased display size without sacrificing on long battery life. The foldable design of the Readius was achieved using Polymer Vision's plastic electronics technology and should appeal to both gadget and fashion lovers.

Motorola's MOTOFONE F3 re-establishes expectations over how a value-priced handset looks and feels and what it delivers. The handset's large, high contrast screen, powered by an E Ink Segmented Display is readable in direct sunlight, making it practical to use the phone outdoors. Additionally, the display is plastic, lightweight and ultra-low power, making it ideal for mobile and power sensitive applications by eliminating the weight and breakability of glass used in traditional LCD displays. This is the second award the MOTOFONE has received recently as it was named one of CNET's five coolest things at CES 2007 in January.

E Ink's technology has received many other accolades and awards. E Ink received a "Best of Small Tech Award" from Small Times because it, "successfully ushered the technology out of the lab and into real-world applications." E Ink also received a "Gold Display Component of the Year Award" from the Society for Information Display (SID), "for its substantial innovation in the science and technology of electronic paper display technology."

Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision announce the “CELLULAR-BOOK”

The First mobile device with rollable display for reading personal information, newspapers and books

TELECOM ITALIA through TIM will co-develop and market in Italy the world’s first rollable display enabled personal device for digital content distribution while Polymer Vision will market the device in the rest of the world

Rome - Eindhoven - February 5, 2007 - Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision today announced an agreement which will see the leading operator of the Italian mobile industry and the pioneers of the rollable display industry join to develop and launch the world’s first rollable display enabled mobile device to market in 2007.

The innovative terminal will be presented to the Industry as a world first at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona from February12th (booth in Hall 2, D 06). The device uses the unique Polymer Vision rollable display technology which enables mobile devices to incorporate a display larger than the handset itself and offers a readability similar to printed paper. The product follows up on the rollable display technology based concept device Readius® presented by Polymer Vision less than 18 months ago at the IFA Consumer Electronics Trade Fair in Berlin.

While smaller than a typical mobile phone, the new device features a display which extends up to 5-inches and may simply be stored away after use by folding it, thanks to the flexibility of the polymer based display material. The device features the largest display available in the industry for the same form factor, the 16 grey levels combined with a high contrast and high reflectivity display for paper like reading experience enables comfortable reading, even in bright sunlight. Future developments include colour and moving image capable display.

The rollable display enables reading entire newspapers as well as books that can be delivered and bought through TIM’s mobile network via a regular SIM Card within the device - and then stored in the terminal’s memory which will be extremely large (starting from 4 Gigabytes available in the first models).

Combined with TIM’s mobile services, the device will permit instant access to personalised data, e-mail, news, information feeds and location sensitive maps wherever and whenever. The always-on user experience is made possible through an optimised combination of cellular (EDGE/UMTS) and broadcast (DVB-H IP data-casting) mobile functionalities as well as a mini-USB slot for PC and wired/wireless broadband data connection.

Together with superior text and graphic content, the new device will also download and play music, audiobooks and audio podcasts. Featuring single-handed navigation and control via an innovative touch sensitive LED user interface, as well as intuitively simple software, users will enjoy a new unique experience in managing, accessing relevant and personalized high value content. With the extremely low power consumption of the display, the new device will deliver an exceptional 10 days of average usage time between battery charges.

Telecom Italia will exclusively market the innovative terminal in Italy.

For additional information visit the Polymer Vision website: www.polymervision.com