E-readers - Page 8

Sri Peruvemba from E Ink has talked to PC Magazine, and he gives some very interesting information. He expects color E Ink to arrive soon, and devices based on this technology would ship in the beginning of 2011. This color will be more like the color you would see in a newspaper, and not like an LCD display. We can expect more on this from E Ink at the SID show in May.

Sri also reveals that they are working on much-faster E Ink displays, but it can take around 2-3 years for such technology to show up in shipping products...

LiquaVista and TI are showing a new color e-reader demo. This prototype will soon be available as a system developer kit. Last month both companies announced the collaboration to support Liquavista's monochrome and color displays on TI's OMAP platform, it's good to see them move so fast.

Update: Liquavista are also working with Freescale and is showing a prototype based on the iMX5x platform. This one will also be offered as a system dev-kit soon:

Bookeen are a France-based e-reader maker, that currently offer two models that use E Ink displays (the Cybook Gen3, available now for 350$, and the Opus, available now for 215$). They are set to release a new one, the Orizon, which uses Sipix e-paper instead. We have posted an interview with their CEO over at E-Reader-Info, discussing this, and other e-reader issues. If you don't want to read the whole interview, here's the 3 reasons why they moved to Sipix:

1. AUO (Sipix) touchscreen is light year away from Sony resistive technology. You keep the optical quality of ePaper and you get an incredibly reactive touchscreen. For us touchscreen on such a large display is a must-have.
2. AUO has great developments and move incredibly fast.
3. They did not want to depend only on one screen manufacturer (PVI).

PVI will triple its E Ink film and back-end modules capacity by the end of 2010 (in a $1.5 million investment). Their chairman says that global e-reader sales may exceed 10 million in 2010. Over 50 new vendors are expected to launch e-readers this year.

IntertechPira and +plasticElectronics have announced an upcoming webinar (18 of February) called "e-readers and e-paper: technology and applications" that will discuss the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market. The webinar will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI).

The webinar will provide an overview of e-readers to date, technology advances in three key areas: flexibility, color and video and will also discuss future applications for e-paper displays.

It seems that Bridestone's e-paper technologies are finally coming to the market: Taiwan's Delta plans to launch 2 e-readers with their e-paper displays in 2Q 2010. One will have a 13.1" color display, the other 8.1" monochrome. Both will be touch enabled.

Tianjin Jinke announced 3 new e-readers today. Two of them use SiPix's e-paper technology, with 6" and 9" displays. These are the first e-readers announced that use SiPix's displays.

The third e-reader (the V30+) uses an E Ink display.

Skiff (owned by Hearst corporation) has announced their Skiff e-reader. It has the largest display of all current e-readers at 11.5". It's actually a flexible E Ink touchscreen, with a 1200x1600 pixel resolution.

The display is a rugged metal-foil on a flexible stainless-steel substrate. It is made by LG Display (who licensed E Ink just a few days ago). Skiff say that it's shatter-proof and crack-proof.

Apple are working on a tablet computer - this rumor has been around for ages. Now there are new rumors that the new gadget will primarily be an e-reader. Obviously that might shake up the whole e-reader market...

It'll be interesting to see what kind of display will the new device have. The best display for e-readers is e-paper (currently almost all e-readers use E Ink displays). There were rumors that Apple will use OLEDs in their new tablet. We'll have to wait and see...

Taiwan's Delta Electronics plans to broaden its e-paper business to applications such as highway billboards. They are using Bridgestone's e-paper. They will also launch e-readers in 1H 2010.