In fact, since the Plastic Logic screens only require energy to change what they’re displaying, not to maintain an image, the two firms say the ZED can be entirely solar powered. That, coupled with integrated 3G and/or GPRS, means replacing traditional paper timetables needn’t require a significant infrastructure roll-out, just a secure mount and a nearby solar panel with a good view of the sky.

The ZED measures under a centimeter in thickness, and achieves IP54 ratings for resistance to water and other substances. It’ll work in temperature extremes of -15 degrees centigrade to a toasty 50 degrees, and the companies will also be offering it with an optional front-light illumination system.

According to Plastic Logic, color versions of the ZED are in the pipeline – the company has already developed and demonstrated the technology - which will then mean colored metro lines and other information will be clearer. Exactly how much it’ll cost for cities to replace their paper boards with the ZED is unclear, though being able to offset that upfront installation price with reduced staff keeping printed timetables current may help sway things in the plastic panel’s favor.

E Ink is already found in the vast majority of ereaders, including the Kindle, NOOK, Sony Reader and more. However, that market has seen significant attack from the growing number of tablets such as Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the new Google Nexus 7, with LCD displays proving more flexible for multimedia beyond text alone.

“Today, E Ink’s products are finding homes in a number of new applications which can be better served with the inclusion of SiPix’s products, technologies and intellectual property to our portfolio” Felix Ho, vice chairman of E Ink said of today’s deal. The company will initially include SiPix displays in the overall range it offers, but plans to integrate more of the behind-the-scenes technology – perhaps including slow video-capable e-paper - into future products.

That could also mean more use of e-paper in embedded environments, with E Ink keen to emphasize the low power consumption of its panels as ideal for its “E Ink On Every Smart Surface” strategy. Possibilities include tablet cases – such as Apple’s recent display-integrated Smart Cover concept - and other implementation where power supply could be insufficient or impractical for LCD or OLED.

Initially, E Ink will buy 82.7-percent of SiPix’s shares, though the goal is to buy 100-percent.

Video-capable e-paper has been something of a holy grail for ereader manufacturers, who so far have had to deal with the flickering page-refresh of existing E Ink screens. Plastic Logic’s display isn’t up to the sort of framerates you’d want for true video playback – that demands around 25-30fps – but it’s sufficient for animations and reasonable clips, or indeed Flash content on websites.

Plastic Logic showed us two versions of the screen technology, one a color panel that uses a special filter layer over the top of the e-paper screen itself, and another smaller, monochrome version better suited to a pocket-sized mobile device. Both use the company’s unique plastic transistor technology, meaning they’re virtually indestructible: you can bend and twist them, drop them, or hit them with hammers, and they’ll still keep working. Right now, the color screen shows six smaller video preview panes, something Plastic Logic says is down to its own test driver equipment, rather than a limitation of the panel technology itself.

Although streaming video on an ereader is one obvious possibility – and Plastic Logic confirmed it’s in talks with various ereader manufacturers, though declined to name specific names – another benefit of the faster refresh rate is more natural navigation on a tablet-style device. Flicking between pages using a touchscreen overlay layer, something else Plastic Logic can integrate, would thus allow you to see previews of each page’s content, much as paging through a document on an iPad does today.

We’ll have more from our visit to Plastic Logic very soon.

The Flex One also features a higher resolution display than that on the Kindle. The six-inch monochrome display offers an XGA resolution of 1024 x 768, while the Kindle offers 800 x 600. However, with the Flex One you don’t have the luxury of a touchscreen. Navigation is controlled by a directional pad, while page turns have dedicated buttons.

The e-reader boasts 8GB of storage, a 900mAh battery that can go for weeks on one charge, and a USB 2.0 port for connecting to the computer. It supports ebook formats in TXT, RTF, PDF, DOC, CHM, HTM/HTML, EPUB, FB2, and DJVU. Amazon’s proprietary AZW format is not supported, but EPUB will probably be the most prevalent format anyhow.

[via GizMag]

The news also means that Plastic Logic will shutter its development facility in the US, though a new “center of excellence for plastic electronics R&D” is expected to open in Russia. Possible applications of the plastic transistors the company has specialized in include “paper replacement, rugged displays, and an extensive range of other uses that incorporate flexible plastic electronics technology for both large and small display and non-display solutions.”

Plastic Logic says it has been approached by “several” device manufacturers and others regarding using the display technology it came up with, and there’s the potential for licensing on the table. No news on exactly who that might include, however, though it doesn’t necessarily mean a Plastic Logic display fronting a third-party device.

Plastic Logic volume production:

The technology could just as easily be implemented inside a product, with the plastic construction making for gadgets that can be bent, are more drop-resilient and can resist being stomped on, or that are more weatherproof than traditional electronic components.

Plastic Logic originally intended to put its flexible panel into a large, 10.7-inch ereader focused on business users, the Que, but the ereader market proved hotly competitive and the project was shelved after potential buyers reacted negatively to the expected retail price. Last year, the company made a second attempt with an education-targeted erader.

Bridgestone reminds the world that at this moment in history, there is a decline in prices on liquid crystal panels and an increase in competition across the board. Bridgestone will be exiting the electronic paper market starting immediately and plans at the moment to be out entirely by October of 2012. Bridgestone is better known for their tire and rubber company exploits, with their dip into the electronics market being best recognized as large panel e-ink panels as shown here:

The video you see above comes from Aihabara News where they filmed video in Tokyo in April of last year. It’s a sad day when any company decides that they’ll have to exit a business, especially here in the technology world where such awesome products must head to the dumpster. The 40-inch draw-ready panels you see in the video above may well be picked up by a different manufacturer, of course – we’ll just have to wait and see!

[via Bridgestone]

The color itself has been achieved by stacking a filter on top of the regular grayscale panel, with some of that screen’s pixel density sacrificed for red, green and blue color information. The resulting quality isn’t going to shame any LCD or OLED, but it does have Plastic Logic’s clever flexibility trick in its favor.

That, in case you’ve forgotten, allows the roughly 10-inch color screen to not only bend considerably, but survive being stomped on or otherwise mistreated. Obviously some special sauce has gone into keeping the new color filter layer precisely lined up with the underlying monochrome panel, too.

Plastic Logic isn’t saying when the color display might show up in commercial products, and beyond the company’s shatterproof education ereader of last year, broader availability of anything from the company outside of Russia still is a mystery. That could well change in the next couple of years, however, with a second-gen factory expected to become operational in 2014. Plastic Logic had previously said the color epaper would be in mass production by this year.

[via The Digital Reader]

That means lighter gadgets that are actually more durable since the panels should be more resilient to drops or bumps. They can also be thinner, too: the plastic panel is a third slimmer than glass equivalents, at just 0.7mm thick.

LG Display says it can drop its new screen from 1.5m – the average height a device is held when it’s being used for reading, apparently – without any resulting damage. The company also hit the screen with a plastic hammer, leaving no scratches or breaks, ETNews reports.

LG isn’t the only company to be working on flexible screens this year. Samsung has already confirmed that it is looking at launching devices using flexible AMOLED panels in 2012, though it’s unclear whether the screens will actually fold or bend, or simply be used to wrap around smartphones for new types of UI.

The first products using the LG Display flexible panel are on track for a release in the European market in early April, the company claims. No word on what vendors will be offering them, nor how pricing will compare to traditional glass-substrate epaper.

[via OLED-Display]

The mirasol appeal, of course, is the combination of E-Ink style low power consumption but with video-capable refresh rates, as well as outdoor visibility. mirasol builds on the same light-bouncing principles that make a butterfly’s wings shimmer, only Qualcomm uses it to produce a color display that gets brighter and more color-saturated the more light is directed at it.

Design-wise, we’re guessing all of the four mirasol ereaders we’ve seen so far – the Kyobo model, the Bamboo Sunflower, the Hanvon C18 and this new Koobe version – are all based on Qualcomm’s own reference design. That would explain the lack of pure tablets using mirasol; Qualcomm had always said it intended to target ereaders first, though larger mirasol panels for iPad-rivals are also in the pipeline.

Koobe says the Jin Yong eReader will include WiFi and come preloaded with content by the Chinese author it’s named after. No word on pricing, nor when we might see a version arrive in North America or Europe.

We’ve been tracking the Mirasol technology for some time and all our coverage is available at the links below. With Mirasol Qualcomm has brought color e-paper technology to eReaders while managing to offer stunning visuals indoors and even better outdoors, while not letting up on battery life.

Qualcomm’s color display technology promises color, video-capable e-paper with battery life akin to monochrome E Ink screens. This particular panel is a 5.7-inch, 1024 x 768 display using Qualcomm’s front-light technology that uses LEDs to make the eReader usable in darkness, and better in direct sunlight. Being front-lit rather than backlit enables the display to not fight with incoming light sources and instead harness the light to enhance and brighten the on screen image. Refresh rate is a big concern with eReaders and from our hands-on video you can clearly see Qualcomm and Mirasol have made some huge strides to their technology.

Kyobo, Korea’s largest bookseller — offers over 100,000 ebooks for the Mirasol eReader, as well as video education content and many other educational options, integration with social networking services and English text-to-speech support. With magazines for the down-time between study classes and possibly 3 weeks of battery life this will be one interesting eReader. The Kyobo eReader is available already starting at $310 USD in South Korea but finally seeing it here in the US means we could be enjoying this technology in markets here soon.

On the face of it, the Kindle Fire should deliver the existing Kindle experience but with bells on. Not just ebooks (and some half-hearted audio playback, if you can be bothered to load a handful of MP3s onto the limited internal storage, as well as rudimentary web access) but the full internet, streaming video with whispers of Amazon Prime bundled content, fulsome music access and the reassuring caverns of cloud storage to not only hold all your documents and media but give you access to it on the move.

To achieve all that, we’re expecting that Amazon has had to make more than a few compromises. Not just the relatively tiny onboard storage – tipped to be in the region of 6GB – that helps keep costs down, or the whispers of slower processors after the faster chips Amazon originally wanted caused untold headaches, but some altogether more fundamental changes that signify how little the Fire is aimed at ebook readers.

Biggest will be the screen. So far, Amazon has stuck with e-paper screens from E Ink, replicating the experience of a traditional paper book but in a digital device. Critics – many of whom were particularly vocal when the first iPad was revealed – point to e-paper’s relatively sluggish refresh rate in comparison to LCD, the fact that it’s greyscale and can’t support video.

It’s e-paper that makes the Kindle so superb for readers, however. With no backlight there’s less eye-strain involved; there are also suggestions that using backlit devices before you go to sleep can mess with your body-rhythms, in short that staring at, say, an iPad display to pass time while you’re trying to nod off could be counter-productive. E Ink panels can also be easily read outdoors, even in direct sunlight, when LCD displays require increasingly strong backlighting to counter ambient light levels.

Then there’s portability. Amazon reportedly took the BlackBerry PlayBook as a template, with ODM partner Quanta using the work it had done on RIM’s slate to fast-track the Kindle Fire’s development. Now, the PlayBook is a reasonably compact tablet – 0.4-inches thick, in fact – and only a little thicker than the current third-gen Kindle, at 0.34-inches, but it’s considerably heavier at over 14-oz versus the Kindle’s 8.7-oz. When you’re trying to replicate the minimal heft of a paperback (for users who, say, are trying to hold their ereader one-handed above their head, lying in bed) those ounces can make a big difference.

The Kindle Fire will offer plenty to make up for some of that ebook-centric shortfall. Amazon Prime – with its existing streaming video, but also the rumored library-style ebook loans – is likely to be a big draw for the multimedia obsessed. Amazon expects to set its Fire underneath Apple’s iTunes and iBookstore monoliths, broadening its range and – as recent research has suggested is the case – cashing in on the increased tendency of tablet users to make impromptu purchases. As someone who turns to his Kindle for the focused joy of reading, however, it’s looking more and more likely that the Kindle Fire won’t be for me.

SlashGear will be covering the Amazon Kindle event from NYC this morning, so stand by for all the news as it’s announced!

E Ink CMO Siriam Peruvemba demonstrated the Triton color display, which uses an E Ink Pearl panel with a color filter layer overlaid. The existing prototype runs at around 160dpi, but the company has been working with Epson on a 300dpi color version of the monochrome screen announced earlier in the year. Two companies already have Triton products announced, but there are apparently several more using the next-gen screen for incoming devices. Meanwhile, faster versions that can support more fluid transitions are in the pipeline.

As for bank security, E Ink showed the new generation of its SURF display (Segmented, Ultra-thin, Rugged and Flexible) which can be slotted into a regularly-sized credit card complete with battery and a control button. The screen can show a six-digit code – created with each purchase – to introduce an extra check before the transaction goes through. According to Peruvemba, the battery should last for at least two years before you need a new card.

Finally, there are flexible displays. LG, Sony, Samsung and HP are all working on their own bendable panels, replacing the normal glass substrate with a plastic one. Plastic Logic is perhaps the best known, but each company could have products on the very market soon.

The cool part is that the e-Paper can be erased at the flick of a switch and can be reused up to 260 times. The new invention comes from Researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the developers think that the new e-Paper is a good replacement for paper signs and posters. The key property of the new e-Paper is that it has a plastic film covered with a cholestric liquid crystal.

The compound does not need a backlight to print and can produce different colors. Erasing the paper requires that it be connected to electricity. The researchers are using a modified printer to erase the paper by rolling it backwards. An A4 sized sheet of the e-Paper costs about $60 in Taiwan, which works out to about $2. The developers of the new tech hope to have it on the market in two years.

[via Reuters]

In comparison to the Fujitsu FLEPia Lite, which the company put on sale last year, the new prototype is lighter at 220g and considerably thinner, too. That’s aided by the fact that cholesteric displays don’t require backlighting or any polarizing, filtering or reflecting layers. Meanwhile, the OS has been changed, from Windows CE to an unspecified Linux build.

According to Fujitsu’s engineers, the color range that the FLEPia panel can display is a conscious decision, balancing performance and breadth. “There is a trade-off between writing speed and display colors,” the company says, “and while it is 4,096 colors and 0.7 seconds right now, if we reduce the writing speed we can make a full color display.”

Currently, the display runs at 157 dpi, with over a 34-percent reflection ratio, 8:1 contrast ratio and 20-percent NTSC color coverage. The prototype can display JPEG, PDF and EPUB documents, though obviously that’s a limit of the software rather than the FLEPia panel itself. No word on when Fujitsu might slot it into a commercial ereader, at this stage.

[via The Digital Reader]

Normally you’d have to subscribe to each service separately if you’d wanted access to the New York Times content you crave from all your different devices, but now anyone who has in the past or will in the future purchase a subscription to the NOOK version of The New York Times will also be given access to the web-based service as well. For those of you wondering why you’d want access to a webpage, you should know that NYTimes.com is a subscriber ONLY webpage where you’re able to see parts of articles until you pay a premium to see the rest. Normally this would be harsh, now Barnes and Noble’s deal here makes is smooth.

Those of you subscribing today will be given the same access that those of you who’ve subscribed in the past will be given, there’s no “new subscriber” bonus, only a regular subscriber bonus. And what about those of you who don’t yet own a NOOK tablet? We’ve got you covered! Let’s take a trip down review lane: First take a look at our massive Week With NOOKcolor series in which you’ll get the full double and triple dosage of coverage on the one and only NOOK color. Then have a look at our hands-on with the all-new NOOK as well! Then you’ve got to purchase them both, all of them, every one!

Right now the E-ink color screen and its muted colors are as good as e-paper in color gets and the AUO Sipix e-paper screen with its slow 6 fps video playback is on the high-end of video capability for an e-paper offering. The engineers at IRX Innovation tested the Sipix screen and the team found that it would support 6 fps video playback. As you can see in the two YouTube videos below, that 6 fps playback is hardly ideal with lots of stuttering and choppy video.

The team at IRX did note that the video can be boosted to 10 fps by running the video through a memory buffer. That would allow for slightly more fluid video, but would still only be a third of full motion playback frame rate. The panel tested has a resolution of 480 x 640 and a refresh rate of 100Hz. It only offers four levels of gray, which explains the poor image quality in the video. The gray scale will be improved to 16 levels eventually.

[via e-ink-info]

That’s the same resolution as the 6-inch Kindle, which certainly bodes well for ereader duties. According to Polymer Vision, the flexible display can be rolled up 25,000 time without damage, and will furl up around a rod with 6mm radius.

It may not just be ereaders that Polymer Vision has in mind, however. The company recently outed a concept design for a folding smartphone, which could be used as a regular handset, opened up into a small tablet, and then pulled further apart to offer even more screen space. Obviously it’s shown with a color screen, whereas the video below shows a monochrome prototype, so it’s hard to know exactly how far out such a gadget may be from the market.

[via The Digital Reader]

Like current e-paper panels, such as those E Ink offers and which are used in the Amazon Kindle among other devices, Ricoh’s new screen requires no backlighting and dramatically less power than traditional LCD.

Ricoh expects the technology to result in high-resolution e-paper displays that are capable of showing fine characters along with graphics. However, it will also have to work on boosting screen sizes and improving long-term reliability before any commercial launch; there’s no timescale for when that might happen.

Press Release:

Ricoh Achieves Color Electronic Paper Display with Significantly Enhanced Brightness and Color Reproducibility

Tokyo May 18 — Ricoh Company, Ltd. (President & CEO: Shiro Kondo) announced that the company, utilizing its original display method, has achieved a display of color still images with about 2.5 times brighter (in white reflectivity) and about 4 times wider color reproduction range compared with presently commercialized or announced color electronic paper technologies.

Electronic paper, having no luminous source, differs from a conventional display unit-it requires no electric power except for rewriting characters and images. Known as a technology gentle on the environment and the human eye, 6.6 million monochrome devices for reading digital books are now sold annually throughout the world and sales are predicted to exceed 11 million readers in 2011 (*1). Although color devices have long been desired, the methods proposed for color electronic paper have thus far not been able to solve the lack of brightness or color reproducibility, even in theory. Therefore the color electronic paper market is expected to grow significantly with future technology development, greatly expanding possible applications.
(*1) Gartner Report: “Competitive Landscape: Connected E-Readers, North America,” published on December 8, 2010.

Ricoh developed the world’s first new organic electrochromic material (*2) producing three primary colors (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) while improving memory properties in March 2009. The company at the same time proposed a simple laminating element structure, forming three electrochromic layers between two substrates. This was made possible by stepping outside the box and beyond the original display methodology hitherto in vogue. This proved the feasibility of color electronic paper capable of achieving a bright display at low power consumption and low cost.
(*2) Joint development with Yamada Chemical Co., Ltd. (Kyoto, President: Shimpei Yamada).

Based on this result, Ricoh moved from the development phase of element technology to the development of a practical application of prototypes featuring high resolution electronic paper. This led to success in achieving bright images with high color image reproducibility. Ricoh will accelerate development toward practical application by improving reliability/repetition durability (guaranteeing tens of thousands of rewrites) and larger screen size. Although development will expand to include document display devices that can display fine characters, the evolution will progress with various applications developing in parallel.

Ricoh introduced this technology at DISPLAY WEEK 2011 of SID (The Society for Information Display) held in Los Angeles from May 15 to 20.

E Ink will be responsible for the display itself, which is expected to find its way into “epaper document readers” – that’s big-screen ereaders to you and I – and be particularly popular among business and education users, as well as in countries with character-based text. Epson, meanwhile, will be taking charge of the display controller, which will incorporate not only the display controller IC but an applications processor, system power management IC and firmware.

That controller will support various sensor inputs to allow for handwriting recognition support, as well as promising high-speed image rendering and page-turns. Epson claims it’s a departure from the traditional e-paper controllers, using tech borrowed from the company’s photo-quality printers.

No word on when the new panel will be commercially available at this stage.

Press Release:

E Ink and Epson Achieve World-Leading ePaper Resolution

- TOKYO, Japan, and HSINCHU, Taiwan, May 17, 2011 -

E Ink Holdings Inc. and Seiko Epson Corporation (“Epson”) today announced the joint development of a 300-dpi electronic paper device with razor-sharp text and images for ePaper Document Readers. Combining E Ink’s high-resolution ePaper display and Epson’s high-speed display controller platform, the new device will enable the world’s highest resolution ePaper tablets. With sharply improved readability and ease-of-use the ePaper Document Reader is expected to catch on in business and education settings where huge amounts of data have to be processed, as well as in countries that use character-based text, including Japan and China.

Thin, lightweight, energy-efficient eReaders with easy-to-read, paper-like displays have won over consumers, who are snapping up ePaper devices in unprecedented numbers, causing the market to surge. Demand has also been on the rise in business and education, market segments that require exactly what ePaper provides: the fast and accurate display of enormous amounts of information. Applications in these segments demand higher resolution than that offered by today’s 160-dpi displays due to the need to crisply render, with smooth gradations, engineering diagrams, illustrations, Asian characters, and other fine or intricate content. These market segments also demand faster page navigation and sophisticated user interfaces to allow instant viewing of vast amounts of data.

“As the adoption of eReaders continues to rise worldwide, the opportunities for our EPD technology are expanding in new market segments including business and education,” said Scott Liu, chairman of E Ink. “We continue to improve E Ink’s technology to meet the demands of our customers and the needs of consumers, and this new EPD delivers the low power, sunlight readability and thin, lightweight form factor users have come to expect from E Ink at an even higher resolution.”

“We developed this device specifically to meet the high data demands of business and academia,” said Torao Yajima, managing director at Epson. “Our IC controller and processing power enables the display to handle large files while maintaining the excellent display control and operability found in today’s EPDs, including fast page navigation and a sophisticated user interface.”

Epson’s high speed controller platform is an ideal choice for developers who wish to develop high resolution eTablets with ease and within a very short period.

The respective roles of E Ink and Epson and the products they offer are described below.

E Ink

E Ink will manufacture, sell and support the newly developed 300-dpi ePaper displays, which measure 9.68 inches on the diagonal and have 2,400 x 1,650 pixels. These paper-like, high-resolution displays demonstrate in full the very best features of ePaper: crisp and clear text and images on an easy-on-the-eyes screen, a thin and light form factor, and ultra-low power consumption.

Epson

Epson will manufacture, sell and support a high-resolution, high-speed display controller platform optimized for controlling E Ink’s high-resolution display. Leveraging Epson’s experience with image processing technology developed for photo-quality printers, the display controller platform combines a display controller IC, applications processor, system power management IC, and firmware to provide excellent display control and improved operability.

Moving forward, E Ink and Epson plan to continue collaborating to promote the popularization of ePaper based devices in the business and education markets by developing technology, expanding and upgrading the product lineup, and providing customer support.

Exhibition plans
High-resolution e-paper device

The jointly developed device will be on display at the E Ink booth at SID, to be held in Los Angeles from May 15 to 20.

That basically integrates one of those clip-on LED reading lights you see for Amazon’s Kindle and other ereaders, allowing you to read them in the dark. Unlike a clip-on, however, Qualcomm’s system more evenly illuminates the full display, and of course doesn’t extend from the body of the ereader itself.

As you can see from the two mirasol prototypes above – new on the left, old on the right – it makes a big difference to the color e-paper tech. In brighter light the illumination could be shut off to save power, but it makes for a more flexible ereader having the system onboard. Qualcomm is apparently readying a new version with an ambient light sensor, that would automatically fire up the LEDs when they’re needed.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a little longer to see these panels show up in commercial ereaders, as word from Qualcomm is that the first products aren’t expected until fall 2011. Still no definitive word on which OEMs have picked up the display technology.

Samsung is also reportedly listed as a corporate parent at the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, though we’ve been unable to independently verify that fact. [Update: See below] Liquavista last made headlines with a flexible, unbreakable e-paper display, and it seems Samsung has decided it wants that technology for its own products.

Job description (translated):

HR Manager

Partner

EINDHOVEN

HR Manager The position As HR Manager you are contributing to the further development and growth of the organization. Ean of your main tasks in the initial phase is to establish a framework around employment such as pensions. The profile you have HBO / university working and thinking and at least 5 years experience in an all round HR function. You are used to operate in a “sales driven, dynamic and international organization. Also recognize yourself in the following competencies: self pioneer Very flexible Proactive Pragmatic Visionary Energetic Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English spoken and written Willing to occasionally travel abroad Full time available (40 hours) The organization has a new Liquavista division of Samsung. The company is active in the field of display development. The offer Location: Eindhoven Salary: between, ¬ 3800, – and, ¬ 5000, – gross per month, excluding holiday and bonus. Employment: 1 year with prospect of permanent employment. Contact Information Simon Onck 073-7511716 Reference number 5806

Update: eReaders.nl have grabbed a screenshot showing Samsung as the new Liquavista parent company [Thanks Natasja]:

[via The Digital Reader]

“This engineer will work with other baseband engineers and other disciplines to design, architect, and evaluate advanced phone concepts. The qualified candidate will have experience in specifying the optical properties of mobile cameras and displays, be capable of measuring the performance of mobile cameras and displays, and be capable of integrating those components into prototype phone designs.” HTC listing

While the scope of job specs is often far greater than the actual role might entail, there are definitely possibilities in the smartphone industry for both 3D and e-paper technologies. E Ink’s low-power screens make for ideal status displays, since they require power only to update the image, not to maintain it; we’ve seen Samsung attempt an AMOLED status sub-display with the Continuum, but E Ink would be even more power-efficient.

As for 3D, the job description calls for someone responsible not only for display but for ”camera technologies,” which implies HTC is considering 3D-capable optics on next-gen devices. Given the spread of 3D in the home entertainment and camcorder markets, it seems likely that HTC would be looking at how its smartphones could also get in on the trend.

[via Android Community]

Electrowetting, incase you were unaware, is the process of applying (wetting) a hydrophobic surface with a field of electricity within a display – aka, the thing you do when your computer shows you some type, some photographs, some video, everything. It’s the “revealing”, if you will, most recently applied to e-paper.

What Steckl and his researcher pals aim to do is “replicate the look and feel of actual ink on paper, … We have, therefore, investigated the use of paper as the perfect substrate for EW devices to accomplish e-paper on paper.” What would this be good for? Steckl says “We would have something that is very cheap, very fast, full-color and at the end of the day or the end of the week, you could pitch it into the trash.”

What would I use that for instead of a regular piece of paper? Steckl says: “We hope to have something that would actually look like paper but behave like a computer monitor in terms of its ability to store information.” OHHH ok. So maybe I’d be able to brush it off, or save some info to a separate memory chip, say a thumb drive. But what about the fact that you’d totally be destroying the environment by throwing away all that technology day-to-day? Steckl says the impact will be low. This guy seems like a boss. You can get the entire text of the paper “Electrowetting on Paper for Electronic Paper Display” by Duk Young Kim and Andrew J. Steckl from [ACS Publications] for $30 for 48 hours or reading. Whoa!

[Via TGDaily]

R3 Media Network

SlashPhone
Sam’s Club Now Offering iPad With Minor Discount

Android Community
Hamilton CapTel offers Android app for hearing impaired
Nexus S concave touchscreen originally intended for Sprint?
Sony Ericsson ANZU/XPERIA X12 previewed
Samsung Galaxy Tab: Five Carriers, Three Cases – Which Feels Best?
Dropbox for Android Updated
HTC Knight is actually HTC EVO Shift 4G?

SlashGear
Low-temp ceramic micro fuel-cells promise affordable methane power
Fluid Dress is incredible labor of fluid-filled love [Video] [MPLS YAY]
Color e-paper drawing tablet gets Berlin outing
White iPhone 4 conversion kit seller gets legal threat after $130k sales
Motorola MOTOPAD Honeycomb tablet due Feb/Mar 2011 with Tegra 2 tip insiders
PeeWee Pivot 2.0 tablet laptop launches
Fujitsu multitouch resistive touchscreens bring cheap pinch-zooming to Windows 7 notebooks
Hulu Plus officially launches at $7.99 per month; hits Roku today
BYD Alice Tegra 2 Froyo tablet wants a chance at the market
Palm to reclaim smartphone “birthright” with phones & “a great tablet” tips Rubinstein
Sharp 3D smartphone launches for US, India & China tipped for 2011
VUDU 2.0 UI teased; HD PS3 streaming due later this month

To see more wrap-up posts, follow the following tags: [The Daily Slash] or [SlashGear Morning Wrap-up]

Triton is also tipped to be 20-percent faster than previous E Ink screens – though it still doesn’t support a sufficiently fast refresh rate to show smooth video – and can handle simple animations. As with existing monochrome e-paper displays, Triton is readable even in direct sunlight, and bistable so that it can maintain an on-screen image without any power being applied.

According to Hanvon, their color ereader should arrive in March 2011, so we’re guessing that’s when mass production of Triton will be ready. No word on how pricing compares to the monochrome versions.

[via PC Watch]

Press Release:

E Ink Announces Color ePaper

E Ink color ePaper displays enabled by Triton Imaging Film will deliver high-contrast, sunlight readable, low-power performance that will revolutionize the market.

FPD International 2010

MAKUHARI MESSE, Japan–(BUSINESS WIRE)–E Ink® Holdings Inc., the leader in electronic paper display technology, today announced the release of its next generation display technology, E Ink Triton. Triton enables color ePaper solutions, enhancing the visual experience for ePublishing markets.

“E Ink Triton marks a major milestone in the eBook revolution,” said Hanvon’s Chairmain Dr. Liu Yingjian. “E Ink has the right technology, manufacturing capability, and know-how to transition Hanvon’s product vision into reality. With E Ink Triton technology, Hanvon is enabled to release the world’s first color eBook reader today.”

“E Ink Triton is a response to market need for a color ePaper display that mimics the printed paper experience,” said Scott Liu, Chairman of E Ink Holdings. “Triton will compliment our monochrome product line to enable new markets.”

“Color ePaper will enable richer content in eBooks, as well as enabling a broader array of other reading devices, for content such as magazines, newspapers, and educational materials,” according to Paul Semenza, Senior Vice President, DisplaySearch. “We foresee market demand for ePaper displays in these applications reaching $5 billion by 2016.”

Enhanced with Color

For image-rich information applications showing charts, graphs, maps, photos, comics and advertising, color displays made with Triton Imaging Film enable ultra-low power and high mobility devices with a paper-like experience. In addition to 16 levels of grayscale, Triton is capable of displaying thousands of colors. And just like E Ink’s grayscale ePaper products, Triton’s crisp text and detailed color graphics are fully viewable in direct sunlight.

Faster Performance

Displays made with Triton, as well as the recently launched Pearl, can perform up to 20 percent faster than those made with previous generations of E Ink Imaging Film. Whether turning a page, selecting a menu, taking notes, or viewing simple animations, Triton’s update performance will satisfy today’s user-interface product needs. This expands the ePaper experience and displays more dynamic content for signage or advertising.

Proven Technology

The E Ink Triton design leverages the patented two pigment capsule platform found in millions of E Ink enabled eBooks. This technology offers unparalleled image stability; pictures and text can be maintained on the screen even when the power is turned off. With this proven bi-stable technology, devices using E Ink Imaging Film have demonstrated both long life and high reliability, leading to the development of a whole new class of consumer products over the past few years.

The notepad looks like a paper notebook with a 7-inch screen and it has WiFi in addition to 3G capability. The device has many features and uses with support for web surfing, email, handwriting signatures, hand writing emails, document editing, GPS navigation, and more. It also supports IM and games.

To secure content saved on the S700 the tablet has fingerprint recognition for security and some sort of “military grade safety and privacy” system inside the notebook to prevent viruses and hackers from getting to data. One of the most interesting features that the S700 has is a color screen making it the first to use color in this sort of device. It also has a 3MP autofocus camera that can snap images of business cards and add the data to the contacts list of the tablet. Pricing and availability are both unknown.

The dual-mode display sandwiched a greyscale BiNem panel – which can maintain its image even when power is removed – and a color OLED panel for photos and video, either toggling between them or keeping both active.  The result could have been ereaders capable of the battery longevity of E Ink screens but able to show video and smooth web browsing like the iPad.

[via The Digital Reader]

This newly leaked version has a smaller screen, but otherwise the specifications look very similar.  However there’s no indication of whether the 8.2-inch Delta ereader – which will carry the Vivitek brand – will allow for pen-input annotation, like the larger model could.

China Mobile are said to be subsidizing the sticker price of the device, though neither the original or discounted cost are currently known.  Delta has previously said that its Bridgestone-sourced e-paper is faster than that of rival E Ink.

[via E-Reader-Info]

In fact, according to TDR, “ it would best be described as something Sony would like to do rather than something Sony will do.”  Still, we’ve a feeling that even if Sony don’t make the jump, one of E Ink’s other customers – and there are plenty, seeing as they currently supply the vast majority of ereader manufacturers with devices on the market – likely will.

Of course, you need to do more than just change the substrate in order to make something flexible, but Sony aren’t saying what exactly they’ve done to the e-ink technology itself.  We’ve seen other companies attempt to commercialize flexible e-paper, and LG expects to begin manufacturing its own 19-inch panels by the end of the year, but so far the goal has proved just out of reach.

A useful side-effect of the flexible system, Sony says, is increased resilience to breakage; anyone who has dropped their Kindle knows that, like LCD, regular e-paper can shatter.  Perhaps flexible Sony newspapers will be the edge they need to push their Reader range out of the shadows.

[via Sony Insider]

Video demo after the cut

Unfortunately, beyond what we can glean from the few lingering shots of the prototype itself, details are in short supply.  The front screen isn’t shown turned on, but the curved rear looks to be an e-paper panel of some sort.

Android is mentioned in the YouTube description, which cheers us up as the last Russian 4G device we saw – the HTC MAX 4G – had to make do with Windows Mobile 6.5.  Still, there’s every chance that this is an ambitious concept that will never make it to market, so don’t get too excited.

[via Recombu]

The mass production of the displays will come in two variations: a 9.7-inch color display, and a 19-inch flexible variation. The news comes from a recent SEC filing, filed by LG. Unfortunately, the details on what LG is planning on using the displays for is pretty much nonexistent. The filing doesn’t go into any detail, and despite the fact they plan on mass producing the displays by the end of the year doesn’t do anything to tell us what they’re actually going to be used for.

However, a bit of guessing would have us assume that the 9.7-inch color display would be used for some kind of eReader device, or perhaps a tablet. As for that 19-inch flexible display? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. It could be the newest way to read your newspaper, or maybe something solely meant for advertisement. If LG is serious about mass producing the displays in such a short time frame, then it shouldn’t be long before new details break out. So stay tuned.

[via PC World]

According to Cathey, despite what Mollenkopf’s comments implied, the mirasol fabs are up and running, and samples are out with the company’s OEM partners. The confusion, he suggested, was down to volumes: Mollenkopf was “thinking in billions” which, as a new technology, mirasol isn’t yet reaching. However, Qualcomm are on track to make their first shipments before the end of the year, and Cathey expects commercial products to arrive in Q1 2011.

As for what those products might be, Cathey refused to be drawn, only confirming that a range of functionality – ereaders, tablets and combinations of the two segments – was coming from the handful of OEMs working with the first mirasol batch. Qualcomm can’t confirm manufacturer names, only that there are a “reasonable number” for a new display technology. Qualcomm has been collaborating closely with each partner when it comes to integrating the display and making the most of its capabilities. “OEMs know what they’re doing” Cathey said, but Qualcomm’s role is to show “how can the display be used to maximise – and surpass – the user experience.” Key to that is battery management, working out the right sized power pack to balance runtimes with portability.

With the first mirasol products approaching, we asked Cathey what Qualcomm’s next step would be for MEMS technology. As you might expect – and in keeping with Mollenkopf’s recent comments – increasing capacity and volume are the primary goals, though the team is also looking to broaden the product offering. That means an increase in mirasol display sizes and a boost in resolution, beyond the 5.7-inch 1024 x 768 panel currently in production. We’re expecting to hear more at Qualcomm’s iQ 2010 event early next month.

Qualcomm mirasol demo: