Electronic Ink: The Newspaper of the Future?

If you're any kind of print media junky -and if you're a writer you should be-then an emerging technology called electronic ink may very soon relieve your paper glut, get the ink-stains off your fingers, and give those recurring paper cuts a chance to finally heal.

Imagine a newspaper with ever-changing pages which update after you read them, or as the stories are written. Imagine one paperback-book-sized device, which holds dozens or hundreds of books and receives all your magazine subscriptions the moment they are published. Imagine all of this using very little power and not straining your eyes like a computer monitor does. Imagine it all, and you'll begin to understand why content providers are so excited. Gadget manufacturers like Sony are soon to begin testing the waters for just such a device in the United States.

The concept for e ink -sometimes called electronic paper-was first developed by Xerox way back in the 1970's, but the technology has come a long way. Essentially eink works by printing thousands of microcapsules containing different colored particles onto a thin film (or any surface, eventually). By running a different type of current through each capsule, a certain color of particle will rise to the surface, thus becoming visible to the eye. Once a capsule's color has been chosen, it stays that way, needing no additional power until the user wants to "turn the page," thus necessitating the capsule's color to change.

Today, with investors such as Philips, Intel and the Hearst Corporation, E Ink Corporation is the clear leader in the field. Soon-to-be-shipping devices from Lexar, Sony and Ambient Devices all incorporate E ink Corp.'s tech.