14 DAY TRIAL // In the IT industry, companies get bought and sold all the time, and it seems Samsung just acquired a certain company that holds the IP for a certain technology that should, among other things, yield e-paper screens far superior to existing ones.
While netbooks have failed to grow, as a market, at the rate that analysts expected early last year, e-readers seem to be doing quite well.
E-book readers were one of the few very quickly growing segments over the course of 2009 and 2010, and since they are likely to keep going strong, companies are, of course, investing in technologies meant for them.
One of the most recent developments of this type was the acquisition of a certain company called Liquavista.
Said outfit is specialized in a certain display technology called electrowetting, technology that has now been added to Samsung's IP portfolio.
For those interested in technical details, electrowetting can create screens capable of operating in reflective, transparent, transflective and transmissive modes.
Basically, displays based on it are bright, colorful and deliver twice the transmittance of LCDs while staying at low frequencies and using up just 10% of the power needed by existing technologies.
When used in e-papers, the biggest asset of electrowetting is expected to be its response time, namely over 70 times faster than what existing reflective screens can brag about.
This means that e-readers will get even closer to being considered multi-purpose devices, as they will be capable of playing color videos, something that has, so far, been impossible.
Considering that e-readers are still, mostly, grayscale, and that color solutions are, as always, sought out, Samsung may have just gotten one step closer to gaining prominence in the field of next-generation display technologies.
Unfortunately, the official press release did not say how long it will take for any marketing-viable electrowetting products to be created.