Glossary

Electro-Phoretic Display (Electronic Paper)

11.11.08

Electronic paper, also called e-paper, is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later.

To build e-paper, several different technologies exist, some using plastic substrate and electronics so that the display is flexible. E-paper is considered more comfortable to read than conventional displays. This is due to the stable image, which does not need to be refreshed constantly, the wider viewing angle, and the fact that it uses reflected ambient light. While it is lightweight and durable, it still lacks good color reproduction. The contrast ratio in common devices as at 2008 might be described as like that of dirty newspaper, though newly-developed implementations are slightly better.

Applications include e-book readers capable of displaying digital versions of books and e-paper magazines, electronic pricing labels in retail shops, time tables at bus station and electronic billboards.

Electronic paper was first developed in the 1970s by Nick Sheridon at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center.
Source: Wikipedia
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
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