Fujitsu Debuts Bendable Electronic Paper

An anonymous reader writes "Fujitsu today announced their joint development of the world's first film substrate-based bendable color electronic paper with an image memory function. The new electronic paper features vivid color images that are unaffected even when the screen is bent, and features an image memory function that enables continuous display of the same image without the need for electricity. The thin and flexible electronic paper uses very low power to change screen images, thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas as a type of new electronic media that can be handled as easily as paper. The jointly developed electronic paper will be showcased at Fujitsu Forum 2005, to be held July 14 and 15 at Tokyo International Forum."

Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[Horus1664]

This looks great but can some people please think of better applications than advertising...

Surely Fujitsu have more exotic plans for this technology than curved posters ?

cartridges

[Rickler]

Yay, no more dealing with expensive printer cartridges!

Electronic Paper and EPIC

[tfoudray]

am I the first one to think of this?

EPIC 2014 [robinsloan.com]

My first thought...

[Infinityis]

This will bring new meaning to a funny image I saw that had the hand-written message "I kant tipe so i rite on the screen wit a krayon"

Seriously though, I've seen enough professors accidentally write on a projector screen (instead of the whiteboard behind it) and leave a relatively permanent mark. I can only imagine how many people will accidentally jot down a quick note to later realize they just ruined a VERY expensive piece of paper...

nifty

[utexaspunk]

it looks like it needs a little work in the area of color and resolution, but that's sure to come.

One thing that I think will really benefit from these reflective display technologies is classrooms and conference rooms. What I would really like to see would be a chalkboard-sized reflective display with a digitizer pen. Without dimming the lights like one would have to do with a projector (and thus lulling students to sleep), a teacher could write directly on it as well as have problems already in the computer to put up on it quickly. How much time in math classes is spent writing out problems? Word problems from all these standardized tests could be quickly thrown up on the board and the teacher could directly model how to solve them. It could really increase a teacher's efficacy as well as make their life a lot easier.

Later on, similar technologies could be built into desks (or the students could have tablets) so that the student can solve them at their desks and then the teacher could push a button and display the students' work on the board.

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[aarku]

Pornography, of course. What else drives the innovation of media more?

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[SeaFox]

Take those expressway billboards and put up Amber Alerts on them. Instead of the dot matrix text message we have on highway overpass displays, we can do full color pictures with the child's stats. The technology allows us to easily change and remove the image when the child is found (via Wi-Fi or cellular connection to Police headquarters).

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[jericho4.0]

That really cool, but not real yet, OLED keyboard thingy [slashdot.org].

Re:Real World Applications

[timothykaine]

Think again. Sure, we cut down fewer trees since its paperless. But lets not forget the oil needed for the plastics and the mining needed for the metals and all the hazardous waste chemicals that result from the several processes required to manufacture this. Trees grow back faster than mountains and middle eastern nations.

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[Punboy]

Well, how about a roll up display you can take with you. A single newspaper, that updates every day. A single book that allows you to simply download new books to it to read, instead of having to waste money (and trees) printing them. Screw having to print multiple new copies of things, just upload the new copy to the piece of paper. Embed an RFID in the paper to store the data, and use an RFID writer to replace the data. :-D

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[schlick]

We WANT this to be used in advertising!!! We want many and huge signs made of this. That way the technology becomes cheaper then the average Joe can get it and come up with usefull implementations.

How about Cell Phone display. If it such a power saver, imagine how this could lengthen the life of any small device that requires a display. When the refresh rate gets high enough imagine potential for wearable computing. Flexibility is only one of the things this tech brings. The fact that it is so thin (and hopefully light weight) and uses so little power make it great for solar powered applications.

I say let the advertisers foot the bill at first and then it will be cheaper for home inventors.

Ponder..

[oldwolf13]

How many years am I going to be hearing about electronic paper (or printable displays for that matter), before the damn things actually come out and I can buy them?

Oh, great!

[FridayBob]

... thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas...

Just what we need: more spam. As if people today didn't suffer enough advertising already.

Re:Help...(useful) ideas needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget presentations. Fold up the screen, carry it around with you, boom. No more need to drag a $1000 projector everywhere. Won't be long I think before everyone will already have these screens setup in their offices, so then all you do is plug your little flash drive into the slot, pick up your presentation wand, and off you go.

I think whoever mentioned the refresh rate is hitting the nail on the head, same first thought I had. Get refresh up to the same level as current LCDs and away they go. Every laptop drops below 3 lbs. in a heart beat, and battery life goes through the roof. Let's not forget that the screen is probably the most battery-intensive part of a computer, and reducing the brightness doesn't help.

And cell-phones and PDAs can become useful for web-surfing again, even without updating the refresh rate. Just plug the screen into your phone and boom you've got a full-screen display for every site, not just the crappy little WAP ones. Here's the one I'd like to see: Little black box about the size of a pack of gum, plug it in at home and upload all your favorite bookmarks and RSS feeds (and slashdot) and then take it with you, catch up on the world during your lunch break. Watch the movie "Red Planet" with Val Kilmer to see what I'm talking about here.

Cheaper touchscreens everywhere!

VR headsets that don't weigh 8 pounds and only take up as much space as a pair of sunglasses!

Just as good: e-paper sunglasses!

Here's one I just came up with while writing: Full-body displays for surgeons. Up to now, those little displays in operating rooms can only show one part of the body at a time. Keep those, but also have a full-body display next to it, pair it with thermal scanners and have a constant check up of what the rest of the body's doing, so if you accidentally shut off the flow of oxygen to an extremity, you realize it a bit faster. Maybe they already have this kind of tracking, I'm just spitballing. (Still no substitute for holographic imagery, but not a bad step)

Just the beginning. They're probably already considering ideas we haven't even dreamed of yet. Personally, I'd like to see the skin-embeddable or armband version, so I can have a new tattoo everyday (since I don't really like needles and I do really like variety).

The omi-whatever keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the griping about OLED's in the Omini-whatever keyboard yesterday?

This would be a great replacement.

This combined with the paint-on solar cell techinology they are working on would be great for self contained e-comic books, digital wall art (think Posters that can be changed via subscription or file upload)

Sounds perfect for cheap computer network/system staus displays.

How about emergency signs in buildings, elevators, etc.

I can see a use for instruction displays on things like AED's or other emergency equipment......

maps, cubicle name plates, periodic company news display in cubes or reception area, restraunt menus and table displays......

the list is endless