E Ink

There are two versions: Wi-Fi only and WiFi/3G. Both versions will ship on August 27th, and can be pre-ordered now. The Wi-Fi only will cost $139, and will come in Graphite. The 3G version will cost $189, and you can choose between white and Graphite.

Fujitsu has a new hospital registration system. It uses a small tag that has an E Ink display, into which you insert your "patient" card which then analyzes your medical history and latest info and uses wireless connectivity to tell when a doctor/nurse will be available to attend. The service will start in February 2011.

via GadgetReview

E Ink has announced their next-gen display technology called Pearl, to be released in July 2010. This new display has about 50% improved contrast ratio compared to the current Vizplex displays. The Pearl has 16 levels of gray, improved power consumption (and of course they do not require power when images are not changed).

The Pearl is the display used in Amazon's new Graphite Kindle DX, which will ship on July 2010, and cost $379.

Amazon has announced an upgrade to the original Kindle DX: the new Graphite Kindle DX. It has a new 9.7" E Ink display that has 50% improved contrast, and is cheaper - $379 (down from $489!). It still has free US 3G access (Sprint 3G) and 4GB of internal memory. Oh, and it's gray.

The Graphite Kindle DX will ship on July 7th for $379. You can pre-order it now.

Sriram Peruvemba, VP of marketing at E-ink is showing new plastic-based flexible display prototypes. This is a long video, in which he also shows all sorts of other E Ink based displays :

LG Display says that they plan to become the top e-paper maker by 2012, worldwide - when they'll introduce a flexible, color e-paper panel. LG have shown a 19" flexible monochrome E Ink based panel back in January 2010.

LG Display has also entered into a partnership with iRiver to make e-readers. They hope to produce 1 million units in 2011.

Zikon has developed a new kind of nano-technology based electronic-ink display. They say it can be cheaper than E Ink (as it can be printed more easily and does not require encapsulation)and is much faster (and can show videos). They estimate that simple displays can be made within 1 year - and are considering making a "color-changing" fingernail (or nail-polish, really). Here's a short interview with their CTO explaining how this all works: