E Ink's New E-paper Can Take Just About Any Shape

Electronic paper (or e-paper) is seen by a lot of people as the only thing that could actually save our planet's forests, by eliminating the need to cut down trees, which are the basic material for normal paper. That's the reason why research in this particular area is carried out at a very fast pace, and one of the most important results announced lately is the one made by E Ink, who has just unveiled a new brand of segmented display cells (SDC). The SDC products are simple digit, icon and alpha-numeric displays, which offer a very high level of readability in a paper-thin form factor that uses minimal battery power.

As the company informs us, the major breakthrough provided by this new family of displays is the fact that they're 40% thinner, with a wider operational temperature range and increased flexibility for repetitive 3-D bends or 2-D conformable solutions. This makes them more advanced than the models using current-generation E Ink Vizplex technology, which can be found in some of the world's most popular popular e-book readers, including here the Amazon Kindle, SONY Reader and iRex iLiad.

Basically, the main advantage provided by this new family of products is the fact that organic non-rectangular unique shapes are now possible, including holes, curves, and other non-standard designs. Additionally, E Ink's SDC platform sports a very wide viewing angle (nearly 180 degrees), and can be viewed under a variety of lighting conditions from direct sun to low-level ambient light.

"When you need information to make a decision, an E Ink SDC display lets you see it quickly and clearly from any angle", declared Russ Wilcox, President and CEO, E Ink Corporation, when speaking about the company's latest development. "With a paper-thin and flexible plastic display that can be cut to any shape, innovative product designs are limited only by the imagination of the designers". Which means that we'll probably see some pretty interestingly-shaped readers in the future, given the fact that technology designers are generally a pretty creative bunch.

We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .