E-paper

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2002/tc20020617_5587.htm
BusinessWeek Online

JUNE 18, 2002

SPECIAL REPORT: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Tomorrow's Paper-Thin Screen Gems
A computer display that looks and feels like newspaper is just one
possibility for the burgeoning e-paper technology

Most shoppers who visited the Macy's department store in Bridgewater,
N.J., between June, 2001, and this past March likely missed the
significance of a dozen or so unusual signs in the center aisle of the
kids' section. The two-color, 11-inch by 14-inch placards looked much like
ordinary paper signs: Their large font showcased product names and prices.
But they were really flat-panel displays, whose messages could be changed
wirelessly -- devices that as recently as a few years ago would have been
considered the stuff of science fiction The displays used so little power
that three AA batteries could have run one for more than a year -- one
hundredth the power usage of today's average computer display. With
different background electronics that are still being developed, these
rigid displays could even one day be rolled up or folded, and carried
around like a piece of paper. snip

As little as two years from now, consumers may be able to buy computer
displays that look and feel like a newspaper. After you read the news
you've downloaded from your favorite Web site, you might press a button on
the "paper's" edge to view your schedule for the day and your e-mail that
arrived overnight.

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