14 DAY TRIAL // Mobile phones currently allow for a wide range of customizations to be applied to them. While the current personalization options users can enjoy range from downloading applications or themes for a handset to purchasing accessories or custom cases for the device, it seems that the future might bring something even more appealing: phone skins that can change color.
The guys over at Philips Research managed to develop a color e-paper technology that can deliver new personalization options when it comes to mobile devices. The color and appearance of the device can thus way be easily changed to match user's outfit, mood or environment through the simple push of a button. However, the company notes that one of the applications of this technology would be ‘e-wallpapers,’ and that it managed to come up with a less expensive and simplified version of the e-paper tech, namely with e-skins.
“The first applications using the technology could be e-skins for small devices such as MP3 players or cell phones. However, the technology is highly scalable.” Says Kars-Michiel Lenssen, principal scientist at Philips Research. “In the future it will be possible to use e-skins to bring new color and a new aura or ‘vibe’ to much larger equipment. Just as Philips’ Ambient Experience uses light and color to make hospital diagnostic rooms far more welcoming, a large e-skin could make the concept fit for the MRI or CT scanner itself, potentially putting patients more at ease.”
According to the company, the e-skins can offer a more subtle and more natural-looking personalization of devices, when compared to LEDs and OLEDs that can create different ambients through creating colorful lights. The e-skin technology, based on Philips’ work with e-paper, uses electrophoresis to control the motion of particles in suspension.
“If you create a pixel with colored particles in a clear suspension, applying an electric field perpendicular to the surface makes the particles migrate to the top of the pixel, turning it dark. This is the basis of monochrome e-paper used in e-book readers,” the company notes. When the field is applied parallel to the surface, colored particles spread across the pixel, and the company managed to control the number of particles that are spread, giving it this way the wanted nuance.