Providence College DigitalCommons@Providence Library Faculty and Staff papers Phillips Memorial Library January 2003 E Ink and Digital Paper Norman Desmarais Providence College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/facstaff_pubs Desmarais, Norman, "E Ink and Digital Paper" (2003). Library Faculty and Staff papers. 17. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/facstaff_pubs/17 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Phillips Memorial Library at DigitalCommons@Providence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Library Faculty and Staff papers by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Providence. For more information, please contact [email protected]. c/o Katina Strauch 209 Richardson Avenue MSC 98, The Citadel Charleston, SC 29409 SPECIAL REPRINT ™ VOLUME 14, NUMBER 6 DECEMBER 2002 - JANUARY 2003 ISSN: 1043-2094 “Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians” Innovations Affecting Us — E Ink and Digital Paper by Norman Desmarais (Acquisitions Librarian, Phillips Memorial Library, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918; Phone: 401-865-2241; Fax: 401-865-2823) <[email protected]> he main objections people have to read- embedded in their own silicone rubber sheet to Penney. The large signs (44 inches by 15 inches) ing books and documents in electronic function; but the silicone sheet could conceivably needed a very low resolution of only 2-3 dpi (dots Tformat have to do with comfort. The read- be applied to other surfaces. per inch) and were a little more than 5mm thick. ing devices, whether computer monitors or dedi- Computer monitors, by comparison, display at 70 cated devices, cause eye strain, are hard to read at E-Ink dpi and most laser printers print at 600 dpi.) The various angles and under various lighting condi- Joseph Jacobson, who was doing postdoctoral company claims its electronic paper has a resolu- tions, and lack paper’s portability and ease of research in physics at Stanford University in 1995, tion of 200 dpi which can increase to 300 dpi with use. Two companies are working to change that. turned to electrophoresis to develop his vision of the use of 30-micron beads. E Ink and Gyricon Media are working on digi- an eBook that could be reconfigured electronically E Ink allows an image to remain on the screen tal paper technologies, hoping to make digital to display the text of any of hundreds of “books” even after the power source is shut off. It enjoys displays as easy and convenient to use as ink on stored in silicon memory in the book’s spine. Elec- low power consumption, drawing less than 1/ paper. trophoresis uses an electric field to charge particles. 1000th the power required by a standard notebook Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) Jacobson founded E Ink Corp. in 1997 which computer screen when used for normal reading. began work on electronic-ink or electronic reus- derives its name from the electrophoretic ink pro- This results in longer battery life. Portable devices able paper, depending on how you want to look at cess. incorporating E Ink displays could have far smaller it, in 1975. It is this technology that underlies the E Ink’s prototype displays use E Ink’s elec- batteries, making them even less expensive and efforts of both E Ink and Gyricon Media. It uses tronic ink and Lucent’s active-matrix drive circuits more portable. microscopic beads that change color under an elec- printed on thin, plastic film. The electronic ink The company claims that electronic ink displays trical charge. E Ink’s Electronic Ink uses millions has qualities similar to paper: extraordinary bright- are lighter, five times brighter, 30-percent thinner, of tiny “switchable” transparent polymer ness and contrast under a wide range of lighting and have a higher resolution than traditional LCD microcapsules — about 100,000 per square inch conditions and easy viewing from all angles. The displays. They have a high contrast in daylight, of inked area. These microcapsules, which are plastic transistors have properties similar to those improved by switching from blue to deep black analogous to the microencapsulated coatings on of silicon chip semiconductors; but they are flex- ink with other two-color options available and full business forms, contain microscopic white pigment ible and can be printed. color possible. The bright paper-white background spheres immersed in a dark dye. A positive charge The first flexible electronic-ink display was a eliminates the need for a backlight in most appli- attracts the white chips to the top of the sphere and five-by-five-inch screen with the consistency and cations. Because electronic ink displays read like a negative charge repels them to the bottom, where thickness of a computer mouse pad. A partnership ink on paper, they should cause less eyestrain than they are obscured by the dye, causing text to ap- with IBM Research resulted in a flexible 12.1 inch most other displays that typically emit or transmit pear. Reversing the process produces white let- diagonal (25 square inch area) display with the light. They also allow a wide viewing angle. ters on a dark background. Once switched, they resolution of a typical laptop computer monitor (83 While the J.C. Penney test proved the con- retain their setting with little or no additional power. dpi). It is roughly one quarter the thickness and cept that electronic ink could be used on any These microcapsules can be sprayed or pressed weight of a standard liquid crystal display (LCD) surface where a display is needed, the company onto a variety of materials, such as plastic, glass, panel and can display both text and simple graphic has withdrawn from the store market and turned and paper. images while being flexed. LCD is the most popu- its attention to the more lucrative handheld dis- Gyricon Media’s SmartPaper uses tiny solid lar display technology, found in everything from play market. It plans to develop high-resolu- beads suspended in pockets of oil fixed in a sili- digital watches and calculators to mobile phones, tion displays for portable devices, such as cel- cone rubber sheet. These beads, which are half flat-screen televisions, and even microwave ov- lular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), black and half white, turn freely depending on their ens. and eBook reader devices with screens as easy charge. The black side has a static charge, while The company’s first product, called to read as ink on paper. the white side is neutral. These beads must be “Immedia,” was an indoor display board for J.C. continued on page 89 88 Against the Grain / Special Reprint — December 2002 - January 2003 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> Gyricon Media envisions a paper substitute infrared, making it usable at night with night Innovations Affecting Us capable of printing itself that could serve to dis- vision goggles which interests the U.S. military’s from page 88 play up-to-the-minute news or feature stories. eBook effort. The computing power could reside either in a Philips Components, a division of Royal The cholesteric-LCD requires the electric binder holding the sheets or in a wand or stylus current to reach a certain threshold before it Philips Electronics in the Netherlands, teamed device. Both devices are expected to receive with E Ink to manufacture and sell display mod- works. That results in little “cross-talk” between data wirelessly and imprint text and images on neighboring elements in the display, allowing ules using E Ink technology for PDAs and elec- the sheets, refreshing them as often as needed. tronic books, hoping to gain a competitive ad- for much simpler and cheaper wiring to switch The devices could eventually read the pages as the pixels on and off. Even though the choles- vantage in battery life for its handheld devices well as write to them, making them two-way. because electronic paper consumes as little as teric display is only 1.5mm thick, it still needs a Electric Paper could be almost as cheap and rigid plastic surface. That means it cannot be one hundredth the power of a comparable LCD reader-friendly as paper and as spontaneous and screen. folded or even furled. Although Ch-LCD has rich as the Internet because the remote server great potential for devices like PDAs and E Ink’s ultimate goal is to develop what it and the wand or binder would concentrate all eBooks, it is out of the running as an alternative calls “radio paper” — flexible digital paper with the power, weight, and cost. to newsprint. high-resolution color and the capability of be- Analysts expect Xerox to pursue the “magic Hewlett-Packard is experimenting with ing reconfigured instantly via a computer, a wand” approach. The wand or stylus would con- wireless data network, or the Internet. It could slightly elastic liquid-crystal materials that con- tain an array of electric contacts and memory sist of molecules that can be stable in two dif- be used both in computers and in ultra-thin, devices. The words and images would be up- lightweight displays for portable information ferent orientations. This approach does not need dated by drawing the wand over the “paper,” or energy to maintain the display. Meanwhile, appliances. Radio paper could result in pulling the “paper” through a slot in the wand. reprogrammable books, newspapers, billboards Microsoft Corp. is working on a project called This approach has the advantage that it could “ClearType.” and other documents that need refreshing with become a portable printer, copier, fax, and scan- the latest information, garments, and even wall- ner. But this makes Electric Paper little more The Myth of the Paperless Office paper.