ElectrofluidicDisplay
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Gamma Dynamics high-contrast, high-speed electrofluidic e-paper gets closer to reality
E Ink more or less has a lock on the e-reader market, as competitor after competitor sees delays or simply disappears altogether. Today we have an update from another would-be foe, and there's some real potential here. It's electrofluidic e-paper from Gamma Dynamics and the University of Cincinnati, which we first heard about last April. The tech is similar to that in E Ink but, instead of simple microcapsules having both black and white ink plus a clear oil, the Gamma Dynamics pixels have a colored fluid in a pixel that's split by a reflective sheet. Using voltage applied to these pixels the ink can be forced up above or pulled down below the reflective separator, forming an image in a video-capable 20ms and delivering a near paper-matching 70 percent reflectivity. There's a picture below showing how the tech works and, thanks to confirmation that it can be produced in an LCD manufacturing facility, it's looking closer to production than ever. How close is that? Oh, about three years, meaning E Ink still has that market cornered -- for now.
Electrofluidic display tech improves color e-ink, makes you sound smarter
The race to develop a mass-market color e-ink display is at fever pitch, and there's a new challenger on the scene: electrofluidic display, or EFD. Developed at the University of Cincinnati in partnership with a handful of private companies, the new tech apparently blows everything else out of the water -- according to professor Jason Heikenfeld, EFD has superior brightness, color saturation, and video speed, all in a 15-micron thick panel that can eventually be used in rollable displays. No word on when we'll see any products, but the partnership is spinning off a new company called Gamma Dynamics to commercialize the tech, so hopefully it'll be soon.[Thanks, Wendy]Read - University of Cincinnati press releaseRead - EFD paper in Nature
