Plastic Logic bumps their flexible E Ink display to 150ppi

Considering that only one E Ink display has made it into a major device on the US market so far, and virtually zero flexible display devices exist, you wouldn't think there'd be as much crazy competition surrounding the various related technologies to this eensy commercial space. Still, that hasn't stopped us from drooling on these technologies since forever, and Plastic Logic just keeps plugging away at them pixels. They've just upped their flexible active matrix game to 150ppi, nearing on a workable newspaper resolution, but still a fair bit away from truly matching paper and ink for sharpness and contrast. The E Ink-display is just part of long line of prototype displays from Plastic Logic, but a commercial display is still a good bit off -- they're hoping to mass produce a 10-inch 150ppi flexible display in 2008.

[Via MobileRead]

[LittleJoe @ Oct 24th 2006 12:09PM]

This is pretty cool. This is one of those steps towards a REAL futurama world. Yah know where newspapers come as one sheet and the pages flip digitally. Im lovin it.

[voodoo @ Oct 24th 2006 2:47PM]

I dont understand what this does?

[DeShaun @ Oct 24th 2006 3:24PM]

You're right, this IS pretty cool.

What I fear, though, is the Minority Report outlook on things.

I don't want this thing on my box of cereal, spouting a commercial at me when I open it. Although, the scene of the newspaper with by-the-minute weather and updatable news would be awesome. You buy the "paper" once and pay for a subscription on an as needed basis. Would be pretty cool.

[tristanfey @ Oct 24th 2006 3:32PM]

Are you referring to the flexible plastic or the E-Ink? Well in either case:

E-Ink is a patented digital display method that emulates printed writing (not backlit like traditional digital displays), so when viewed under natural light the image does not wash out. Secondly, no backlighting means no power usage while an image of a page is displayed, only when changing to the next page.

The flexible plastic is exactly that, a sheet of thin plastic. It can rolled, tossed into a bag/backpack, etc without worrying about damage. In this case it is being turned into a digital display using E-Ink technology.

Possibilities with this is a one page plastic newspaper, that allows you to change pages with a selection at one of the corners. Or even have newspaper and magazine subscriptions downloadble to it to "thumb" through at your leisure. These are but a few possibilities.

[Brad Gessler @ Oct 25th 2006 4:19AM]

When I see these articles about "flexible" electronic displays, I always see some sort of inflexible, rigid, crappy looking circuit board right next to it. Figure out how to make these flexible and you'll be set!

[summer boy @ Oct 25th 2006 9:58AM]

I really do not unstandard what are the deferences of e-ink and TFT LCD diaplay. Do not they do the same thing?

[Technophobe @ Nov 30th 2006 9:27AM]

A (normal) TFT LCD display requires power for two reasons: it needs a backlight to always be on, and it needs the image to be constantly refreshed on the screen many times per second (say 80 times), even if the image you are viewing is not moving (such as this web page).

An E-ink display requires neither of these. It does not require a backlight - it looks pretty much like a sheet of paper when viewed (with slightly worse contrast). It also doesn't need to be constantly refreshed - the image is written once and remains there indefinitely without any further power required (it is bistable). As a result, whilst TFTLCDs are great for displaying video etc, the E-ink is great for displaying static images and text.

[gremlin @ Feb 12th 2007 6:20PM]

I read about the plastics they use somewhere. It is possible to print plastic transistor, leds, resistors, ect. They are trying to make windows that are transparent when off, but can show high quality images when necessary, they can currently get them 75% transparent. They are developing transparent plastics that would work to allow this to be possible. The only problem is that they can not make them small enough to be space efficient. There is always gonna be a circuit board until they can print the components smaller. Another problem is a printed flexible power supply, like a chargable battery or a solar panel. i'd be well impressed if they could make a transparent solar panel layered on top and printed the display on the bottom.

[Zach @ Sep 9th 2007 8:26PM]

How in the world can something which absorbs light for energy be transparent?

[gremlin @ Sep 16th 2007 4:27PM]

A solar panel doesn't need to be completely transparent, just enough so that you wouldn't notice it, eg. every 1000 pixels is actually a photoelectric cell. (but i'm no expert in material physics, so i can't back this up entirely, it's just speculation.

[Plothole @ May 25th 2008 10:05PM]

Instead of trying to make the panel transparent, why not simply embed it into the frame? Done right I imagine they could make it look natural enough.