SlashGear Japan
As I was writing about the Sony Reader the other day, my housemate looked over my shoulder and asked “why would you pick an e-book over a traditional one?” Given that he’s a student, I rolled out the usual justifications of being able to carry all your textbooks in one far smaller unit, easier bookmarking, faster searching. Although he could appreciate that, at the same time he said he would find it difficult to justify the Reader as a) it’s in greyscale, and b) you can’t annotate it. Well, Fujitsu have just knocked that first negative into a cocked hat, with their new colour “electronic paper”.
Unlike the Panasonic Words, which uses a traditional LCD panel and as such suffers from a mere six hours of battery life (which might be a long time for a laptop but imagine if your paperback expired that quickly!) Fujitsu have created a cholesteric liquid crystal display with the same kind of “memory effect” as the Sony’s greyscale one. That means it only consumes power when it’s changing; in the Sony’s case, that means up to 7,500 page turns on a single charge, with otherwise limitless display of static pages. The Fujitsu currently has a 640×480 resolution and is visible even without backlighting (another power-hog).
Apparently the prototype e-book Fujitsu displayed at CEATEC Japan this year was quite slow in page transitions, but that will improve as the technology matures. Okay, so there’s no annotation, but we’re one step closer to a practical addition (if not replacement) to the world of paper books.
7 Responses to “Fujitsu shows off colour e-book display”
Vincent Nguyen October 6, 2006
I doubt we’ll ever see this in the states or UK or anywhere else outside of Japan.
NeutralBenjamin Nied October 6, 2006
We’ll see it eventually, but probably not until the technology becomes less experimental.
NeutralDJ October 10, 2006
Seems like comparing an egg to a chicken comparison. One is a selling product (Sony Reader, negative is that it is available only in the US) versus an advanced prototype (Fujitsu). Question is how many concepts die before product launch (most).
NeutralGMS November 7, 2007
I will buy this when it is available at a reasonable price. It is just what I need!!!!
+1Yvan Beaudet December 21, 2007
It’s the best thing ever for many reasons, mostly for the forest that we will save by replacing real paper by an électronic one. It’s the future, we cant look at it any other way.
+1Yvan Beaudet May 18, 2008
We realise that the output of E-paper is coming sooner than expected. When is the manufacturing and use of this technology will be LIVE.
NeutralNotneeded August 4, 2009
In response to Yvan Beaudet : I completely agree that we will be saving forests. In my opinion, we should always push technology the further we can…….. but electronic devices are incredebly polluting. All the cellphones, computers, music players etc….. we are using have short lives. Most of its components have dangerous chemicals in their composition….. Yet we are facing another type of pollution wich is not quite being taken seriously! Only a fraction of those components are dropped at recycling pick-up points…… hmmmmmmmm. It would be interesting to do a little research on the subject. Witch is the less harming solution ….. paper books (renewable resource), or electronic devices. As in other type of consumption, we need a strong public awareness…. and maybe a greenier technology using non polluting electronic circuits…….. when will that come on the market?
Neutral