E Ink is showing several prototype and demonstrators at CES 2016 - including this very nice tiled digital signage displays. It's made from four panels (seems to be 30" or so each):
The Australian road and maritime Services (RMS) installed the world's first E Ink traffic signs that are optimized for road traffic. The signs use wireless communication over the cellular network can can withstand the sun's heat and power outages as it is powered by solar energy.
The management system was developed by Visionect. The company explains that the hardware components are managed by server software programmed to 'wake up' the sign for certain pre-scheduled windows of time when the content on the sign will be changed using 3G technology. When the system is in sleep mode, it uses no power - due to the E Ink's display non volatility.
Two years ago, E Ink announced the Spectra e-paper panels that feature three pigments - black, white and red. Today the company announced an expansion of that product line to include the Spectra Yellow, which can show black, white or yellow colors.
The Spectra panels are aimed for electronic shelf label (ESL) retail applications. E Ink says that red and yellow are two of the most widely used colors relevant to in-store displays and signage. Spectra panels support both active-matrix and segmented format displays.
E Ink and GDS developed the world's largest e-paper module, a 32" 2560x1440 display that targets digital signage and information kiosk applications. The new display is available in both color and monochrome models.
The new display, like all E Ink displays, offers ultra-low power consumption, and is lightweight and readable in all light conditions (it is not emissive of course). GDS will jointly market this display with E Ink.
Plastic Logic and SERELC developed together a new low-power outdoor digital signage solution based on Plastic Logic's flexible plastic displays. Each ZED (Zero Energy Display) unit consists of two 10.7" monochrome flexible plastic displays.
Plastic Logic says that the two displays have been "seamlessly tiled together", although the photo they released shows otherwise. In any case, the final display acts like a single 15.4" diagonal (150 dpi) panel that weighs just 115 grams and is less than 1 cm in thickness.
Ynvisible (based in Portugal) is developing flexible transparent electrochromic displays (materials that change color when electricity is applied). The company is already producing some displays in low volume (with manual assembly), and were kind enough to send us a sample gift card showing off their displays.
So first of all, the display is quite impressive. They use a material that changes from being transparent to being blue, and indeed when you press a small button on the card it displays words in blue (love in several languages). When off, it looks exactly like a normal piece of plastic - totally transparent and bendable (flexible).
I had the good fortune of talking to Sriram peruvembra, E Ink's marketing VP. Sriram is always happy to help, and has agreed to do a short interview with us.
Sriram Peruvemba is VP of Marketing for E Ink Corporation. He has over 20 years of experience in the electronics industry including extensive background in the electronic display industry, having held management positions with Suntronic Technology, Planar Systems, TFS and Sharp. He holds a BSEE and a MBA.
Q: What kind of displays does E ink currently offer?
E Ink makes a display platform referred to as E Ink Vizplex. The E Ink Vizplex imaging film is used in Active Matrix displays for applications such as eBooks. For SURF displays for applications such as wrist watches. And in Ink-In-Motion displays used in applications such as signage. The active matrix displays have a glass based backplane whereas the SURF and Ink-In-Motion displays use flexible backplanes.
E Ink announced today that their segmented display product line is now called SURF. Over 15 million products with E Ink segmented display have been sold already, including the Samsung Alias 2 phone, the new Phosphor wristwatches, the Esquire magazine cover and the Lexmark jumpdrive.
SURF displays are ultra-thin, rugged and flexible. They are ideal for consumer electronics, medical devices, PC-accessory, display smartcards, capacity indicators, electronic shelf labels, signage and communications applications.
Motion Display today announced the launch of its retail signage products for the pointâofâpurchase (POP) market. Motion Display will design, manufacture and assemble signage products using E Inkâs field proven InkâInâMotion technology.
InkâInâMotionTM (IIM) electronic paper displays are thin, lightweight, flexible and powered by small batteries. The IIM display is deployed the same way as paper and plastic signs that makes it very accessible.
