January 2017

Samsung filed a patent in Korea for a mobile phone cover that includes an E Ink display to show notifications. Some covers include a transparent part (or just a hole) through which you can see the display - and if it's an OLED, it makes sense because this uses very little power (only lit pixels draw power in an OLED display).

This is just a patent application for now, but it will be interesting if Samsung actually produced such an accessory for one of its future or present smartphones.

E Ink announced a new collaboration with Texen, a provider of product solutions for the luxury and beauty market, to bring personalized packaging solutions to cosmetic customers. The companies demonstrated a smart packaging design for customizable packaging displays for makeup compacts, perfume bottles and other cosmetic packaging.

The E Ink display is powered purely by near field communications (NFC) and can be updated by a smartphone that generates radio frequency signals carrying both the information and energy needed to update the display. E Ink and Texen are already taking customers orders for the new solution.

Dasung launched the Paperlike - a 13.3" 1600x1200 USB E Ink monitor back in 2015, and it started shipping the displays last month (for $1,049) on Amazon. The company now reports that it is sold out completely - after shipping to customers from 50 countries in the past year.

According to the GoodEReader, Dasung is unlikely to produce more such displays as it is readying on a next-generation 13.3" e-reader / monitor that will function as a secondary display via Bluetooth. The resolution of the new device will be 2200x1650 (207 PPI). Dasung says it will be powered by either Android or Windows 10.

CLEARink announced that it signed a comprehensive materials development agreement with Merck with an aim to bring CLEARink's reflective display technology to the market by the end of 2017.

CLEARink displays are based on a specially designed reflector film that can vary its brightness by modulating the total internal reflection of ambient light from film. The display uses a single electrically charged particle suspended in a liquid. The technology is called TIR (Total Internal Reflection) and the company believes that its manufacturing costs will be lower compared to other reflective display technologies. The displays offer full-color, low power (slightly above E Ink), outdoor readability, low cost and video support (low latency).

Sony's FES Watch (and the 2nd-Gen FES Watch U) is covered with a flexible E Ink display so you can change the design of the watch and the write-band at will. At CES 2017 Sony is showing a next-generation FES Watch prototype that uses a color E Ink display as you can see below

Sony's new FES color Watch is just a prototype at this stage, the company did not reveal any commercialization plans yet...

E Ink launched its largest ePaper module yet, a 42" 2160x2880 (85 DPI) panel. E Ink is demonstrating this panel at CES 2017, and it is also the same panel used by QuirkLogic's Quilla system unveiled a couple of days ago.

E Ink did not yet disclose the availability of this new module, hopefully we will hear more soon.