LG: big, bendy e-paper screens out by year's end
Impervious to chip fat, vinegar?
LG's display developing subsidiary will begin mass-producing 9.7in colour e-paper panels and 19in monochrome but flexible e-paper screens by the end of the year.
LG Display, which makes the 9.7in in-plane switching (IPS) LCD screen used in the Apple iPad, made the forecast in its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
LG showed off its 19in bendy screen back in January this year, pitching the non-volatile display - what it's showing stays there when the power is cut - as the basis for e-newspapers of the future.
If the display is cheap enough, that might work. But can colour e-paper win out against colour LCD? That seems much less certain. Earlier this year, ujio Noguchi, the Deputy President of Sony’s digital reading business, said the technology isn't yet up to the task.
It may be some time before e-paper can present an image as colourfully as LCD can - and be able to handly rapidly refreshing moving images too. Pixel Qi's display can, but it's based on LCD technology rather than e-ink.
Samsung has shown off colour e-paper capable of displaying video this year, but it's so convinced that the technology has legs that this week it said it's pulling out of the e-paper business.
That leaves fans eagerly awaiting video-capable colour e-book readers hoping for further news from Fujitsu, which, like Samsung, demo'd such a panel this year. ®
COMMENTS
I'm so confused...
"Samsung has shown off colour e-paper capable of displaying video this year, but it's so convinced that the technology has legs that this week is said it's pulling out of the e-paper business." - that sounds contradictory - I must be missing something - pleas explain???
Agreed, but I'd go further.
Fit one of these with a transponder and wireless power antenna and you could change all your pictures simply by aiming a remote control at them. Fit a small battery and you could update them from a central location.
Killer app
I've always thought the killer app for colour e-ink would be digital photo frames (and maybe eventually posters, pictures etc). The current ones are a bit silly (although in my opinion surprisingly popular), needing to be plugged in all the time, but theoretically e-ink ones would only need to be plugged in while you configured what photo to display and then you could hang it up wherever you like without further access to power.
You could change your wall pictures as often as you change your desktop wallpaper.
