Few people may realize it, but there are actually differing technologies at play that want to become the defacto e-paper technology. I had gathered hints of this from various e-paper companies, though because all of them do not typically have an products available for sale directly to consumers, this is not readily apparent.
The main variances in technologies have to do with some important capabilities of paper that we want to simulate: flexibility, and color versus monochrome while preserving high contrast. At the moment, most prototypes are only capable of one of these features – color or flexibility, or just plain inflexible monochrome. There are also e-ink prototypes for video using technology that has the potential for 100 Hz refresh (PDF), though I have yet to see this surface in recent news, and the source article is from 2003.
The only visible product to the public so far is a the rather disappointing Sony PRS-500 that is slated to be available “in Spring of 2006″, I think for around $300. It has a 6″ screen – roughly the size of a paperback, with SVGA 800×600 resolution, and a purported 7500 page turns per battery charge. Personally, I think that if they came out with a standard 8.5×11 size (13.9″ diagonal) device, it would sell like hotcakes – even if the price was in the range of $900 – $1200.
According to BusinessWeek (PDF), however, Hitachi and Fuji Xerox are in the e-paper market and looking to start making “notebook size” monochrome plastic panels. This article is the most recent in-depth news that I have seen in months on E-paper, and I hope some of it’s true, because it hails the soon release of more consumer devices.
There’s more research to be done on this topic, since it seems there are probably a dozen different companies with vastly different technologies trying to get into the market, though unfortunately they seem to be focusing more on the commercial sign business rather than personal reading devices. Perhaps when I have time I’ll do a more thorough write up…
