Bridgestone Shows Off Ultra-Thin, Full-Color e-Paper

Bridgestone, the company which debuted the "world's thinnest" sheet of two-color e-paper last year, has turned around and delivered a new version which is capable of displaying over four thousand colors. "In case that wasn't enough, the company is also touting what it calls the "world's largest full color e-paper that is A3 size, which is equivalent to a 21.4-inch screen." As you'd expect, the latter is expected to be used solely for advertising and could hit the market as early as next year, while the former technology is set to be commercially available in 2009."

Don't make them too thin...

[Zymergy (803632)]

It could lead to Bridgestone being forced to have ANOTHER Recall due to blowouts! http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=Bridgestone+recall&btnG=Search [google.com]

Now is everyone ready for 'digital paper' "DRM" ???

Re:Don't make them too thin...

[hack slash (1064002)]

"Now is everyone ready for 'digital paper' "DRM" ???"

"This message will self erase in 5 seconds"

Re:

[jollyreaper (513215)]

"Now is everyone ready for 'digital paper' "DRM" ???"

"This message will self erase in 5 seconds"

Power it with Sony batteries and it can explode like in Inspector Gadget. Poor Chief Quimby!

Re:

[Dachannien (617929)]

"This message will self erase in 5 seconds"

At least we can rest assured that the Cone of Silence doesn't work.

Re:

[smallfries (601545)]

Blowouts are avoiding by keeping the product in vapor form prior to installation...

Plugging the analog hole

[tepples (727027)]

You can't DRM digital paper because you can just photocopy it, right?

To make high-quality analog reconversion more difficult, the manufacturer can have the e-paper display turn off while exposed to light that's as bright as a flatbed scanner's lamp.

Re:

[The_Wilschon (782534)]

I thought one of the main selling points of e-paper was that you could read it just as well in bright sunlight as in normal interior lighting. Texas summer sun is probably brighter than a scanner's lamp.

Re:

[Telvin_3d (855514)]

As I understand it, part of why everyone is so excited about e-paper is that the image remains on the page when the power is no longer being applied. So, the fail-proof way around ANY e-paper DRM is just take out the batteries before you photocopy/scan it.

Re:

[blhack (921171)]

Not if they make the paper sensitive to high intensity light. Put a disclaimer on it that says "Don't put this into a photocopier, or expose it to high heat/light....

you put it in the xerox and it turns completely black and never works again because "the circuitry is so delicate".

IT worked for the box office industry.

Re:

[mark-t (151149)]

As somebody else has pointed out already, natural sunlight is _FAR_ brighter than any scanner lamp.

Re:Plugging the analog hole

[TrnsltLife (779961)]

I thought you were going to say: Poke out people's eyes and make them install DRMed optic sensors. The Microsoft version would be ViziOrbs - Human Light Interface. And the Apple ones would be iBalls.

Re:

[Belacgod (1103921)]

Geeks would just install FOSS Leyenux instead.

Re:Plugging the analog hole

[brusk (135896)]

REAL geeks use BSD (Bispherical Seeing Device).

Re:

[GroeFaZ (850443)]

That would require some form of brightness sensor that a)would drive up costs and b) could be easily defeated by just taping over the seonsor area. Covering the whole of the reading area with tiny sensors seems a little like overkill (not that this would ever have stopped DRM proponents, but still).

Re:

[insertwackynamehere (891357)]

I can burn and rip itunes music but quality is arguably lost in many cases. Likewise, if I want a perfect digital conversion I will have to hack away but if I'm content with a low quality bittorrent version then I can just photocopy it Im not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not :P

Re:

[Mozk (844858)]

Heh, I get your point there, but most of the music I've gotten through torrents is at least 192 kbps CBR, usually 256-320 (CBR/VBR). Some FLAC too.
I do have experience with audio, and for me, 192 kbps sounds perfectly acceptable for normal listening. So you're either using a shitty tracker or looking for some obscure album, or you're a very strict audiophile. :P

Re:

[BlueParrot (965239)]

You can't DRM digital paper because you can just photocopy it, right?

You can do better than that. Use a lens to focus the thing into a high quality digital camera and you can capture a whole video stream ( this works for TFTs as well ). Only issue is to synchronise the camera to the paper's refresh rate, and this is fairly easy to do if you have good equipment.

Thing with DRM is that it can't work in a free society. The only way it could work would be if the government banned all recording equipment other th

Two Words: Refresh Rates

[Serhei (1150661)]

As in, the fact that they aren't revealing them means that they aren't anything to write home about. Refresh rates are going to keep this technology confined to ebook readers and advertising posters. I want stuff like this [blogspot.com].

Re:Two Words: Refresh Rates

[pavon (30274)]

I would love to have an A3-sized e-reader for schematics. Having the ability to search my documents (where is R217?) without having to deal with the cumbersome laptops with small displays, would be great. I imagine a scroll with the batteries and processor in the center, or a folding book. Either way you would have the option of using it in A3 or A4 size depending on what you need to do. It wouldn't need a huge amount of memory, especially if it had WiFi. It wouldn't need a high a refresh rate or many colors - I could get by with monochrome, 16 colors would be nice, 256 would be exorbitant. Just high resolution PDF view and file browser and I'd be happy. Bonus points for excel documents.

Re:

[jimmux (1096839)]

I like where you're going with this. A dual A3/A4 device would be incredibly useful in workplace, where most stuff is printed in A4 but you often need to go to A3 for diagrams (especially Gantt charts).

The beauty of ISO standard paper sizes [cam.ac.uk] is that each in the series is exactly half the size of the next largest - i.e. the long edge of A4 is the same length as the short edge of A3. Therefore, if you want an A4 display you unroll your scroll half way. If you want an A3 display then you unroll it all the w

Re:Two Words: Refresh Rates

[MightyYar (622222)]

Yeah, but just watch out for the older engineer with his red pencil.

Re:

[BlueParrot (965239)]

As in, the fact that they aren't revealing them means that they aren't anything to write home about. Refresh rates are going to keep this technology confined to ebook readers and advertising posters.

I wouldn't bee too sure. While it will probably be a while before you get HD-video on these things at an affordable price ( 5 years ? ) you really don't need that much in order to browse the web. 5 frames a second would be more than enough to navigate static content, and 24 would be enough for simple animated st

Slightly better picture

[pavon (30274)]

Wow, the e-paper he is holding in that picture has a full 4,096 shades of brown. Perfect for Doom!

Seriously, Here is an article with a better picture [i4u.com]. Still not much contrast, but getting better.

Re:

[matlhDam (149229)]

Wow, the e-paper he is holding in that picture has a full 4,096 shades of brown. Perfect for Doom!

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Steve?"
"Order the entire production run for our next Zune model! And bring me more chairs!"

Re:

[ColGraff (454761)]

I think you mean Quake. :)

Now about distortion...

[Penguinisto (415985)]

...can you bend the critter (or at least build it as a wrap-around type screen), without optical distortion (or at least some sort of compensation against it by a GPU)? It would add one hell of a dimension to gaming, simulators, immersion-type entertainment, things like that.

I realize it's probably possible to do when building it, but it takes a pretty (relatively) hefty chunk of time to do anisotropic conversions of flat images (e.g. when creating image-based lighting maps for CG artwork raytracing and such), but if that could be fixed, a semi-spherical screen with the focal point being a person's head would be hella nice.

(of course, they'd still have to add about 15.9-something million colors in capability and perhaps a tighter resolution to it as well, but still... looks like it could go to some interesting places if they actually get it working).

/P

Re:

[moogied (1175879)]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/01/bridgestones-super-thin-qr-lpd-e-paper/ [engadget.com] Seems pretty damned flexible to me?

Wow - Amiga

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

which is capable of displaying over four thousand colors.

Wow, now we're up to Amiga range from 22 years ago.

Re:

[mikael (484)]

Well, in one year they have advanced from 8 color (1 bit RGB) to 4096 color (4 bits RGB). That's pretty good considering they have to create a high resolution flexible display A3 size. By next year, they probably will have 8-bit RGB, and in the future maybe even 16-bit channels, which would be good enough for photography. Just make sure the top of the display is glossy and it will look like a magazine.

Re:

[timeOday (582209)]

If the contrast is really as bad as it appears in the picture, bit depth is the least of their concerns.

Re:

[The Living Fractal (162153)]

Granted, Amigas *were* thin.. but I don't remember seeing an Amiga that was that thin.. And while we're at it let's compare a display to an entire computer...Apples, meet oranges.

Bridgestone, huh?

[Trogre (513942)]

Not meaning to tread on their parade, but won't these people ever get tyred of re-inventing the wheel?

*rimshot*

Full-Color?

[DragonWriter (970822)]

4k colors -- 12-bit color -- is "Full-color"? Really?

Re:

[springbox (853816)]

4k colors -- 12-bit color -- is "Full-color"? Really?

With dithering it's OVER NINE THOUSAND!!

Re:

[tepples (727027)]

4k colors -- 12-bit color -- is "Full-color"? Really?

Print is 4-bit (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black either on or off). The difference is halftoning. How much full color can you get out of a 12-bit display using appropriate dithering?

I'm Lovin It! (TM)

[CODiNE (27417)]

Can't wait til these babies start rolling out as it'll seriously push the display market with some nice competition to increase pixel density and so on. Once people figure out how to hack these things it's going to seriously affect LCD prices. Wheee. Sadly that'll lead to DRM usage on them so people don't hijack their ads. Eh.

Re:

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

We still have the long refresh rates (sometimes in seconds) to deal with.

Flexible? Color?

[owlstead (636356)]

What I need is a rather thin (.5 mm is enough), black and white e-paper screen with high res and low power use, in an A4/letter format. This would save me hundreds of copies of paper. I'm willing to pay up to a grand for that. Why are these idiots always focusing on full color, bendable screens? I would consider them nice extras, nothing more.

Re:

[GroeFaZ (850443)]

Assuming you unstated unit of currency is a US dollar or something worth more per unit (not hard these days *cough*) AND "hundreds of copies" is no more than 1000, then I have to diagnose a merely tenuous grasp on Economics on your part. That, or you just love gadgets, which makes this your place then. Carry on.

Either way, to not embarass yourself, you should stop insulting people that satisfy a market subset that has more elements than {You}

if it's A3 in size...

[huckda (398277)]

it's colour! ;)

Colors

[Hao Wu (652581)]

4,096 colors is 1024 * 4.

The "1024" is predictable, but I wonder why 4-times that figure?

Re:

[AnotherSteve (447030)]

I dunno. I haven't read the article or even just looked at the pictures. But I'm thinking that the answer to your question is "Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black."

Re:

[droopycom (470921)]

They dont have 4096 colors devices in college anymore... remember the time when our device could only simultaneously display 16 color out of 4096 possible choice ?

But anyway, the article mention something about it being a 2 color device, so it might well be 6 bits per color.

Re:

[Feanturi (99866)]

It's not 1024*4. Although that is mathematically correct, it's not the correct way to interpret colour depth on a computer. 4096 in this instance is 16*16*16. There are 4096 colours available to the display because it is using a range of 16 values (4 bits) for each of the three channels, Red, Green, and Blue. 0 means none of that particular colour and 15 means the most intense shade of that colour. The three base RGB colours get combined with their various values of 0 to 15 to give new colours like shades o

For what?

[jours (663228)]

Maybe I'm missing something, but don't we already have a means of displaying digital documents? Can someone explain to me the point of distributing an "e-subscription" on "e-paper" when most people are spending more and more of their time on computers?

Novel, yes. Useful, I don't know...but I can buy more paper than I'll need in an entire year for $30 at Staples.

Re:

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

Tell me, what would you rather look at: an LCD display, or something that is (for reading purposes) just like a sheet of paper? These are easier on your eyes, they're readable in sunlight, and consume less power (only on for changing pages)

Re:

[belg4mit (152620)]

power consumption

programmable clothes are coming!

[victorvodka (597971)]

Make clothing from this material and see what it does to fashion! I'm a tech guy and shouldn't be allowing my brain to go here, but imagine: as with your dumb-ass you-paid-$2.99-for-what? ringtones, you'll be able to download patterns for your shirts, slacks and skirts! Hooked up to your cameraphone, hell, you could even be invisible!

Re:Finally...

[Z34107 (925136)]

Someone thought of the trees!

...and replaced them with horrible, toxic, non-renewable phosphorescent chemicals and heavy metals!

So... Dither

[DumbSwede (521261)]

So many comments about the small color range, but really this isn't a problem if the dot pitch is small enough. Printed paper only has 8 colors (16 if you include black in CMYB). Back in the day with only 4-16 colors we dithered to get a better range of colors, the look was similar to old comic books and for much the same reason. With 4096 colors to choose from dithering is very subtle and hard to notice. My 1998 laptop monitor only had 4096 colors, but dithering made it look fine. It's unclear to me whether most LCDs even today have full true 24 bit color.