Electro Osmosis developer IRX Innovation went bankrupt

There are reports that Dutch-based EPD developer IRX Innovations has gone bankrupt. This is sad news from one of the early EPD pioneers (the original company was established over 10 years ago as Irex Technologies by ex-Philips employees).

Irex first aimed to develop e-reader based on an E Ink display. Their first e-reader (the Iliad) shipped in 2006, and they launched several more models later on. Irex Innovation went bankrupt in 2010, but it was bought by IRX Innovation which also kept all employees. Irex developed a new EPD technology which they called Electro Osmosis which is similar to E Ink (electrophoresis) but the big difference is that the liquid that contains the charged particles also move inside the pixels in Electro Osmosis (in electrophoresis only the charged particles are moving). This enables much faster refresh rates.

Irex's Electro Osmosis never reached commercial status. Now hopefully someone will pick up the technology and move it forward. In December 2013, we posted an article explaning Irex's technology.

Posted: Dec 29,2014 by Ron Mertens