May 21, 2009

Read all about it … on bendable e-paper

by

Plastic Logic's bendable e-paper

Plastic Logic's bendable e-paper

No doubt you have been asking yourself, “What’s up with the development of e-paper — the stuff of Kindle, the Sony Reader, and the future of my eyeballs?” Funny you ask. Thanks to a tip from das Bookslut, Moby has become aware of an article by Paul Marks and Michael Fitzpatrick at New Scientist delineating how electronic readers are going to become more and more viable reading experiences, moving from the black-and-white limitations of Kindle, for example, to full-color displays: “The aim is to have a reflective display that uses very little power and is as easy on the eye as the printed word. Like E Ink‘s monochrome e-paper, used in Sony and Amazon readers, the colour version will be based on technology called an electrophoretic display.”

It actually explains what that means, so you both get to understand how ebooks work better, and you learn a nifty new word. Meanwhile, as the article also mentions, it’s not just the visual aspects of e-paper that are undergoing rapid development: “Early next year, Plastic Logic of Cambridge, UK, plans to launch A4 e-book readers with flexible transistors — which will make e-reader screens more robust and will also allow the gadgets to begin mimicking the bendiness of paper.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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