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Back in 2000, Forrester Research predicted that the e-book market would hit $251 million in sales in five years. It seemed like a modest estimate at the time, but it hasn’t come to fruition. The industry, which some experts contend has been held back by copyright laws, may get a boost from recent innovations in digital paper.

The undisputed leader in the field of electronic paper is E Ink, a company which begun in a lab at MIT. They’ve developed a display which is made up of microcapsules (about the diameter of a single human hair) which change color when electrically stimulated. This means no backlighting and no eye strain. E Ink’s technology is currently used for top of the line e-book readers, and they’re working to make commercially available flexible displays to give the feel of holding a newspaper. According to their website, “The vision of E Ink is to combine these attributes to create RadioPaperTM, a lightweight, flexible display with the readability of ink on paper but with the added benefit of digital technology to download newspaper headlines or a best-selling novel at the user’s command - providing information to anyone, anywhere.”

Another innovator in the field is Polymer Vision, which has worked with E Ink on flexible display projects. This year they will launch the Readius, a web-enabled cell phone with a flexible digital paper display which unrolls like a scroll. The 5″ screen is huge for a phone, with the added benefit of being able to “stow” when not in use. The Readius is Bluetooth capable, and has access to RSS feeds and email. Eventually, WiFi chips will make it into these devices as well. Polymer Vision expects rollable displays like that in the Readius to boom in coming years: “Our Mission is quite simply to put rollable displays into every mobile device.”

Flexible digital paper is also working towards video displays, and E Ink has released a product called Ink In Motion which moves in that direction. Microsoft used Ink In Motion as a point-of-purchase display technique for an XBOX game release, and the animation effect on the game box lasts for months on batteries. More applications for this technology will be forthcoming as digital paper moves into the mainstream.

The jury is still out on e-books, and we may never see the kind of growth in that sector that Forrester expected eight years ago. However, the technology that has been developed specifically for e-book readers is branching out. The possibilities are endless, and we’re sure to see products from E Ink and Polymer Vision on mobile devices around the globe.

Monday, January 28th, 2008 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

By Haley January Eckels