Fujitsu just announced a new form of "bendable color electronic paper," one that maintains its image without electricity. While Fujitsu sees it as a medium for price tags, menus and advertisements inside trains, it seems to me this would be ideal for low-power-consumption wireless mobile devices used largely to display text and static images (smart paper technology can't yet refresh fast enough for appealing animations). It also has obvious uses in wearable systems, as well as for "environmental" displays on walls, tables, and the like.
The target for commercial release is late 2006-early 2007. The question, of course, is how much it will cost.
Combined with touch screen technology it would make a great alternative to screen based work processing or drafting.
Posted by: Global Guy on July 13, 2005 4:45 PM
So, it's not clear how this is better than e-ink ( http://eink.com/downloads/index.html ) or Xerox PARC's "electronic reusable paper" ( http://www2.parc.com/hsl/projects/gyricon/ ), both of which have been around for years now, both of which provide flexible media, both of which only use power to change images (no power required to keep image). Oh, and the Xerox PARC one you can write on with a static-charge pencil. (Though I might prefer a non-externally-influenced paper, myself.)
The stumbling blocks that e-ink and Xerox have run across are these: slow state-switching times (thus slow redraw, can't do video or be as responsive as a normal monitor) and high-res pixel addressing. Fujitsu's website makes no mention of these, so it doesn't sound like they've solved the problems. They say theirs is the first "film-based" one. It's not clear why we should care, but maybe that means they can build them cheaper, or something.
In any case, though, I'd love it if they did solve those problems, because I've been waiting for YEARS for e-ink technology!! So many inventions are just waiting to happen from it...
...or, hang on, they might've solved the pixel-addressing problem, because it looks like the displays they're bending are pixellated ones, not prefab-image ones like e-ink used to have. I guess we'll see, as more news & images come out.
This is interesting. Whilst the technology can't display video or animations ... how about a portable (small) keyboard with a very thin foldout screeen for easy writing. It would be a godsend for us who like to write longer documents outdoors, but hate to carry a laptop around.
Posted by: Tim on July 14, 2005 5:50 AM
I want to know more about smart paper.can you send
me the details of smart paper.
Posted by: AshokNath on July 17, 2005 6:09 PM
I want to know more about smart paper.can you send
me the details of smart paper.
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Fujitsu just announced a new form of "bendable color electronic paper," one that maintains its image without electricity. While Fujitsu sees it as a medium for price tags, menus and advertisements inside trains, it seems to me this would be ideal for low-power-consumption wireless mobile devices used largely to display text and static images (smart paper technology can't yet refresh fast enough for appealing animations). It also has obvious uses in wearable systems, as well as for "environmental" displays on walls, tables, and the like.
