Showing posts with label e-paper. Show all posts

2011-05-06

PaperPhone a Thin Film Smartphone and Interactive Paper Computer

Thin-film flexible 'Paperphone' created

Researchers from the Human Media Lab at Canada's Queen's University have created a fully-functioning floppy E-Ink smartphone, which they also refer to as a paper computer. Like its thicker, rigid-bodied counterparts, the Paperphone can do things like making and receiving calls, storing e-books, and playing music. Unlike them, however, it conforms to the shape of its user's pocket or purse, and can even be operated through bending actions.

Collected from: Thin-film flexible 'Paperphone' created

Press Release: Revolutionary new paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets | Human Media Lab :: Queen's University

The smartphone prototype, called PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone – it does everything a smartphone does, like store books, play music or make phone calls. But its display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display. The flexible form of the display makes it much more portable that any current mobile computer: it will shape with your pocket.

Collected from: Press Release: Revolutionary new paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets | Human Media Lab :: Queen's University

YouTube - Paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets

PaperPhone is the world's first nextgen, thin film smartphone and interactive paper computer. It is based on a 3.7" flexible electrophoretic (E Ink) display that does not consume electricity when it is not refreshed. Thinfilm sensors allow the phone to respond to bending of the screen to navigate pages in ebooks, play or pause mp3s, make phone calls, or navigate apps. A flexible wacom tablet allows users to draw on the screen with a pen as if it were a sheet of paper.

Collected from: YouTube - Paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets

'Paper iPhone' could be next mobile revolution - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com

The new bendy computer is made of two layers: the e-ink display and a flexible printed circuit with five bend sensors.

"We have software that collects the values given by the bend sensors (location and direction) and then we convert that into gestures," Girouard told InnovationNewsDaily.

These gestures are then fed into a gesture-recognition engine trained to associate certain movements with certain instructions. For example, bending the bottom corner of the display down will move one contact down when navigating through a contact list.

[...]

The PaperPhone uses the same glare-free screen technology found in the Kindle, but it feels a little more like paper.

"Paper is basically what the Kindle is trying to replace, but paper is flexible," Girouard said.

Just like you would turn pages in a paper book, you can also turn pages on the PaperPhone, by bending the top corner toward you.

Collected from: 'Paper iPhone' could be next mobile revolution - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com

Related

2010-11-30

Disposable e-Readers with Paper-based Electrowetting Display

Making Disposable Dynamic Displays With Electronic Ink on Real Paper | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Engineers at the University of Cincinnati have shown that under the right conditions, ordinary paper can be as dynamic as any screen.

“Nothing looks better than paper for reading,” says research leader Andrew Steckl. “We hope to have something that would actually look like paper but behave like a computer monitor in terms of its ability to store information. We would have something that is very cheap, very fast, full-color and at the end of the day or the end of the week, you could pitch it into the trash.”

Collected from: Making Disposable Dynamic Displays With Electronic Ink on Real Paper | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

UC Breakthrough May Lead to Disposable e-Readers

Andrew Steckl is an Ohio Eminent Scholar at UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science. His latest research involves advances in display technology that achieves electrowetting on paper as opposed to glass.

... Importantly, they found that the performance of the electrowetting device on paper is equivalent to that of glass, which is the gold standard in the field.

“It is pretty exciting," said Steckl. “With the right paper, the right process and the right device fabrication technique, you can get results that are as good as you would get on glass, and our results are good enough for a video-style e-reader.”

Steckl imagines a future device that is rollable, feels like paper yet delivers books, news and even high-resolution color video in bright-light conditions.

Andrew Steckl's research is featured on the cover of the November issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is the world's largest scientific society.

Collected from: UC Breakthrough May Lead to Disposable e-Readers<br>

Electrowetting on Paper for Electronic Paper Display

Duk Young Kim and Andrew J. Steckl*

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2010, 2 (11), pp 3318–3323

DOI: 10.1021/am100757g

Publication Date (Web): October 25, 2010

The use of paper as a material for various device applications (such as microfluidics and energy storage) is very attractive given its flexibility, versatility, and low cost. Here we demonstrate that electrowetting (EW) devices can be readily fabricated on paper substrates. Several categories of paper have been investigated for this purpose, with the surface coating, roughness, thickness, and water uptake, among the most important properties. [...]

Collected from: Electrowetting on Paper for Electronic Paper Display - ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (ACS Publications)

Sources: Making Disposable Dynamic Displays With Electronic Ink on Real Paper | Gadget Lab | Wired.com; UC Breakthrough May Lead to Disposable e-Readers; Electrowetting on Paper for Electronic Paper Display - ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (ACS Publications)

Related: Are Disposable eReaders In Our Future? : TreeHugger; FoxNews.com - Tech Breakthrough Could Mean Disposable E-Readers; Breakthrough may lead to disposable e-Readers fast enough for video; UC breakthrough may lead to disposable e-Readers; Breakthrough could lead to disposable e-readers; New electrowetting technique could do e-paper on real paper, lead to disposable Kindles -- Engadget; Nanoelectronics Laboratory; Access : Video-speed electronic paper based on electrowetting : Nature

2009-11-02

Liquavista's Color, Video E-Paper

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clipped from www.popsci.com

Liquavista's E-Paper Plays Full-Color Movies

E-readers such as Amazon's Kindle DX, Sony's Daily Edition, and Barnes & Noble's multi-touch hybrid might want to start trembling. A new e-paper from Liquivista promises to allow video-playing and digital note-taking on a multi-touch, color screen.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Liquavista October 2009

clipped from www.liquavista.com

Liquavista participates in £12 million project to create next generation flexible, full colour, video displays enabled by UK Technology Strategy Board grant

In the future, electronic readers using Liquavista technology will support full color and video on devices that are as readable and portable as paper.

clipped from www.liquavista.com

Electrowetting Benefits

Liquavista’s technology is unique in offering significant improvement over LCD in all the important areas while exploiting the existing infrastructure. The strong process compatibility to LCD offers a compelling route to manufacturing to existing LCD makers, with a very low investment barrier.

Key Areas

All modes of operation: transmissive,
reflective and transflective

Indoor/Outdoor Usability

Video and Color

Power Savings

Manufacturing compatibility

Sources:

Bridgestone Color E-Paper

clipped from techon.nikkeibp.co.jp

Bridgestone Corp announced an electronic paper (e-paper) device based on its "Quick-response Liquid Powder" Oct 26, 2009.

The company expects that the device will be used for browsing electronic books and electronic data. It will be tested with the assistance system for liaison officers at Kansai Urban Banking Corp from the spring of 2010.

clipped from techon.nikkeibp.co.jp

Bridgestone's new e-paper device

clipped from creativezone.eyeblaster.com

Full-colour, flexible e-Paper is finally here

According to ePaperCentral, “unlike other e-paper devices like the Kindle and Sony’s 505/700, the Bridgestone model does not use E Ink based technologies. Instead, it uses a powerful technology built in house that could completely revolutionize e-paper called QR-LPD.”

Bridgestone QR-LPD Color E-Paper Demonstration

Bridgestone Color E-Paper Featured on a Japanese Show

clipped from www.epapercentral.com

The Technology

The technology behind the screen itself is based on Bridgestone’s own QR-LPD electronic powder, which provides the quick rendering of black and white images that are as clear and paper-like as E Ink’s technology, and uses about the same battery life. Color is provided by a series of filters that go over each individual pixel that create the impression of a high definition, true color display.

The touch screen surface is provided by a WACOM tablet, much like the touch screen surface used in Sony’s PRS 700 and the IRex Iliad. As you can see in the example videos, the touch screen updates really quickly, but the actual full display refresh can be very slow. Depending on the model and the image displayed, the full screen refresh can be anywhere from .8 seconds to a full 15 seconds.

Sources:

Philips Color E-Paper for iRex Readers

Clipped from: Technology Review: Color E-Paper That Rivals the Real Thing

Color E-Paper That Rivals the Real Thing

Turning pixels on their side may finally mean high-quality color electronic paper.

Despite Amazon's promise to reinvent the newspaper and magazine industry with its new, large-screen Kindle DX electronic reader, some people may be reluctant to embrace the technology until full-color displays are possible. A new approach developed by Philips now offers fresh hope for color e-paper displays that are so bright and clear that even traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) will pale in comparison.

According to Kars-Michiel Lenssen, who headed the work at Philips Research, based in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, the new approach has the potential to create color images that are three times brighter than displays that use color filters, including LCDs. "This is the closest an electronic-paper technology ever got to printed paper," he says.

Clipped from: Bringing the newspaper medium into the digital age - Philips Applied Technologies

Bringing the newspaper medium into the digital age

Although all modern newspapers are available on-line, the paper copy that can be tucked under the arm and read virtually anywhere still holds a lot of attractions. Recognizing this fact, Philips Applied Technologies took a completely new look at the newspaper medium and how we use it. This led to the development of the E-reader for iRex Technologies. The E-reader is a true digital replacement for the paper newspaper offering all the convenience of this classical news medium and a lot else besides.

Clipped from: iRex Technologies

iRex Developing High Quality Full Color Digital Readers

Eindhoven, 2 June 2009 ‐ The world’s leading provider of e‐reading solutions, Netherlands-based iRex Technologies announced new progress on development of a next generation of color, writable, ultra-thin digital readers expected to launch mid 2011. This news reaffirms and substantiates iRex’s position as a leading innovator in the digital reading market following their 2008 launch of the iRex DR1000. Leading the way for others, the DR1000 was the first commercially available ‘writable’ digital reader with a 10.2 inch screen.

Press Release (PDF)

Sources:
Technology Review: Color E-Paper That Rivals the Real Thing
Bringing the newspaper medium into the digital age - Philips Applied Technologies
iRex Technologies
iRex Technologies
Related:
Philips Research - Homepage
iRex Technologies

2009-03-18

Fujitsu's FLEPia Colour eBook Reader

clipped from news.digitaltrends.com

Fujitsu subsidiary Fujitsu Fronttech has introduced the FLEPia (Japanese), which the company is touting as the "first color e-paper mobile terminal"—that's what most consumers would describe as a color ebook reader.

clipped from www.frontech.fujitsu.com

clipped from www.electricpig.co.uk

Fujitsu FLEPia colour eBook now on sale!

Inside the Fujitsu FLEPia there’s Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB and SD card slots and a battery good for 40 hours of reading time. And that gorgeous screen on the Fujitsu FLEPia is an 8 inch 1024×768 touchscreen job, so there’s no need for a keyboard like the Kindle and Kindle 2.

The Fujitsu FLEPia begins shipping April 20, but it’s up for pre-order on Fujitsu’s Japanese site right now for the sit-down-first sum of £725. If you stump up for one, be sure to let us know how you find it: this has got to be the way forward for glossy print magazines.

clipped from www.fastcompany.com

Fujitsu's FLEPia Color E-Book Now Official, Slow and Expensive

Waiting nearly two seconds for the FLEPia to change its display is almost certainly going to get tiresome.