February 2013

E Ink produced several E Ink phone prototypes (only five of those, in fact), and Engadget posted a short hands-on review of one of them. These are Android (V2.3.5) phones with a touch E Ink display. The prototype is buggy and slow, and obviously not intended to be released as a product - but rather as a tool for partners to play with and use to build devices with:

E Ink also gave the Engadget guys a chance to play with a flexible E Ink display, you can read more about it in the source link below.

Back in December 2013, Yota Devices presented the YotaPhone - the smartphone with two 4.3" displays, a 720x1280 LCD and a 200 dpi E Ink. The company said they will production in Q3 2013, and today they announced that it signed a production deal with Singapore's Hi-P international (a company that produced Amazon's e-readers and other Apple and RIM products).

Yotaphone also announced it is opening a Singapore-based R&D center - to work on future Yotaphone generations.

John Lewis (a UK department store retailer) is testing graphic e-paper labels to replace traditional paper ones. The new labels show product information, pricing, promotions, QR codes and reviews. The project is being handled by Perhouse and ZDB. ZBD uses bi-stable LCD panels. John Lewis is performing the test at their Exeter shop.

Back in January 2012 we reported about Coop Denmark, Denmark's leading consumer goods retailer, plans to start using ZBD's e-paper shelf labels in their 77 stores. Coop's project is worth $9.2 million.

E Ink reports that their (unaudited) January 2013 revenues totaled NT$2.57 billion (almost $87 million) - a 82% increase compared to January 2012. The company says that the e-reader market segment remains strong and LCD sales "met expectations". The company's chairman says that their diversification efforts are showing traction in the areas of Mobile Phones, Wrist Watches, Electronic Shelf Labels and others.

E Ink was exhibiting at FlexTech 2013 conference, showing off the latest flexible and color E Ink panels and prototypes. Nothing new here, but a good intro to E Ink's current technology:

There's a story over at The China Post regarding E Ink's Hydis plant in Korea. According to the newspaper, Hydis workers are suspecting that E Ink is stripping the company of its assets, wanting to sell its core LCD technology.

I asked E Ink about this, which gave me this statement: "Hydis is an important investment and valuable asset for E Ink Holdings. We are not selling Hydis. The technology invented by Hydis namely FFS (Fringe Field Switching) is the most popular technology adapted by mobile device makers particularly in tablets. We have been licensing our FFS technology to a number of LCD makers. FFS technology from Hydis allows LCD designs that consume less power due to better transmittance, enables high resolution displays with wide viewing angle and color gamut".