The vision of electronic paper driving a new wave of innovation in the content distribution field has been around for a long time. In the not-so-distant future, we are told, paper-like displays will replace newspapers, magazines and books since they will be almost as manageable as paper and allow display resolution close to print. Now, this may well happen over time (although experience with new media tells us that old media only disappears when it has been rendered completely redundant. And in the case of magazines and newspapers this will take a bit of time) However, a long time before this may occur, electronic paper is likely to have a strong impact on a completely different market: handheld devices.
Last month, E Ink (www.eink.com) based in Cambridge, Mass., demonstrated a prototype active matrix display that uses electronic ink. Jointly produced by E Ink and Philips Components, these displays could find their way into products as early as 2002-2003. (Xerox spin-off Gyricon Media, which also works on electronic paper focuses mainly on in-store displays, the first market segment where this kind of technology is starting to be used in the real world.)
Compared to traditional computer display technologies such as LCD or CRT screens, electronic ink has a few advantages which are going to influence heavily the type of appliance which they are going to be used for. The prototype demonstrated be E Ink shows a level of contrast much closer to paper than traditional LCD displays. It uses pigments similar to print and can be viewed in full daylight.
An interesting twist is that the display can preserve its content even when switched off. You could for instance turn off an electronic book while you read a page of text.) As a result, power requirements are significantly lower--E Ink claims that the display uses 1/1000th of the power necessary for an LCD display. In addition, electronic ink displays are thinner than LCD panels, and since they use significantly less battery power, the devices could be much lighter. Last but not least, electronic ink displays can have much higher resolution then current LCD screens, which makes them ideal for displaying text.
What will the impact be?
The big question is of course where this technology will have its first
big impact. Whenever electronic paper is mentioned, the first application
that springs to mind are e-books and electronic newspapers. One should
however be careful before jumping to conclusions. If the recent poor
sales of e-book devices are any indication, the average user is not quite
as enthusiastic about reading on an electronic gadget as the industry
had hoped--and even a much better display is not going to change this
fundamentally.
There is an area, however, where electronic paper displays could spawn an unexpected wave of innovation: PDAs and handheld computers. Indeed, display capabilities such as the ones demonstrated be E Ink could well lead to a whole new generation of devices, which would exploit the paper-like quality of the displays in a number of innovative ways.
A new kid of device
The biggest immediate potential for this technology would be what could
be dubbed a PDN--a personal digital notebook. Unlike the much ballyhooed
Tablet PC (basically a Windows laptop with touch screen and handwriting
recognition), such a device would expand the Palm paradigm: simple,
immediately useful and usable, with a minimal OS. Not a replacement for a
laptop, but a device which allows basic management functions with note
taking and document display.
There are a few simple reasons for this analysis: electronic ink will, at least initially, be monochrome, and therefore appeal for usages which donıt require color in real life, such as note taking, reading, managing your date-book and so on. (It is unlikely that Windows users will settle for a monochrome version of their OS without feeling they are losing something important.)
The phenomenal success of the Palm has shown that there is a market for handheld devices which don't try to rival with a complete computer. This notion could be expanded considerably, especially if the device is light and simple enough to allow for intuitive use even for a computer novice. And then there is price, of course. One of the problems with Microsoftıs conception of the Tablet PC is that it is a complete laptop--and it will come at prices of high-end portable computers, which it will only partly replace (at least initially). In order to be a genuinely useful complement to current devices, a true digital notebook would have to be both less complex and less expensive.
The role of electronic paper
In any case, electronic paper will play an important role in the
development of next generation handheld devices: low power consumption,
high contrast, a high resolution display which stays in place when a
device is turned off and can be viewed in broad daylight, all these
factors indicate that this technology will have a considerable impact on
the devices we will find on the market.
This is not going to happen overnight, however. Until the best use for this technology potential is found, electronic ink displays will find their way into a number of existing platforms, such as next generation Palms or Pocket PCs.
The ultimate question is of course what the right mix of features will be. Digital Notebooks with built-in Web-browsers? Course books with annotation and word-processing functions? Date books with handwriting recognition and built-in e-book readers, Web browsers and GPS devices? It will take some time to sort this out--but there is a lot to be invented here.
Andreas Pfeiffer is an industry analyst and editor in chief of the Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies.
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