Imagine reading colorful e-books

Aug 1, 2006 08:36 GMT  ·  By

Hitachi and Bridgestone Corporation have just rolled out what is considered to be a breakthrough in e-book readers segment - the first i-ink display named Albirey that features 4,096 colors, a 13.1-inches diagonal and a great resolution of 512 x 384 pixels. This innovation might conquer the specialized market as this is the first polychromatic display, dissimilar from Sony's upcoming PRS-500 and iRex's already launched iLiad.

However, because it is only a prototype, the Albirey could benefit from other enhanced features when it will hit the market or when it will be adopted by the e-reader devices manufacturers.

But the two companies are not the only ones to think about how they could take over the supremacy on the next generation e-reader market, as also Seiko Epson Corp. (Epson) recently launched an A6-size (7.1 inches diagonal) electronic paper using a plastic substrate. The development was officially announced on June 9 at the Society for Information Display (SID) international symposium held in San Francisco.

As it comes embedded with Epson's original SUFTLA1 technology, the new electronic paper reaches the world's highest Quad-XGA resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels, higher than Hitachi's Albirey, and its sizes can also be increased without any problem.

In order to create this prototype, Epson has amassed a range of proprietary technologies including low temperature polysilicon thin film transistors (LTPS-TFT) and SUFTLA (Surface Free Technology by Laser Ablation /Annealing), which enables the transfer of TFT circuits to flexible substrates.

Photo Credits - Daily Tech