Technical / Research

Flex Lighting developed a new thin front-light LED film. The new film uses a single LED and is only 50 micron thick, and can be easily integrated (at least according to the company) inside the e-reader, and will not interfere with the touch layer. Here's a short video showing it in action:

Bookeen has just announced their latest e-reader, the Odyssey a couple of weeks ago, and today they unveiled new information regarding their fast E Ink display system. The new technology - which they call High Speed Ink System technology or (HSIS) is based on an E Ink Pearl touch display, a TI Cortex A8 processor (which Bookeen said was developed in partnership with TI) and optimized software and algorithms developed by Bookeen.

The Odyssey is capable of fast page refreshes, video, scrollable menus and scrollable web-browser and more - all this on a monochrome 6" E Ink pearl display of course. Bookeen has been showing prototype HSIS devices since early 2011.

TechRepublic posted a teardown of the new Kindle 2011. There aren't a lot of surprises - the main findings is a faster processor (800MHz Freescale i.MX50 vs a 532MHz Freescale i.MX353), a different E Ink controller and no audio codec.

Fujitsu is showing a new color e-paper eReader prototype - with a 4096 colors, 8" display (157 PPI that offers 8:1 contrast ratio. This is a linux-based system with a new fast processor (refresh rate of 0.7 seconds) and ePub and PDF support. It weights only 220 grams.

via E-Ink-Info.com.

Miratech performed an interesting study, comparing how we read articles on the iPad and on an actual print newspaper. Using eye-tracknig technology they found out that readers are more likely to skim over articles on an iPad than in a newspaper. Reading time is pretty much the same, and the iPad and the newspaper readers showed Identical gaze patterns. Newspaper readers are more likely (by 20%) to actual retain the information they read.

It'll be very interesting to see the results of such a study performed on a Kindle as well (or a different e-paper e-reader). Here are a couple of videos showing eye gaze patterns on the iPad and on a print newspaper:

E Ink and Epson announced that they will co-develop 9.7" 300ppi displays (2,400x1,650). E Ink will develop the actual display while Epson will develop the high speed drivers.

Nicholas Chen from the University of Maryland (with help from Microsoft Research) developed a new e-reader (with an E Ink display) that can connect wirelessly with other similar devices to send links between devices, etc. The nice bit is that these units can clip magnetically together - which can create a dual-display e-reader. Nice: