It seems that Bridestone's e-paper technologies are finally coming to the market: Taiwan's Delta plans to launch 2 e-readers with their e-paper displays in 2Q 2010. One will have a 13.1" color display, the other 8.1" monochrome. Both will be touch enabled.
Engadget has got some new information on Qualcomm's Mirasol display exhibited at CES:
Skiff (owned by Hearst corporation) has announced their Skiff e-reader. It has the largest display of all current e-readers at 11.5". It's actually a flexible E Ink touchscreen, with a 1200x1600 pixel resolution.
The display is a rugged metal-foil on a flexible stainless-steel substrate. It is made by LG Display (who licensed E Ink just a few days ago). Skiff say that it's shatter-proof and crack-proof.
Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) showed off a few flexible e-paper prototypes. One of these is a color e-reader touchscreen display. It's a Ch-LCD (cholesteric liquid crystal display), thin and light and consumes very little power, and should be cheap to make.
Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) will co-develop large-size flexible e-paper with AU Optronics. They will also co-develop large-size flexible touch panels with Elan Microelectronics. In the future they also plan to develop e-paper panels that will be ultra-thin, touch enabled, flexible and transparent.
Dulin is introducing 3 new e-readers. All of them run on Linux, support PDF and ePub (and more formats), has MP3 playback, and includes games and built-in software such as a dictionary and calendar.
Bridgestone are developing their own e-paper technology, and are now showing a color touch screen flexible e-book reader. The whole reader is actually bendable!
The display is large (13.1"), with 4,096 colors, and a refresh rate of about 0.8 seconds. The reader also includes wireless (cellular) connectivity. Bridgestones will produce samples early next year.
Barnes and Noble officially announced their e-reader, the "Nook". It's got two displays - a 6" E Ink (16-level gray) and a 3.5" touch LCD. The Nook runs on Google's Android platform, has 2GB of memory built in and a microSD card slot, and can play MP3 files, photos and more. It supports ePub, PDFs and more formats. There's free wireless in the US (via AT&T) and Wi-Fi, too.
The Nook is available from Barnes & Noble's site, for 259$. It will ship in November.
Gizmodo reports that the Barnes & Noble's e-reader will be released next week. It will feature two displays - an E Ink and a smaller color multi-touch LCD:
Seiko Epson and E Ink announced a new joinly developed display controller IC, the S1D13522, which provides a high performance, space saving solution for E Ink's Vizplex-enabled electronic paper displays. The new IC is based on the same powerful engine as the first model, the S1D13521, but provides customers with a higher level of performance and additional features.
The new Epson display controller (code named ISIS) includes 2M bytes of embedded memory and features that greatly reduce the CPU overhead for EPD applications. Allowing multi-regional and concurrent display updates, the S1D13522 adds interface support for direct Touch/Pen drawing. In addition Picture-in-Picture, Rotation, Transparency, and Hardware Cursor functions further increase flexibility in delivering the optimal display experience.
The Advanced Sequencer Engine, Power Management, I2C Thermal Sensor, and optional Serial Flash Memory support make a variety of implementations possible. The new controller also adds interfaces for PMIC I/F and panel auto ID read. Combining all these unique features enables application developers to develop products more efficiently. The S1D13522 is the ideal choice for new EPD designs and design upgrades. Samples of the Epson S1D13522 are available now. Sample price is $20. Production quantities will be available in January 2010.
E Ink plans to offer an ISIS prototype kit that will enable engineers to rapidly prototype and develop next generation ePaper products. Details will be announced when kits are available.
