Electronic paper, e-paper and electronic ink are display technologies which are designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displays which emit light, electronic paper displays reflect light like ordinary paper, making it more comfortable to read, and the surface has a wider viewing angle than conventional displays. The contrast ratio in available displays as of 2008 might be described as similar to that of newspaper, though newly developed displays are slightly better. An ideal e-paper display can be read in direct sunlight without the image appearing to fade.
Many electronic paper technologies can hold static text and images indefinitely without using electricity. Flexible electronic paper uses plastic substrates and plastic electronics for the display backplane. There is ongoing competition among manufacturers to provide full-color ability. The first flexible EPD for consumers is expected to be available in Europe in April 2012.
Applications of electronic visual displays include electronic pricing labels in retail shops, and digital signage, time tables at bus stations, electronic billboards, mobile phone displays, and e-readers able to display digital versions of books and e-paper magazines.
Read more about Electronic Paper: Disadvantages, Applications, Display Manufacturers
Famous quotes containing the words electronic and/or paper:
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls,—the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot- box once a year, but on what kind of a man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)