Specifics and Opportunities of E-Paper Products - Essay Example

E-paper Technology: The Future’s too Bright to be Viewed Anywhere Else! TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 2 Literature review 2 Significance of e-paper Technology 5 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction E-paper (which is also called electronic paper or radio paper) is (together with e-ink) a type of storage and display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. It is reusable, portable, looks like paper and can be repeatedly refreshed by electronic means several times over. Even though e-paper products are extraordinarily diverse and offer great advantages to already existing emissive and transmissive display technologies, it is an exciting product but there remains a lot of room for its improvement because full color range ability could be added to e-paper to increase the range of products to which it can be applied. Moreover, there is need to device new, more marketable ways of applying the technology. This paper discusses e-paper in depth along the following lines; significance, emerging issues, current practices, and possible future directions (Graham-Rowe 2009; Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, pp 126-159). Literature review Electronic paper first came into existence in the 1970s in the form of Gyricon. It was developed by Nick Sheridon at Palo Alto Research Center, a Xerox research center. Gyricon consisted of polythene spheres (Janus particles) measuring about 75-106 micrometers in diameter. They contained a negatively charged black side and a positively charged white side which make it a dipole. Each sphere is suspended in an oil bubble allowing it to freely rotate inside the transparent silicone sheet in which they are embedded. Once voltage is applied to the electrodes, the polarity determines which side of the sphere is up, thus the display is black and white (Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, p 130). In 2008, Soken (a Japanese company) used this technology to demonstrate a wall with this electronic wall paper at the FPD exhibition (Takuya 2008). Appearance of pixels on Gyricon (EpaperCentral 2009). E-paper technologies have come a long way since Gyricon. There has been a shift in the type of technology used for its manufacture in a bid to improve on the product. This shift has gone from electrophoretic, to electrochromic, to cholesteric LCD, to electrowetting, to electrofluidic, to Photonic Crystal Technology displays, to Reverse Emulsion electrophoretic Display (REED), and MEMS (electromechanical interference modulation). For what is now a little over 3 decades, e-paper technologies have been working towards combining the flexibility of digital information with the quality, familiarity, while maintaining the convenience of a paper-like substrate. There have been several companies announce their work regarding on-going programs on e-paper, while a number of others continue to come up even still (EpaperCentral 2009; Goho, 2004; Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, pp 135-150). Today, e-paper production is fairly complex especially owing to the fact that it is based on intellectual property/ technology developed by a handful of individuals. Manufacturing is in many cases contracted out. The display is usually fit onto a kind of backplane which is also manufactured separately. Granted that there are firms that perform both of these services separately so acquiring the manufactured product is not difficult, but this is not a very convenient way to carry out business. A company like Sony, for example, has a couple of e-readers marketed under their brand name; they have incorporated the backplane technology from Polymer Vision and their e-paper from E Ink (EpaperCentral 2009). E-paper therefore comes in a package containing the frontplane made of e-paper and a backplane made of anything from flexible plastic to silicone which provides support for the former. Several companies have made great strides towards the advancement of e-paper technology. Fujitsu, for instance, a Japanese company, boasts of having come up with color e-paper. They claim that its e-paper bears the key advantage of semi-permanent memory display system, and that it maintains this memory without flicker, without power, and that the color is brighter than its counterparts three times over. Fujitsu unveiled the first ever color electronic paper in July 2005. Another impressive color e-paper based device is Mirasol, a product of QualComm MEMS Technologies. Mirasol works by reflecting light in a way that creates various colors through the interference of different wavelengths; this means it can be viewed in direct sunlight. The MEMS technology lends to it bistability, thus it has low power requirements (EpaperCentral 2009). Fujitsu color e-paper (EpaperCentral 2009). Significance of e-paper Technology E-paper has gained much favor in the past couple of years due to the advantages it offers over other conventional emissive and transmissive display technologies. These advantages include flexible power sources (including solar power-intergrated displays), wireless, flexible, and connector free e-paper products. All these advantages add up to low power consumption, low maintenance in fiscal terms, increased convenience as they can go for long periods without requiring recharging, and a wider range of products into which the technology can be implemented beyond those already existing (Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, pp 126-159). E-paper technology has been applied into a vast array of diverse products. One of the devices into which this technology has already been incorporated is the e-reader. This is a device designed essentially for reading digital books, it is also known as an e-book reader or e-book device. E-readers first came into the limelight with the unveiling of Amazon’s Kindle which was the first e-reader to achieve commercial success. Unlike its pre-existing counterparts, the Kindle provided access to a wide array of reading material in a convenient and wireless form, and had a paper-like display for its content. The low cost of the device, acceptance in the market and the continued improvement of e-readers in general have all led to the establishment or e-reader as a product category. The e-reader is by far the most notable application of e-paper technology Goho, 2004; Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, p 151). E-labels are another application of this technology. The term may be used loosely to mean a number of different things including: indicator scales such as on USB flash drives, simple timing/clock information readouts on appliances, toys, and flexible electronic skins. One very attractive market for e-labels is electronic shelf labels (ESLs). This can be used either for update of pricing or for digital display in stores. ESLs are an especially superb example where the combination of low power and the desire for the maintenance of a print-like appearance enables the monochrome of e-paper to thrive as it is preferred over back-lit LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays). Good ESLs are so efficient and low power consuming that their batteries may last up to multiple years without requiring replacement. If they meet the standards of proper legibility in a store environment, and have enough pixel size, count, resolution, as well as form to provide the information that is needed on a shelf label, they will successfully penetrate and possibly even dominate the market. It will be more profitable in the long term to use ESLs as they provide cost savings by saving on labor used to manually update store product prices over and over while providing a cheap and convenient alternative at the same time (Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, p. 152). Another widespread application of e-paper is on wristwatches. Seiko released the pioneer e-ink based watch which they called Spectrum SVRD001 wristwatch in December 2005. The watch uses a flexible electrophoretic display. They released a second generation of this famous watch in March 2010 which contained an active matrix display. In 2013, the pebble (an e-paper wristwatch for iPhone and Android) was released. This watch is customizable, and one can download fitness and sports applications, new watchfaces, and get notifications all on this device (KickStarter 2013). Mobile device content delivery is also another field in which e-paper has been applied. Because it can be viewed in direct sunlight, e-paper can be used for this kind of display and is preferred by some users. Motorola F3 is a low cost phone by Motorola which uses an alphanumeric electrophoretic display which is black and white. Billboards have also begun to use this technology as they can display moving as well as still pictures while consuming low power. They are also used in displays embedded in smart cards in which they generate on time passwords for example. Another application of e-paper is seen in flexible/rollable (Heikenfeld, Drzaic & Yeo 2011, p. 152). The trouble with e-paper displays is majorly in their low refresh rate in comparison to LCDs. This prevents the technology from being implemented into any sophisticated interactive applications such as scrolling or mouse pointers like those enabled by mobile devices. Once the image changes, a ‘shadow’ of its predecessor is left visible on the display; some devices try to combat this by refreshing the image several times. This is the reason why several devices with this technology ‘flash’ the screen black and white when loading a new image (Goho 2004). In the future, e- paper is being considered for implementation in such products as digital photo frames, clothes, keyboards and information boards. Keyboards containing keys which are dynamically changeable can be useful for less represented languages, or for games or video editing which are special non-alphabetical applications (Graham-Rowe 2009). Conclusion In summation, while e-paper products may be exciting and offer technology in ways never seen before, beyond the hype, the truth is that in monochrome, e-paper or any other such technology is not nearly compelling enough to satisfy all applications. There is need to press harder in the development of full color e-paper. Pessimism aside though, e-paper is an exciting product because it still has much room left to grow. If more time and resources are allocated to furthering these agendas, it will only be possible to view the future which seems quite bright on e-paper (Goho 2004; Graham-Rowe 2009). References EpaperCentral [online]. (2009). Available from: . [Accessed 17th September 2013]. Goho, A. (2004). Flexible E-Paper. Science News, 165(5), 67. Graham-Rowe, D. (2009). E-paper's grand vision. New Scientist. 204, Issue 2730, pp.22-23. Heikenfeld, J., Drzaic, P., Yeo, J. (2011). A critical review of the present and future prospects for electronic paper. Journal of Social Information Display [online]. 19/2, p.129-156. Available from: . [Accessed 14th September 2013]. KickStarter [online]. (2013). Available from: . [Accessed 14th September 2013]. Takuya O. (2008). Tech-On [online]. Available from: . [Accessed 15th September 2013]. Read More