e ink

ever thought about it or even heard of it at all ? it's a technology still very tender n young at the moment but has a very large potential in terms of its capabilities n possibilities in future.

wat's e-ink? hv u seen harry potter? there's a very cool moving newspaper/photo frame tat he has? it's one of the things that could really be done here in real life, seriously! it's actually a very thin sheet of electronic film (called e-paper) that can actually reproduce images with an ultra-low power consumption level. it was developed n meant for e-book (which is digital book for those of u who hvn't heard of e-book) devices. currently some strong contenders in d e-book devices are sony, iLiad n cybook ... some with different screen size, some with touch screens, some even integrate wi-fi to enable online e-book purchase through online stores n it doesn't come cheap. ranges from rm600 - 2000+ depending on model n features. unfortunately ... e-ink currently supports only b&w (black n white ...)


sony touch screen ebook reader


plastic logic e-newspaper with gesture based touchscreen n ms office document support


closer look of plastic logic

not onli in e-book devices, motorola has been d 1st company to employ e-ink into it's mobile phone series ... d motorola f3. not many ppl use it or even heard of it but it's been around since 2006 n it didn't really take off although the battery life was said to last for quite a long long time ... few reasons to tat, which is

1. no upper case / lower case
2. limited functionality
3. black & white
4. limited non-alphabet characters
5. limited lines of words

hmm, sad to hear it ? well, tat's all in 2006 ... today, we're close to 2009 and here's what we have. the readius, by polymer vision, a company developing e-ink partially owned by philips. initally meant for e-book device that comes with a foldable screen, re-designed n repackaged by philips again to become an ultra cool mobile phone. philips says tat this cool thingy will feature an 8" colour touch foldable screen tat could even play video, but i guess tat would take a bit of time until this ultra cool technology really matures :)

there's also d 1st magazine who features e-ink on it's october 2008 cover n advertisement, esquire. wanna see it? try googling through my search bar for it ... or mayb head straight to youtube n try e ink esquire ... you'll never know wat u can see in newsstands in the future :)

here are a few pictures of the prototype readius :-