E Ink is showing e-paper displays used in educational applications at the FPD 2011 exhibition. You can see a large board display, a music stand and some 'desktop' displays - all based on E Ink of course:
AUO is showing a new prototype that integrates a flexible e-paper display with a flexible PV and battery. They call this an "unplugged flexible e-paper display". The display is 6" in size and offers 800x600 resolution, and is based on organic TFTs.
The PV battery is based on amorphous silicon and weights just 10 grams. With 1.5AM (air mass) solar light, it generates 1W or more of electricity (it offers conversion efficiency of about 3.6% or higher).
Samsung is showing a new 9.7" XGA resolution Electrowetting display prototype. We don't have any information yet beside this photo:
E Ink Holdings reported revenue of NT$2.25 billion ($74.5 million USD) for 3Q 2011 - up 20% from 2Q. The net profit for the first nine months of 2011 was NT$5.25 billion ($173.8 million USD). The company expects the business to continue to improve in the last quarter based on strong e-reader demand.
The company's chairman says that e-readers are recession-proof - because in bad times people spend more time reading. He says that he's still optimistic that e-reader shipments will reach 25-30 million units in 2011.
We just found this video of a new flexible (curved) E Ink display from LG. The title of the video says that the E Ink panel uses a plastic substrate, but unfortunately we do not have any more information yet:
Bookeen has been researching high speed E Ink displays for over two years, and now they have unveiled the technology - which they call High Speed Ink System technology or (HSIS). Basically, HSIS is an E Ink Pearl touch display, a TI Cortex A8 processor (which Bookeen said was developed in partnership with TI) and optimized software and algorithms developed by Bookeen.
Bookeen recently announced the Odyssey e-reader that includes all HSIS components - and is capable of fast page refreshes, video, scrollable menus and scrollable web-browser and more - all this on a monochrome 6" E Ink pearl display of course. Bookeen has been showing prototype HSIS devices since early 2011.
E Ink's Pearl e-paper displays are made in a roll-to-roll manufacturing process, and these can be made up to one kilometer in length. Our friends over at E Ink sent us these cool photos of a long E Ink roll, they seemed to be having fun with that one:
The display roll is made in E Ink's factory in Massachusetts (USA), but the TFT backplane lamination and final processing is performed in E Ink's factory in Taiwan. Here's another great photo of the roll from above:
Update: OLPC display's aren't exactly Pixel Qi displays, read more below
Pixel Qi's CEO Mary Lou Jespen reports in her blog that over 3 million Pixel Qi displays have shipped to date - and they are ramping up for higher volumes. She says that these displayed are used in OLPC laptops, several tablets and netbooks and security/military devices.
OLPC displays aren't exactly Pixel Qi displays. We have talked briefly with Mary, and she explained to us that Pixel Qi was spun-off from OLPC - to commercialize the unique display technology. The two companies have a royalty-free cross-license agreement, and the Pixel Qi displays are more advanced then the first-gen product used in the OLPC laptop.
Amazon announced three new kindles today, two of which use E Ink displays. The new Kindle Touch e-readers feature 6" Pearl E Ink displays and an infra-red touch sensor. The $79 non-touch Kindle 2011 is a streamlined version of the older Kindle 3 - with only 5 physical buttons (beside the next/prev ones, anyway). The Kindle Fire is a $199 7" IPS-LCD tablet/e-reader.
The Kindle Touch will launch on November 21st, but you can order it today. The Wi-Fi version costs $99 with screensaver ads and $139 without ads. The 3G version costs $149 (ads) or $189 (ads-free). The Kindle 2011 is shipping now: $79 for the ad-supported version and $109 for the non-ads variant. The Fire will launch on November 15th for only $199 - you can pre-order it now.