Good e-Reader broke the story last week that Sony was in the process of developing an e-paper laptop and a series of e-notebooks. These new devices will be a byproduct an official partnership between E-Ink and Sony that occurred earlier this year. The two companies now have a name for this new initiative and it is called Linfiny. They plan on developing new products this year and will release them sometime in 2018.
The joint venture is set to optimize the design and R&D capability at Sony Semiconductor Solutions and backend module production capacity at EIH to develop e-paper products and solutions to enable clients to shorten time-to-market for new e-paper products, E-Ink Frank Ko said.
The e-notebook products being developed by Linfiny will come with pen-writing functionality and will target professional and educational markets, Ko said, noting that the joint venture will also offer integrated services to help clients accelerate product developments.
Linfiny was setup with an initial capital of $13.9 million. Sony and EIH together hold 70% with the rest of the investment coming from venture capital funds. Linfiny aims to develop solutions that will shorten the time-to-market for its clients – it will not produce its own devices.
E Ink and Sony will be developing a series of laptops and writing tablets for other companies. They will be designing and manufacturing a limited run, for the purpose of white labeling. They will be traveling the electronics circuit and will be booking private meetings. The first one will be at CES 2018, then SID Display Week and finally IFA.
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.
