E-Ink-info - Page 6

2012 is soon over, now's the time to reflect back... here are the top 10 stories posted on E-Ink-Info in the past year, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. The new Kindle Paperwhite uses an enhanced Pearl E Ink panel (Sep 9)
2. Wexler's Flex One flexible/bendable e-reader now shipping, on video (Jun 7)
3. LG Display starts producing 6" plastic based E Ink panels (Mar 29)
4. E Ink - not ramping Triton displays, expects next-gen flexible and color e-paper products in 2012 (Feb 23)
5. E Ink shows a prototype LCD/E Ink phone, says to expect such a device in 2013 (Sep 2)
6. Ynvisible's electrochromics transparent flexible display hands on review (Aug 10)
7. Samsung to start mass producing Electrowetting panels in 2013? (Mar 22)
8. E Ink shipping Triton (color) panels to Amazon? (Feb 20)
9. Coop Denmark to launch ZBD's Bistable LCD e-paper shelf labels (Jan 5)
10. Bridgestone to withdraw from the e-paper business (May 15)

Here's for an awesome 2013. May you all enjoy the holidays!

Our E Ink Persistency contest is over, and we selected the two winning ideas:

• Business cards ("no need to print new ones and throw hundreds of old ones away, when your email-address changes")
• Menus in restaurants (many people suggested this, so the winner will be the first one who did).

There were lot's of other good ideas. Some others that we really liked were the recyclable/re-usable labels for clothes / consumer goods, the free design game table, road signs and public transport timetables. There were some great ideas in there that sadly are not practical due to E Ink limitations - the screens are monochrome and cannot be made large enough for some applications. Maybe in the future!

Update: the contest is over, we have two winners with two great ideas!

Last week we posted about E Ink display persistency - and the fact that those displays can actually retain an image for years. Now it's your turn to try and think of applications for this feature. Besides making some nice B&W photo frames - what cool things can be done with a display that can stay persistent for such long times without a power source? For example gadgets that only need to change the display once a day...

Back in August 2011 E Ink sent me a nice gift - a picture frame with an E Ink "display". It's not really a display as you can't change the image - it's just like a printed photo, using a monochrome E Ink panel. Now it's been over a year since I received the frame, and when I look at it seems the image hasn't changed at all. We all know that E Ink displays are bi-stable - they do not require any energy to show a static display (the picture the frame has no batteries, of course) - but the displays are actually persistent for years.

E Ink says that if the display if sealed and protected properly - it simply will not deteriorate, unless exposed to extreme temperature (a strong magnetic or electric field should not effect the display). In fact, E Ink says that they have a display that was turned off in 2001 - and the image is still visible.

E-Ink-Info is a leading e-paper focused site - targeting both consumers and industry professionals. Our site is read by over 5,000 monthly readers - people who want to learn more about e-paper technologies, the market and the industry.

Our site represents a great opportunity to expose your product to potential e-paper customers, exactly when they look for more information and options before they decide on which projector to buy. If you want to expose your solution or technology for this fast-paced industry, our site is also an excellent choice - not many publications are focused on e-paper technologies! We offer several ad options, and we'll be happy to extend a special discount till the end of 2012 - if you order a thee-months campaign, we'll give you one month free. When ordering a six month campaign we'll give you two :-)

Here's a summary of my visit to E Ink's booth at SID 2012. E Ink had a very large booth, showing dozens of E-readers and other devices that sport E Ink panels. Lot's of these used Ink-In-Motion, E Ink's segmented displays (rather then the active-matrix ones used in e-readers for example).

The largest display at the booth, and one of the most interesting ones was the hybrid EPD/LED traffic light concept. It uses a large circular e-paper panel, color filters and LEDs (in an outer ring). The hybrid traffic light provides higher visibility in direct sunlight than regular traffic lights (who need to "overpower" the sunlight). E Ink's concept uses 24 LEDs vs 200 in a regular traffic light. Great idea. Just below the traffic light E Ink built a small E Ink crosswalk - showing a nice usage of rugged shatterproof panels.

Update: The giveaway rules have changed a bit - in addition to liking the OLED-Info page, you'll need to like the giveaway post on facebook as well... The random winner will be chosen from all the people who like the post and are an OLED-Info fan as well. Good luck!

Our sister-site OLED-Info is running an holiday giveaway - with a chance to win a free copy of The OLED Handbook, and two phosphor world-time E Ink watches (which were kindly provided by E Ink). These three cool prizes will be randomly given to three lucky fans of OLED-Info's facebook page on January 1st. To participate, click like on the OLED-Info page, and also like the giveaway post.

The Phosphor world-time E Ink watch has a SURF (segmented) E Ink display that offers 24 time zones and several displays modes. It's a large watch, and it takes some time to get used to, but it looks good and draws a lot of attention... Here's our hands review of this watch. This watch costs $125 at Amazon.com (although it's currently out-of-stock).

We're proud to announce our first Kindle game software: Nonograms. Nonograms (also known as Griddlers or Paint By Numbers) are simple yet challenging Japanese logic puzzle games in which your goal is to uncover the hidden black and white picture. Download this exciting game now for $2.99! If you like SuDoKu puzzles, you'll surely love Nonograms.

The puzzles contain a grid with number clues on the sides that help to reveal the hidden picture. The numbers measure how many blocks of black square there are in any given row and column, and the size of these blocks.

Phosphor has released a new E Ink watch - the World Time Curved, and we got one to review. The watch has got a "surf" (segmented) E Ink display that offers 24 time zones, several displays zones. The display is very similar to Phosphor's Digital-Hour watches (here's our review of those) - in fact E Ink tells us it's pretty much the same display. The new watch is thinner, though, at 9.3mm (you hardly notice this, to be fair).

The watch costs $150 and is now shipping from Phosphor's own shop (hopefully it'll arrive in Amazon.com soon as well). The Digital Hour watch is still available for 195$ - so the new watch is actually quite cheaper.

E-Ink-Info was upgraded today (if anyone is interested, we upgraded to Drupal 6.x from 5.8). Most of the changes are infrastructure related so you won't notice much, but hopefully the site should be faster now, more stable and more secure.
If you do find any bugs, glitches or you have any comments, please let us know!