Sci-fi Devices Becoming Reality
May 9, 2006 by Matthew
Most of you have probably read some of the many news articles that detail the new portable reading devices coming out soon which use screen technology from E Ink Corp. Such devices include the Sony Portable Reader and the iRex iLiad, both of which have grayscale screens. I have seen the E Ink technology up close, including the new full-color screens that are supposed to be available to manufacturers in less than a year. The E Ink technology is remarkable for two main reasons: the screens are reflective, so they can be easily read in all types of light, and the screens use very little power, so devices that use these screens have much longer battery life. The main drawback to these screens is that they can currently only work with static content; video and animations cannot be viewed on devices that use these screens.
Which brings us to the second contestant in screen technology for portable devices: OLED (organic light emitting diode, or device). When this technology becomes ready for consumer devices, OLED screens will look like traditional laptop screens, but could easily be paper-thin. A good example of how this might work is the portable device that Tom Cruise’s character in Minority Report uses. The device in the movie has a screen that is a little bit smaller than a laptop screen, which rolls out from the side of a small box (which could house the CPU, flash memory, wireless technology, etc). The main difference between thiese screens and the E Ink technology is that OLED screens can show dynamic content like videos and animations. I have not yet found any information about whether OLED screens are able to viewed well in all types of light.
Paper-like displays built on technologies such as E Ink and OLED are expected to become a huge industry in the next 5 years. Once the portable reading devices built on these technologies start coming out for consumers, the acceleration away from content printed on paper will increase tenfold, if not more.
[...] The Telegraph has a great article on the forthcoming e-reading technology, including some info. on a product called the iLiad, which Matt had previously blogged about here. [...]
[...] Plastic Logic, which I mentioned briefly in a previous post, just announced that they will be building the first factory to mass produce plastic electronics. The first products that they will be cranking out are flexible active-matrix display modules for electronic reader products. These modules are based on E Ink technology (which I have discussed before) and will be very thin and light. In other words, they will be getting closer to the feel of paper than any other current technology and will be much better than the Sony Reader display. [...]