http://www.spokeagency.com/daily Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:31:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 http://www.spokeagency.com/daily/2010/02/10/emerging-digital-e-ink-technology/ http://www.spokeagency.com/daily/2010/02/10/emerging-digital-e-ink-technology/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:02:09 +0000 Fabio Abreu http://www.spokeagency.com/daily/?p=415 The Science Structurally composed of millions of tiny microcapsule or cavities — an ink or oily substance fills them, and pigmented chips or balls with a negative charge float inside the microcapsule. You get a super-thin display where the E-ink technology creates something similar to an electric billboard (with 50 to 100 times less energy usage than LCD) that flashes on and off in different sequences, highlighting words and images. Check out the October 2008 edition of Esquire, the first magazine to execute this technology on its cover. To visualize how E-Ink works, think of the million microcapsules as clear beach balls. These beach balls are filled with hundreds of tiny, white ping-pong balls. Instead of air, these beach balls are filled with a blue dye. Hence, if you looked at the top of the beach ball, you’d see the ping-pong balls floating in the liquid, making the beach ball appear white. The bottom of the ball, conversely, would appear blue. If you were to fill a football field full of these beach balls and make the ping-pong balls move between the top and bottom of the beach balls, you would make the field change colour. That’s how E-Ink works. Flashing is good, it captures our attention. Think New Orleans and beads. Moreover, E-ink displays have distinct advantages over normal displays: low-power usage (is eco-friendly), flexibility (can be printed on any surface i.e. walls, billboards, product labels, T-Shirts), and readability (looks like printed text, so it doesn’t strain the eyes). This technology is used in e-readers (the Kindle, Sony Reader), mobile phones, portable drives and watches. In the near-future, expect to see periodicals that are electronically updated via the internet, therefore no wasted paper or newsprint (variety of e-readers are on the verge of mass-marketing this technology). Digital media applications include billboards, POP displays, electronic shelf labels and gaming possibilities (shatter-proof displays).]]> http://www.spokeagency.com/daily/2010/02/10/emerging-digital-e-ink-technology/feed/ 0