Ricoh develops brighter, lighter, color e-paper
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Mar 30th 2009 3:19PM
posted Mar 30th 2009 3:19PM
It's been a few minutes since we've heard any news regarding color e-paper, and now Ricoh has announced that they've taken a tip from their copier business to create a technology that displays hues fifty percent brighter than those currently available, retaining the graphics even when power is turned off. Unlike other technologies, which use layers of red, green, and blue light separated by sheets of glass, this new iteration uses layered electrochromic compounds that turn cyan, magenta, and yellow variously when electricity is applied -- and if that weren't enough, the company's gone and altered the molecular structure of the compounds to retain their color even when electricity is removed. Rather than using glass, the layers are separated by some sort of clear insulation, resulting in a lighter device and a brighter appearance. The company is looking to bring this to market within the next five years. [Warning: read link requires subscription.]
That sounds very encouraging, can't wait to see it in action, perhaps with some touch technology integrated.
Thumbs up!
cant wait until they have digital newspapers/books..
Welcome to Engadget.
http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=e-book&invocationType=wl-gadget&searchsubmit=
that article just blew my mind
Call me when a 8.5 x 11 device using this is $200USD....until then I have stopped caring about eInk.
until e-ink gets to 300dpi it's still hard to read those small fonts on a 6" screen let alone iphone
or pdas for ebooks based on jpgs. a 10" or 11" should work...
Can I say "color kindle"?
Man I just cannot wait til this reaches us poor mortals.
By the time it's done you'll be all grown up and find you aren't waiting for it anymore I bet.
Whenever I hear the magical time of "5 years", the cynic in me says "good luck, see you in 13"
Awesome.....
The old CMYK vs RGB argument?
Well, from reading Engadget's summary it looks like CMY. I hope that's wrong and they are missing the black.
You know its not an argument, right? Its just physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtractive_color
What is to argue about it? RGB are the primaries for additive color, CMY are the primaries for subtractive color. They're used in different situations. If the device is emitting light through a transmissive LCD panel, then additive color is used. If the device has a passive display such as E-ink, then subtractive color is used.
Why isn't it CMYK? Either they didn't feel the need to discuss K because we already have black E-ink displays, or they feel K isn't needed. In printing, black ink is used in addition to CMY because the black from combining the three colors often isn't very black, and printing black text would also require precise registration of the three colors. Black ink is also cheaper. Registration isn't so much of an issue here, so if CMY produces an adequate black then there's no need for K.
Let me throw in CMYKOG, or hexachrome.
In most applications that I have seen, black from CMY is a muddy looking sorta dark brownish green that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike black.
Of course, this is unlike any other application I've seen before.
If it retains images when turned off, that pretty much means nigh-unlimited battery life, no? Just drop in a solar charger on par with the cheapest of calculators.
Then again, I'm a pretty slow reader.
Tyler,
CMYK are subtractive primary colors, whereas RGB are additive. This means that RGB are the primaries for when the colors/light are generated (e.g. a backlit LCD). CMYK is subtractive, meaning that given an external light source (e.g. sunlight), CMYK is used to subtract from the light that is refracted from of the object.
As I said before wait for color, video, and faster refresh rates:)
That's what OLEDs are for.
Refresh rates should be a non-issue for something like an e-book reader as long as it's less than the time required to turn the page of a p-book.
Video is the wrong application for e-paper - constant power drain and state changes will wear your e-paper out faster than folding it.
Basically, your princess is in another castle.
i love ricoh