At the recent Society for Information Display or SID in Seattle last week there were a number of E-Ink prototypes available on the main exhibit hall. There were some great new E-INK screens that provided better quality E-Ink with better contrast and display. E-Ink is getting better and better with each technological iteration.
While other companies are bypassing E-Ink all together in favour of Color and Video with reflective displays such as Qualcomm’s Mirsol. Also, Texas Instruments is pioneering new E-Ink display that will save battery life and have faster page turns.
There are also new developments in Color E-Ink that allow the playback of Flash Technology with crisper and stronger colors. Although these new E-Ink screens do not do FULL color, and are unable to play full video. They present enough to be a departure from standard E-Ink screens found in the Kindle, or Kobo E-Reader. The Screens are able to synthesize color by applying a filter on top of a regular black and white E Ink panel, which itself has blacker blacks and whiter whites than before. Earlier versions or prototypes trying to do color with E-Ink appeared washed out because too much light was lost on its journey into and out of the capsules and through the filter. But the next generation of color displays have a better color gamut. They’re built with a higher-resolution black and white screen that contains new materials.
We can look forward to by the end of the year many new innovations in Color and Touch screen E-Reader technologies by companies such as Freescale, Qualcomm, Touchco and Texas Instruments who seem to be pioneering a new breed of E-Ink screens that are thinner, and provide more resolution.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
