Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Electronic ink: packaging messages

I am intrigued by this technology and what it will look like in our everyday lives in the future. In a story in Fortune magazine:

"Digital paper has a long history of unfulfilled promise. But the wait for "electronic ink" may be coming to an end. E Ink, a spinout from MIT's Media Lab, announced in October that it has, together with LG Philips LCD, built a new flexible 10.1-inch display that is about the thickness of construction paper and has the resolution of a standard desktop monitor. Already last spring Microsoft used a color version of E Ink's technology to light up the packaging of Xbox game Jade Empire. Siemens is using an entirely different technology—electrochromatic polymers - a "wafer thin" color display that can deliver video, something the slightly higher-resolution E Ink technology can't yet manage. "I've gotten a lot of interest from advertising agencies," says Norbert Aschenbrenner of Siemens. So, long before Tolstoy fans get a one-page, foldable version of War and Peace, grocery shoppers should see Tony the Tiger waving madly at them from the Frosted Flakes box on aisle four. "

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