epaper

Ever saw a stylish shoe that you wished came in your size? Or ever wanted to design your own shoes yourself? If you answered yes to either or both of these questions, then this hot new Indiegogo campaign might sing to your heart. The name "ShiftWear" is a tad deceptive, not standing up to the magic it can do. Unlike personalized sneakers, you don't have to settle for a single design and live with it once and for all. You can change it on a whim using only your smartphone, thanks to the magic of e-paper.

Continue Reading

It was almost exactly a year ago when Sony revealed the FES watch — a timepiece that uses low-power e-paper tech not only in the face, but in the band as well. Now, following a campaign on Sony's own crowdfunding site First Flight, the watch is finally a release, albeit limited, in Japan. It was originally developed by the Sony-owned subsidiary Fashion Entertainments, and was first pitched for crowdfunding without the Sony name attached, as the company wanted to see if there was a real market demand, without their reputation overshadowing the concept.

Continue Reading

Kobo isn't exactly swimming in cash when it comes to its hardware. In fact, it has decided to scrap its Android-based tablets, the Kobo Arc line, in favor of an Android app instead. That leaves it with time and resources to focus on the hardware that probably matters most to its customers: e-ink readers. Following the Glo HD that it unveiled last April, Kobo has mysteriously put out a version 2.0 of its baseline Kobo Touch reader but with seemingly little to differentiate it from its predecessor.

Continue Reading

Microsoft's detachable Surface keyboard may already bring easy text entry to the tablet, but the company is cooking up a new DisplayCover prototype with its own e-paper touchscreen. The work-in-progress peripheral is the handiwork of Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group, combining not only a physical keyboard but a full-width touchscreen which can be used to show menu items, toolbar controls, or even offer an alternative input area.

Continue Reading

Rollable displays may be a mainstay of science-fiction but they've been slow to show up in the real world, something startup Polyera aims to change. Just headed out of stealth mode after spending a decade working on flexible electronics to pair with a monochrome E Ink display, Polyera plans to demonstrate the worth of its Flexible Thin-Film Transistors with a homegrown product, the Wove wristband, in 2016.

Continue Reading

The same technology used on the display of your Amazon Kindle is now appearing in traffic signs in Sydney, Australia. While e-ink may not have the same visual punch as the OLED display on a smartphone, the technology is great for its low power consumption and easy visibility in various lighting conditions. That's probably the exact reason the Australian Road and Maritime Services (RMS) has gone with e-ink in traffic signs used for special events, which need to be updated frequently and easily seen by drivers.

Continue Reading

It can be tough being the middle child, but Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is having its moment in the sun by copying the best parts of its more expensive sibling. Revamped today, the new Paperwhite gets a 300dpi e-paper display like the Kindle Voyage we reviewed last October, as well as Amazon's new typesetting engine and the company's specially-created font, Bookerly. While the refreshed Kindle Paperwhite isn't expected to ship until the end of June, but I've been playing with one in advance.

Continue Reading

After months of waiting, years if you count the first YotaPhone, the two-faced, and we mean that kindly, smartphone is ready to enter the US market. But now, you won't be able to get the YotaPhone 2 off your favorite carrier or from a retailer. At least not yet. Russian company Yota is perhaps still testing the North American waters and will be coursing the dual display AMOLED and e-ink smartphone via an Indiegogo campaign instead. Which should probably give them a more or less accurate assessment for the YotaPhone 2's demand.

Continue Reading

On their website, a countdown timer ticks away. Nobody’s really sure what’s going on, but Pebble is teasing that in nearly five days’ time, we’ll have something new from them. As the little 8-bit, smiling watch humorously mocks us (not really), we’re left to wonder what’s going on. A new report suggests we’ll see new hardware from Pebble — new hardware that we were hoping to get last time around, when we ended up with a Steel version. We could also be in for a software surprise.

Continue Reading

Much has been made of Project Ara's modularity, but what modules exactly could be snapped into the customizable phone? Google's developer event saw several early partners give some teasers as to what blocks might come to the market, spanning everything from task-specific cameras for 3D, optical zoom, and more, through to medical testing, and even alternative displays like e-paper, all in the name of doing much more than a regular smartphone could.

Continue Reading

The dual-screen e-ink toting YotaPhone has been one of the more interesting smartphones to enter our radars for the past two years. Happily, it is making its way to the US this time around. But, naturally, the YotaPhone 2 has to stop by the FCC first for certification. And quite surprisingly, the smartphone's filing has more information than FCC sightings usually yield, including some photos of the innards of the device, as well as the user manual that clues us in on how the smartphone's rather ingenious features are meant to work.

Continue Reading

You have to give the team at Yota credit for not giving up on their dual-display smartphone dream. The original YotaPhone was a curious - but flawed - riff on the Android smartphone, a regular screen on one side and an E Ink panel on the back, let down by immature software and hardware. Now, with the YotaPhone 2, the company believes both concept and product are ready for the mass market. I’ve been trying the new smartphone out this week ahead of sales kicking off today, and it’s clear there certainly are advantages over opting for more screens, rather than just bigger ones. Read on for some first-impressions.

Continue Reading