Inking the future with E-Ink – magazine feature
Are you listening? There WILL be questions afterwards!
Biblio Tech Review (Googled again) also offers:
“Electronic ink generates an image of a piece of paper that glows with letters like a neon sign. That is not far off. This technology is the ability to put electronic charge to particles on flexible sheets about the thickness of paper and thus have these particles form words. Instead of using computer screens, these flexible sheets emulate paper and as such are portable and reusable. Imagine having a road map that could change depending on what city you were in or a newspaper that didn’t have to be discarded, it would be updated each day.
There are two major players working on electronic ink technology. E Ink Corporation of Cambridge Massachusetts and Xerox in Palo Alto, California. Both work using the same basic principles, but approach the product in a slightly different manner.”
Will PARC strike again?
End of quote, this is me talking again—I heard some months ago that Xerox was working on e-ink, and when I visited the web site of the fabled Palo Alto Research Centre noted above, I found that they are indeed working on e-ink but confess I could not understand what they are doing any better than as detailed on the ‘e-ink’ website.
It is easy to check for yourself. Just hit Google with ‘e ink’ you will get the lot.
My modest understanding is that at present it is possible to create something like a piece of laminated plastic a millimeter or two thick, that is capable of displaying black and white images, that can be changed with some rapidity. It is of course hooked up to a computer that provides the images.
How fast can it re-display the images? At present fast enough for a wristwatch or a train station timetable display. That is now. In a few years it may be as fast as a black and white TV and have a similar quality. The e-ink site also mentions a colour display. Not available yet, but coming real soon. If not next year or the year after than you would have to think within the next five years or so.
Is it a screen or paper display?
So what are we looking at here? Is this a brand new technology for the display of marketing and advertising material? It seems so. Who should be interested and concerned? Anyone who produces large sheet stuff such as theatre posters on big offset presses, and everyone who produces wide format.
If you can buy a display material at $100 a metre, or even $1000 a metre or for that matter $3000 a metre, and change the image every second, is this not going to be a VERY attractive alternative to static displays? Hell yes. Absolutely no contest.
The options for variable displays at the moment are LCD and plasma screens at about $6000 a square metre, plus computer. As soon as anyone can buy square metres of variable display at a price that falls closer to poster prices than plasma screen prices, what are they going to do?
The printed poster market will die almost overnight. Why would anyone buy a single-use printed poster at maybe $80 a square metre if they could buy a variable colour display at say $3000 per square metre, and maybe much cheaper.
The wide format print market is currently booming and is the source of great looking company cars. To insure future financial happiness, I highly recommend that you closely monitor the e-ink phenomenon and if you think it is going anywhere, get in early and grab it fast.
Ian Maclean produces the CostMaster MIS for print shops and also consults to the trade. You are always welcome to contact Ian on 0411 426 215 or ian@costmaster.com.au
Will PARC strike again?
End of quote, this is me talking again—I heard some months ago that Xerox was working on e-ink, and when I visited the web site of the fabled Palo Alto Research Centre noted above, I found that they are indeed working on e-ink but confess I could not understand what they are doing any better than as detailed on the ‘e-ink’ website.
It is easy to check for yourself. Just hit Google with ‘e ink’ you will get the lot.
My modest understanding is that at present it is possible to create something like a piece of laminated plastic a millimeter or two thick, that is capable of displaying black and white images, that can be changed with some rapidity. It is of course hooked up to a computer that provides the images.
How fast can it re-display the images? At present fast enough for a wristwatch or a train station timetable display. That is now. In a few years it may be as fast as a black and white TV and have a similar quality. The e-ink site also mentions a colour display. Not available yet, but coming real soon. If not next year or the year after than you would have to think within the next five years or so.
Is it a screen or paper display?
So what are we looking at here? Is this a brand new technology for the display of marketing and advertising material? It seems so. Who should be interested and concerned? Anyone who produces large sheet stuff such as theatre posters on big offset presses, and everyone who produces wide format.
If you can buy a display material at $100 a metre, or even $1000 a metre or for that matter $3000 a metre, and change the image every second, is this not going to be a VERY attractive alternative to static displays? Hell yes. Absolutely no contest.
The options for variable displays at the moment are LCD and plasma screens at about $6000 a square metre, plus computer. As soon as anyone can buy square metres of variable display at a price that falls closer to poster prices than plasma screen prices, what are they going to do?
The printed poster market will die almost overnight. Why would anyone buy a single-use printed poster at maybe $80 a square metre if they could buy a variable colour display at say $3000 per square metre, and maybe much cheaper.
The wide format print market is currently booming and is the source of great looking company cars. To insure future financial happiness, I highly recommend that you closely monitor the e-ink phenomenon and if you think it is going anywhere, get in early and grab it fast.
Ian Maclean produces the CostMaster MIS for print shops and also consults to the trade. You are always welcome to contact Ian on 0411 426 215 or ian@costmaster.com.au