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Cambridge UK based Plastic Logic has just confirmed it is getting out of the e-reader business. It intends on immediately closing down the USA development offices and continue to operate out of their Cambridge headquarters. The company has shifted its business model away from marketing e-readers that use their flexible display technology and instead will license it to other companies.

Plastic Logic CEO Indro Mukerjee says: “Plastic Logic has always been at its core a dynamic technology company. Having recently achieved significant milestones, including being the first in the world to fully industrialize the mass-production of flexible plastic displays, we are now well positioned to address a broader set of applications and markets throughout the world.”

The UK based company found it hard to compete in North America and scrapped plans to launch its eagerly anticipated QUE e-reader a few years ago. It recently launched the PL 100 e-reader last year to make a play for lucrative government contracts in the Russian educational system. The Plastic Logic 100 used a new technology that is neither LCD nor eInk, but instead is patented PlasticPaper. Because the base is not glass, the Plastic Logic 100 display is large, thin, lightweight, and uniquely shatterproof and rugged, which is especially important given constant use by students. The resolution is 1280×960 and has 150 PPI! It has a capacitive IR touchscreen interface that makes interacting with it easier than most touchscreen e-ink devices.

Plastic Logic plans on licensing various facets of their technology to vendors who want to use it in their products. Plastic Logic’s pride and joy is the flexible screen technology called “PlasticPaper.” There are no specific announcements in terms of who is signing on to license the technology, but you would figure some companies are lined up.

Is there a market for this type of screen technology? e-Ink Holdings currently has a dominant stranglehold on the market. Other companies are finding it very hard to compete in the e-paper segment. Mirasol only recently released its new screen displays, but only Eastern companies have signed on and the displays remain irrelevant in North America. Pixel QI also has superb e-paper that mimics e-ink but has higher resolution, and only a spartan amount of companies have ever signed on. Other companies completely go under without ever releasing a single product. Only yesterday Bridgestone scrapped its QR-LDD technology because it could not release products by itself and found no investment to release commercially viable products. The one thing Plastic Logic has going for it is that it owns its own means of production. It is quite easy to pump out a copious amount of screens for new clients, but will anyone take the risk and sign on?

Bridgestone has been demonstrating its color e-paper technologies for a few years at various conferences and trade-shows. We have caught up with the representatives on many occasions and talked to Bridgestone’s major partners like Delta Electronics. Today Bridgestone announced that they were getting out of the e-paper arena and leaving their partners to fend for themselves.

The company has made this decision after careful consideration of its options and a desire to stay in accordance with its management principal of “selection and concentration,” which Bridgestone is implementing to put an increased focus on its core businesses to provide maximum value to its customers and shareholders. Due to increasing competition and rapidly declining prices in the liquid crystal panel business, the company decided that the best course of action for its overall business is to exit the electronic paper market.

Bridgestone, best known for making tires, had developed QR-LPD (Quick Response Liquid Powder Display) screen technology that was created through a joint partnership by Bridgestone and Vivitek. It’s basically a screen and a logic controller system for electronic readers that promotes a low power consumption while displaying 4096 colors. One of the big new factors in this technology is the .08 second page update and supports different types of page refreshes. It can do partial page updates, full page updates, and supports touch screen and stylus interactions. The screen technology can support from 8 inches all the way to 21 inches and does around 4 levels of gray-scale. Like Pixel Qi, the big selling points to clients wanting to employ QR-LPD is the ability to read it in direct sunlight.

All of the companies involved in this new breed of technology developed e-readers as small as six inches and as large as 21 inches. It really was the 21 inch model with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 pixels for the mono panel and 1,280 x 960 for full color that drew the largest amount of industry attention.

None of these devices, after three years of development, really ever saw the light of day, but Delta Electronics did issue the Aerobee e-readers that never saw market penetration. It is a shame that this technology really never took off. It had tons of potential but no one really invested a large amount of capital into consumer releases. When we spoke with Delta and Vivitek, their priorities were never the public but instead focused on niche segments like real estate and education.


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Welcome to another Good e-Reader Exclusive Video Review! Today we check out the brand new Barnes and Noble Simple Touch Reader with Glowlight and conduct a battery of nighttime reading tests!

The Nook Glowlight is the first e-ink reader in the world to utilize LED lights built into the bezel to give you the ability to read in the dark. How does this compare to book lights which have been on the market for a number of years? We compare the Nook Glowlight with the standard LED Book Light. We also compare it to the brand new Solar Focus Kindle case with built in Book Light. Finally, we check out how it rates against the Nook Tablet and iPad 3 for reading at night!

We really put this device through all the paces comparing it to most 3rd party accessories that would give your normal e-reader the ability to read at night. Many people buy tablets because they also allow you to read without depending on having a lamp on or external lights. If you are thinking of buying an e-reader or tablet to read at night, this is the best test to help you make the decision.


The world’s first electronic paper display that is made of plastic has entered production, LG announced paving the way for the next generation of e-books readers that could be bent to some extent — 40 degrees to be precise from the center of the display. What this means in real life scenarios is that users will be able to bend their e-readers as they would usually do when reading a magazine or newspaper. However, unlike newspapers, the real advantage with e-readers made of the LG produced electronic papers is that users will also be able to catch up with the e-mails or other such tasks while reading.

The new e-Paper by LG features a inch XGA display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and relies on e-ink to render monochrome display of texts and images. However, the biggest USP of the EPD is its ultra thin construction. This has been achieved with the use of plastic that is as thin as a display guard used on cellphones. This has resulted in the EPD being just 0.7mm, just about a third from similar EPD that are made of glass. The use of plastic has also made the LG produced EPD weigh just 14 gms. This in turn has added to the durability of the display, something brought forth in repeated drop tests performed by LG. The e-papers were dropped from a height of about 1.5 meters though the displays not only survived each time but also very devoid of any scratches. Even hitting the displays with a small urethane hammer failed to leave a mark on the e-paper displays.

“With the world’s first plastic EPD, LG Display has once again proven its reputation for leadership and innovation with a product we believe will help greatly popularize the E-Book market,” said Mr. Sang Duck Yeo, Head of Operations for LG Display’s Mobile/OLED division. “Based on our success in mass-producing plastic EPD, we are excited as we look toward applying concepts from this experience to future developments like plastic OLED and flexible displays.”

LG has also come up with a unique method of manufacturing the e-paper displays, the same technique that is usually used to manufacture LCD screen with temperature maintained at 350 degrees. For this, LG had to develop the plastic material that could withstand the production process in a high temperature environment.

Coming to the actual products based on the e-papers, LG stated the displays would reach ODM in China soon so that the first devices based on the e-paper expected to reach markets by early next month itself. However, its the European market that would be the first to have the e-paper and LG hasn’t stated which other countries or regions come next.

via hitech24

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We are very excited to be bringing you another Good e-Reader Exclusive Video! Today we are unboxing the brand new Kyobo Mirasol Color e-Reader.

First of all, Mirasol has been refining this new technology for over two years and this is the first e-reader employing its new breed of color e-paper. It has a great resolution of 1024×768 pixels on a 5.7 inch capacitive touchscreen display. Underneath the hood is a 1 GHZ Snapdragon CPU processor which is amazing for an e-reader.


Parliament in the United Kingdom recently convened to discuss the issue of lowering the VAT on ebooks sold in the country. Many publishing companies wanted to lower the 20% extra people pay for their digital ebooks. A few days ago they again decided not to reduce the fee, which is a boon for Amazon. The Bookseller reports David Gauke, the UK’s exchequer secretary, said the UK could not do this and remain in compliance with European Union law, which classes electronic media as services rather than goods and requires they be taxed at the higher rate.

Amazon is benefiting from the higher VAT fees because their head of European operations is based in Luxemburg, where the VAT has been recently lowered to only 3% on ebooks. This ensures that people who live in the UK who want to buy content will pay only the paltry 3% instead of the 20%.

The UK government is aware of these sorts of tactics and feels that it gives Amazon too much of a competitive edge. The EU has mandated that they will revise the way VAT is paid in 2015 so that buyers will pay the tax of their country rather than that of the vendor.

via Teleread

Categories : E-Paper, e-Reader News
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e-Ink Holdings is the company responsible for the technology found in some of the world’s most popular e-readers. If you have the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch, or most Sony devices, they have an e-ink screen. We caught up with the Chief Marketing Officer of E Ink Holdings Inc, Sriram K. Peruvemba, for a great discussion on the current state of affairs with their company and the e-reader sphere.

E-ink is doing record financial numbers due to the rising success of the screens used in Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Sony e-Readers. As a company how are you adjusting to the added income?

We are in the consumer markets primarily both with our FFS LCDs used in Tablet devices as well as our ePaper displays used in eReaders, such as the ones you mentioned. In the consumer world, we are required to constantly innovate and provide new technologies and features pretty much every year and this involves a lot of investment. In addition, predicting product volumes in the consumer space is non-trivial, so our factories have to flex its capacity to cater to peak months when the volume could be as much as 4x above average. Building factories to cater to cyclical demand has been a major area of investment for us. In a nutshell, our investments have gone into research, design, and manufacturing primarily, and we have also invested in all other areas of business from office buildings to new enterprise software systems. Most of our investment has been in human resources, meaning we added a number of scientists and engineers to various groups. In the area of manufacturing, apart from a lot of hires, we also invested in infrastructure.

E-Ink Triton had a ton of potential but we have yet to see a major company releasing a product. Of course we have Hanvon with their model and they made a deal with Ectaco to re brand it as the Jetbook color, why hasn’t it caught on yet?

E Ink Triton meets the needs of applications such as eTextbooks and eNewspapers and we have seen customers such as Jinke, Hanvon, Ectaco publicly announce products using our technology. Other customers are also working on designs that are not announced yet. This is both in the area of ePublishing applications as well as in areas such as signage. Triton does not support full motion video, we can only do animation at this point hence other mobile devices such as tablets use our FFS technology based LCD rather than our Triton displays. We are confident that Triton and further generations of color ePaper will play a significant role in the display space. What is interesting about Triton is that when you increase the pixel size the color is much more saturated and the display meets almost all color needs in various applications but the increased pixel size renders the display more suitable for viewing from 6 feet away (signs) than from 6″ away (eReaders). All the same, when the Triton eReader in Hanvon, Ectaco device is compared in a outdoor, high ambient setting alongside any tablet or laptop, the effect is remarkable.

What are some of the hurdles you have to overcome to offer companies who want to use Triton the kind of end costs found in e-ink pearl?

Since Triton uses the same chemistry as Pearl, the cost of the base materials are not different, the color filter does cost extra, but as a percentage of the cost of the end device, the cost of the CFA is not as significant. The color ePaper devices will cost more than the monochrome devices not mainly due to the display but due to other features that can be enabled in the software and UI that were not possible in case of the monochrome device. We are confident that our entire eco-system (the display is probably one of about 100 sub components in a eReader as you know) will work towards finding competitive cost structures to make the Triton based devices suitable for consumer applications. And yes, we want it to happen sooner, our customers such as Ectaco and Hanvon are leading the way in the eReader space.

What is in development right now. Things from e-ink has  been rather quiet lately, are you doing something new?

We have actually been busier  the past two years than ever before. We have alots of projects in the pipline. We typically release a major platform once every 18 –24 months and in between we release a number of smaller innovations.

Pearl went into production last year.

Triton went into production this year.

In the meanwhile we have worked with our semiconductor partners to transform dedicated display controllers plus memory into System-On-Chip products. This resulted in increased speed and performance of our existing products (See Bookeen video using E Ink/TI jointly developed SOC as well as the E Ink/ Freescale joint collaboration SOC  in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24srQXX81Oc )

At the same time the SOC partners – Freeescale, TI, Marvel, Epson, Samsung found ways to reduce the overall cost, which benefitted our end customers. In each case E Ink has a joint development agreement with the respective semiconductor company that allows for collaborative design activity.

Another area where we made great progress during 2011 was in the area of touchscreens. Last year, the  majority of E Ink displays on eReaders had no touch screen. This year almost all of them do. This required a lot of close coordination and work with touchscreen companies as well as our end customers. You will notice that, unlike in the case of LCD, when you use the touch screen on an E Ink display, chances of accidentally pressing an adjoining key or button is minimized. You feel like you are touching the actual image rather than a surface high above the image.

When we first started, our designs had a power management circuit that had about 40 discrete components – E Ink designed, we have worked with Maxim and TI to create PMIC chips that replace those 40 components and increase reliability, reduce a lot of board space and take out more than 50% of the cost. A huge benefit for the end customers

A not so well known fact is that E Ink also makes software that accompanies our product – its a suite of software options- and our customers have recently used these features to enable faster page turns among others. If you look at the top three benefits offered by a number of eReader customers of ours (see http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/nook-simple-touch-barnes-noble/1102344735), all of these are due to the display. This is a fairly large undertaking within E Ink.

You’ve no doubt noticed that we have been showing demos of flexible displays for the past 2-3 years and that we are working with nearly a dozen companies to get this to market (Our publicly announced partners include Epson, Sony, Plastic Logic, HP, Flextech, LG Display, Samsung). Recently our customer Plastic Logic launched a fully functional device in the Russian market (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAv4XFiPDB4&feature=player_embedded#! And I had the chance to toss it around recently, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvCS4v8XMYQ ) This project has been a multi-year effort at E Ink.

In the area of segmented or what we call SURF displays, we’ve made great progress. We’ve designed dozens of new products  from watches to indoor and outdoor signs, secondary displays on mobile phones,  battery and memory indicators etc. Our customers Neolux and Motion Display both delivered dozens and dozens of new products to end customers using our product line that we refer to as Ink-In-Motion. These are essentially used in retail signage applications. If you need more details about the SURF products, let us know, we can even ship a few samples to you.

With our matrix displays, we have launched into non-publishing applications in partnership with a company named Pervasive Displays (spun out from ChiMei/ChiLin) and created several designs for industrial, medical and consumer applications. We have already won business using these designs and the products are in mass production. See http://www.pervasivedisplay.com/home

We had been working with Ricoh for a number of years to create and launch this unique design called eQuill see: http://www.ricoh-ews.com/ricoh-equill . The product just launched and we are excited about the prospects.

Finally, in partnership with Epson, we have developed a 300 dpi display (current shipping 6″ eReader displays are 167 dpi) that looks better than ordinary paper. Epson makes a semiconductor chip that drives our high res display. We are in the process of working with customers in various sub market segments to get these designed into actual products. If you are at CES, we can show this display to you.

There are many other promising technologies being worked on and I will let you know when I am able.

What is your relationship with Freescale, since many companies using your e-ink screens use Freescale processors to power their devices?

We have a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with Freescale where we license technology, patents and have a collaborative effort to develop new products. We think Freescale has done a fantastic job with their new SOC products, which enables new features on the E Ink Pearl and Triton displays.

Are you guys coming to CES? If so, what will you be showing off?

We are but we typically don’t exhibit at CES. We will have several E Ink display based devices being exhibited by our customers and industry partners.

I was speaking with a e-ink Representative at the 1st annual e-Readers Conference in San Francisco a few months ago and they mentioned e-ink clothing, that would change color, what news do you have on that front?

This was a research project we worked on with a government customer and therefore samples are not available to send. As such, the pruduct is not yet commercialized though there is market interest.

Mirasol recently released their first color e-reader in South Korean with Kyobo, how is your company responding to that new technology and what do you think about it?

We admire their technology, it’s quite fascinating. They have been working on this for a long time, we know how hard it is to take product from lab to fab, we wish them the very best.

mirasol ereader

Mirasol has finally delivered its long awaited Color e-Reader featuring a new generation of e-paper. They have partnered up with South Korean bookstore chain Kyobo to sell their e-readers in a retail setting. Today Mirasol has offered a new video demonstrating the device.

The new Mirasol features a 5.7-inch capacitive color touchscreen with 1024 x 768 pixels. It is projected to be a speedy device with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor. You can surf the web with the built in WIFI to purchase books and browse the internet. The hyping factor is the new Mirasol based color e-paper technology that allows you to read even in the dark.

Kyobo Books is the largest bookstore chain in South Korea and it will offer close to 90,000 ebooks for purchase. Not only can you sate your literary thirsts, but they will also offer videos, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines, and graphic novels. Additionally, the device features video lecture content exclusive to EBS, a leading Korea-based provider of educational material; content sharing through Korean social networking services; English language text-to-speech capabilities; and searchable content through the popular Diotek dictionary application.


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Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video! Today we take a comprehensive look at two of the latest e-reader/tablet hybrids that is taking the world by storm. Of course we are talking about the Amazon Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox.

These two devices have a fair bit in common with the same 7 inch display screen and 1024×600 resolution. Surprisingly these two e-readers look very much alike with the overall aesthetics. The Kindle Fire blows the Vox away in terms of its dual core processor, where the Vox only has a single core 800 MHZ one.

In this video we go over most of the facets in which people will gauge whether the device is suitable for them. The Fire taps into a large ecosystem via Amazon and you can get videos, books, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers. The company is also putting on the finishing touches on its new comic book section. BY contrast, the Vox only offers books, magazines and newspapers.

This video compares book reading experience, internet, Youtube, hardware, software and a battery of tests. If you are thinking of purchasing these two e-readers for the holiday season, this is a MUST see video.


Cheryl Goodman of Mirasol told us at the 1st annunal e-Reader Conference in San Francisco that they will be releasing a device by the end of the year. True to their word, we finally have the fabled device available via the Kyobo Book Centre in South Korea. They are going to be releasing an e-reader today, running on the Google Android 2.3 OS for $300.00.

The new Mirasol features a 5.7-inch capacitive color touchscreen with 1024 x 768 pixels. It is projected to be a speedy device with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor. You can surf the worldwide web with the built in WIFI to purchase books and browse the internet. The hyping factor is the new Mirasol based color e-paper technology that allows you to read even in the dark.

Kyobo Books is the largest bookstore chain in South Korea and it will offer close to 90,000 ebooks to purchase. Not only can you sate your literary thirsts, but they will also offer videos, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines, and graphic novels. Additionally, the device features video lecture content exclusive to EBS, a leading Korea-based provider of educational material; content sharing through Korean social networking services; English language text-to-speech capabilities; and searchable content through the popular Diotek dictionary application.

“Kyobo is a recognized content leader focused on bringing unique and innovative experiences to its customers,” said Clarence Chui, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc. “Kyobo’s customers will be the first to enjoy the exceptional color e-reader experience and long battery life that only mirasol displays can provide.”

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jetbook color

We are all used to the e-ink display screens found in the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Kobo Touch. Mainly you will find e-ink Pearl technology within those readers but a giant is looming in the wings with e-Ink Triton. This is color e-ink technology as featured in the Hanvon e-reader shown as CES earlier in the year and re-branded by Ectaco as the Jetbook Color. This technology just won the coveted Wall Street Journal 2011 innovation award.

Ectaco released the following statement about winning the award; “While working on the jetBook Color development team, we were sure that the potential of this revolutionary device was going to be immense. Now, our belief has been proven by the Wall Street Journal. The E Ink Triton display in the ECTACO jetBook Color that uses the first and only color e-ink technology in the world has been presented with the 2011 Innovation Award.”

“Our E Ink Triton displays will enable the use of electrophoretic displays for publishing applications that require color charts, graphics and images such as textbooks and magazines,” said Sriram Peruvemba, Chief Marketing Officer at E Ink. “Recognition for this innovation from the Wall Street Journal is a testament to our Company’s efforts to bring electronic paper solutions to the market that close the gap between paper and electronic displays.”


Categories : E-Paper, e-Reader News
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Barnes and Noble released new firmware today for their Simple Touch Reader, which is their 1st full touchscreen device launched earlier this year. The new firmware update serves a number of enhancements, such as expanding battery life and better screen interactivity.

The new firmware update dubbed 1.1.0 breaks new ground in adding new features to the Nook Simple Touch Reader. Word has it the new update allows for a new rendering engine for make text and PDF documents appear in higher resolution. The battery life has also been expanded to last almost two months on a single charge. Page turns and menu functions have been boosted by almost 25% to provide a better experience.

The new update will be pushed to your device via WIFI in the next week. If you’re anything like us and can’t wait, you can simply download and install it manually. Full details can be found HERE.

The video below documents the page turn rate refresh speed on the Nook Simple Touch before and after the Firmware Update, courtesy of Laptopmag.


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Taiwan based Industrial Technology Research Institute, or ITRI, has come up with something that can be considered the nearest to a true blue replacement for paper, a highly flexible electronic paper that’s both re-writable and re-usable. Further, the technology which has gone into the making of the e-paper has ensured it does not require any electricity for retention of the screen image. It has would definitely appeal to those championing the green cause and tech heads alike.

The way the e-paper, which uses a flexible cholesteric liquid crystal panel, works is this: The basic principle is that this material holds a very similar structure to the biological cholesterol molecules from which the e-paper has got its name 12Re-Paper. A key aspect of the display is that ambient light sources are enough for it to exhibit 16 shades of gray, thus making it possible to operate without backlighting, something that is not possible with the conventional LCD screens as we know it. The e-paper boasts of a resolution of  300 dpi for the text and images it carries, which in turn can be stored or transferred using heat in much the same manner as the old school thermal fax machines operated.

The liquid crystal layer of the e-paper surface turns light or dark when subjected to a temperature of 86 degrees Celsius or 186 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat source is a thermal printer that is fitted with a thermal head, using 37 watts for its functions. The printer takes the e-paper with its previous content, which it wipes off first to place the next set of text or image upon it. The e-paper is very thin and hence bendable, while a single sheet can be re-used as many as 260 times, a figure that is sure to go up significantly after further research and development. Another significant plus point of the 12Re-Paper is that it boasts of a high percentage of recyclable content. The plastic PET substrate, high molecular liquid crystal material, nano pigment absorption layer material, and silver electrode are all recyclable and can be put to use again once the e-paper has reached the maximum number of re-writes allowed on it.

ITRI also mentions that normal solvent marker pens can also be used to write on its surface. Different colors can be achieved on the e-paper by the use of “different pitch spherical composite ion-exchangers.” This gives the paper high potential for use in magazines, newspapers, and color e-books as well.

Dr. Janglin Chen, general director of ITRI’s Display Technology Center, said, “It’s a fact that a significant portion of daily office printed papers will be discarded in days or weeks after use.” “i2R e-Paper’s re-cycle and re-use capabilities, positive effects on the environment and low cost of production are paving the way for mass acceptance of green e-paper technologies.”

The ITRI, a non-profit organization, is currently seeking licensing arrangements with a number of US based as well as domestic manufacturers. Meanwhile, the Taiwan based ChangChun Plastics is currently operating as the sole authorized manufacturer of the 12Re-paper, while mass production is expected to commence next year. ITRI is already foreseeing huge potential for the 12Re-paper to be used in the form of advertising banners, corporate visitor ID badges, transit passes, museum and parking lot tickets, or other areas where the paper used has a typically small life span.

The 12Re-paper is no doubt a great innovation and has already fetched ITRI a number of international awards and recognition. These include the first prize in the Materials and Basic Science and Technology category of the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards, the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards (which it has won for the third time in a row), along with the R&D 100 Awards this time for the same innovation.

via gizmag

Categories : E-Paper, Technology
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