ElectronicPaperDisplay
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E Ink's three-pigment Spectra displays update pricing in real time, are destined for supermarket shelves (hands-on)
In addition to demoing its Digital Paper collaboration with Sony here at SID, E Ink is showing off some new tech that's consumer-oriented in a very different way. Its solution for ESLs -- electronic shelf labels, obviously -- enables real-time pricing readouts for retailers such as supermarkets. E Ink's Spectra electronic paper display (EPD) is purportedly the world's first to offer three pigments: black, white and, for the demo's purposes, red. That third color can be swapped out for blue or green, but the point is to make the price placards readable -- both for customers and the businesses themselves. While these panels aren't widely adopted stateside, similar tech already has a firm footing in Europe. It's certainly more efficient to update the same screens with new info rather than swapping in new paper signs every time the price of milk fluctuates -- and it looks a lot cooler, too. Spectra will become available sometime in Q3 of this year. E Ink's new Aurora EPD is a little less exciting for the average consumer, but the company says this tech is another first. Able to withstand super-low temperatures (as cold as -25 C), these screens will be incorporated into wireless shelf tags displaying MSRPs in freezers and especially frigid climates. According to E Ink, Aurora's low-temp film allows pigment to move even in cold environments, something we couldn't exactly put to the test on the SID show floor. Still, the company seems confident in its product; it will be shipping its displays to partners starting in July.%Gallery-189117% Zach Honig contributed to this report.
Freescale expands its family of i.MX50 chips, goes beyond e-readers this time
We had a feeling that Freescale was onto something when it debuted the i.MX508, a system-on-a-chip that carried the promise of $150 e-readers (and the reality of $129 ones). Given that, we can see where the execs at Freescale would be feeling a bit heady, and might wonder where else they could help push down prices. That's exactly what we have here: the outfit is trotting out three new i.MX50 processors and, as you can see in that handy chart up there, they all sit even lower in the lineup than the low-cost i.MX508. Like the i.MX508, they all pack an 800HMz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, among other similar specs. The new i.MX507, in particular, resembles the i.MX508 in that it's designed to work with E Ink displays, though it lacks graphics acceleration, and Freescale imagines it'll instead find a home in outdoor signs and smart labels. Moving on down the line, the i.MX502 and the i.MX503 were both intended for devices with LCD -- not electronic paper -- displays, with the latter offering OpenVG graphics acceleration. If Freescale's predictions are on the money, you'll find the lower-end i.MX502 in DECT phones and vending machine displays, and the i.MX503 in personal navigators and medical monitoring tablets, among other use cases. For now, companies are sampling the chips, but they'll start shipping later this quarter for a song -- less than $10 for the i.MX502 at volume cost. Full PR after the break, and lots more technical details at the source link.
E Ink dashes hopes of a next gen display in 2011, but pencils in full-motion video for 2012
E Ink Holdings is brazenly making us wait until 2012 before producing a successor to its popular Pearl electronic paper display. One of the company's VPs dropped into CNET's offices to spill the bad news: developing and testing a next-generation display "takes some time", apparently, and it is sticking to a two year product cycle. Perhaps E Ink has shifted its focus to the LCD screen in Amazon's rumoured tablet. Or maybe it's still working on the Triton color e-ink display that left us so underwhelmed at CES. Either way, the monochrome Pearl has been knocking around in the Kindle and other e-readers for a while now and although it has better contrast than earlier iterations, it is still ripe for a revamp -- especially a faster refresh rate. But the E Ink VP did hint at some brighter news: the next-gen display, when it does finally arrive, could sport full-motion video. So far e-ink video has failed to go beyond a slightly jittery 10-15fps, so full-motion 24fps or 30fps could definitely be worth the wait.
