E Ink - Page 23

Towards the end of 2012 we posted about PopSLATE, a IndieGogoproject that raised $219,000 to develop an iPhone 5 cover with an E Ink display. Today Plastic Logic announced that popSLATE will use their technology to their new iPhone 5 and 5S always on 4" second screen display.

Plastic Logic's displays are based on E Ink are are flexible and shatterproof. They use the company's unique plastic OTFT backplanes.

E Ink introduced a new monochrome panel technology called Carta. The Carta offers 50% better contrast and a 20% improvement in reflectance a(more whiteness). Amazon's recently announced new Paperwhite e-reader uses Carta displays.

E Ink reported their quarterly results - sales dropped 46% compared to last year, and the company's net loss was $33.6 million. E Ink expects e-reader sales in 2013 to be between 10 to 15 million (the same as in 2012).

In 2011, around 30 million e-readers were sold. Back then analysts expected the market to grow (IDTechEx's "conservative" estimate was that it will grow to 60 million units in 2015) as nobody expected the tablet market to take over reading from e-readers. I still think one of the biggest problems in the e-reader market is that e-readers didn't really change in past years. Even the old Kindles offer a great reading experience and there isn't any compelling reason to upgrade. That's actually very good for everyone (Us consumers, Amazon who makes money from books and not e-readers, and mother earth) - except E Ink themselves, of course.

Shenzhen Ocean Blue Technology is trying to raise (via IndieGogo) $2000 in order to build the world's first E Ink monitor. This is actually an E Ink (6" , 800x600) e-reader that doubles as a monitor using a stand and a computer connection. Each monitor will cost $99.

The Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Ontario's new project, DisplayStacks, uses several flexible E Ink panels together that communicate between them using sensors to integrate them into a compound display.

The researchers explain that DisplayStacks basically enables physical stacking of digital documents via piles of flexible E Ink displays. With a conductive dot pattern sensor attached to the flexible dis- play, the system dynamically tracks the position and orientation of these displays in relation to one another. This enables several asymmetric bimanual interaction mechanisms for access and manipulation of information.

The Good E-Reader site posted a review of Seiko's SBPA003, their 2nd-gen E Ink watch. The watch uses an active-matrix E Ink panel, 1.5" in size (300 PPI). Seiko says it's got a new active-matrix drivers that enable it to be very power efficient. The watch recharges via a small solar-panel (which is located around the display). The watch synchronizes automatically via signals from atomic clocks, but these aren't available in all places.

The reviewer says that the watch is great, although there's no way to sync to Android or iOS.

British Airways is going to trial new luggage tags that use E Ink displays. The tags were designed and developed by Densitron Technologies (and the cases created by Designworks), and include NFC so that passengers can tag their luggage using their smartphones. This will save paper tags and also will save time during the check-in process.

The FlexTech Alliance completed its 154th technical project and developed a flexible medical triage bandage which monitors vital signs. Physical Optics Corporation and E Ink Corporation collaborated on this project and produced the bandage, which includes a printed circuit board (PCB), low power microcontroller, flexible E Ink panel, energy harvesting, a Bluetooth wireless interface and physiological sensors (ECG, skin temperature, and respiration rate).

The two companies say that the initial feedback was extremely positive and hopefully this will be commercialized into a product in the future.

E Ink announced a new 1.73" flexible "Mobius" display, specifically engineered for smartwatch and watch applications. The display features a 320x240 resolution and 16 grayscale levels, and it can be cut into different shapes.

The first produce to use this new display is the Sonostar Smartwatch, which was announced at Computex, Taiwan. The watch was jointly developed by Sonostar and E Ink's subsidiary Transmart.

E Ink announced their new Spectra e-paper panels which features three pigments - black, white and red. Spectra panels are aimed towards retailer applications which will benefit from the extra color. E Ink will start producing spectra panels in Q3 2013.