Color News - Page 1

Plasic Logic has unveiled a new flexible e-paper prototype display. The new plastic-based display features 4,000 colors at 75 ppi. It's quite large (they say it's almost A4 in size) It is made from over 1.2 million plastic-based transistors. It can be bent without distorting the image. We're not sure how close the company is to actually produce such panels. We assume that the new display is E Ink based, but we're not sure.

E Ink Holdings posted their financial results for 2011 - with $220 million in net profit, up 59% compared to 2010. Gross margin in 4Q dropped compared to last quarter as the company saw a rise in FFS panel shipments (mostly to the Kindle fire probably) - which carry a lower margin compared to EPD products.

Flexible E Ink (LG Display)

EIH's Chairman, Scott Lu said that the company isn't ramping up its Triton color E Ink product (this is probably in response to the color Kindle rumor). The company is working on a next-gen color E Ink display and it is expected by 4Q 2012. E Ink also reveals that it will release flexible plastic-based E-Ink displays in 3Q or 4Q of 2012.

There are reports that E Ink signed a deal to supply Triton (color) E Ink panels to Amazon. These are 6" panels, that Amazon will integrate into a touch enabled e-reader. Shipments will soon start (in March) and will reach over 6 million monthly units.

Color E Ink prototype

via E-Reader-Info

Amazon announced three new kindles today, two of which use E Ink displays. The new Kindle Touch e-readers feature 6" Pearl E Ink displays and an infra-red touch sensor.The $79 non-touch Kindle 2011 is a streamlined version of the older Kindle 3 - with only 5 physical buttons (beside the next/prev ones, anyway). The Kindle Fire is a $199 7" IPS-LCD tablet/e-reader.

The Kindle Touch will launch on November 21st, but you can order it today. The Wi-Fi version costs $99 with screensaver ads and $139 without ads. The 3G version costs $149 (ads) or $189 (ads-free). The Kindle 2011 is shipping now: $79 for the ad-supported version and $109 for the non-ads variant. The Fire will launch on November 15th for only $199 - you can pre-order it now.

There are reports that Ectaco plans to release a new e-reader that uses E Ink's Triton color display. The Jetbook Color will feature a 9.7" (600x800) touchscreen display, Wi-Fi and an SD card slot. The Jetbook color is expected to sell for $350 and will be launched in December 2011 - which will probably make it the first color E Ink reader in the US.

via E-Reader-Info

Fujitsu is showing a new color e-paper eReader prototype - with a 4096 colors, 8" display (157 PPI that offers 8:1 contrast ratio. This is a linux-based system with a new fast processor (refresh rate of 0.7 seconds) and ePub and PDF support. It weights only 220 grams.

This new prototype probably uses Fujitsu's "improved" e-paper technology announced back in May 2010.

Fujitsu and Sapporo Shirakaba-dai Hospitalannounced that it jointly developed a clinical appointment guidance system that uses color e-paper. The system has began full operation at the hospital. The new system guides patients to examination rooms or diagnostic testing rooms and is wirelessly connected to an electronic medical record system. Patients can view in real-time their place in queue when waiting to see their doctor.

We're guessing Fujitsu is using their own color e-paper technology. Fujitsu announced a hospital registration system back in July 2010, which used monochrome E Ink, but the new one uses color e-paper.