Color digital ‘ink’ for e-books–ahead of time?
Color e-ink for electronic books–could it end up as a practical reality far ahead of time?
A New York Times article this week discusses Magink Display Technologies mainly in the context of billboards. But the impression also arises that E Ink and rivals just might have some serious competition breathing down their necks in a varietary of additional areas, too, including e-books and home entertainment products. From the Times:
By creating a paste made of tiny helix-shaped particles that can be minutely manipulated with electric charges to reflect light in highly specific ways, Magink can produce surfaces that look like paper but behave like electronic screens, rendering high-resolution, full-color images without ink–or, as Magink executives like to refer to the process, with digital ink.Ran Poliakine, chief executive of Magink, said the idea was to create visually compelling ads that could be replaced frequently - perhaps hourly, based on consumer response - and could be controlled remotely, all with far less energy and at a far lower cost than a video billboard…
“Now, he added, his three-year-old company is also studying ways to expand the application of its core technology to personal electronics, including cellular telephones, cameras, hand-held computers and general video displays for laptops and televisions…
Both Gyricon and E Ink products are monochrome, meaning that text and images can be shown in black and white, or two contrasting colors like blue and gray. Spokesmen for both companies said they were conducting research on various approaches to bringing more color to future products.
But so far Magink is claiming the lead in bringing full-color digital ink out of the laboratory.
So what happens when e-books appear with flippable pages and even inexpensive color that will be far cheaper than the color in paper books? That’ll be yet another blow to the Luddites whose idea of an e-book is always five years behind.
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