Can
you imagine a library of more than 500 books of at least 250
pages each fitting neatly in just one sheet of paper? Or can
you think of changing your old wallpaper just by clicking
a button or wearing a Tshirt that can change its display
message according to your mood, or watch your favorite DVD
on a screen that is foldable. Call it science fiction or a
weird dream; this is what the promising new, yet notsonew,
technology, electronic paper or epaper, has to offer. The
technology is witnessing renewed interest from companies and
is all set to enter our everyday lives. Bigwigs of the tech
world are coming forward to use epaper in a variety of products,
including watches, DVD players, laptops, PDAs, shelfprice
tags in supermarkets, etc. Few companies like Sony, Hitachi,
and Fujitsu have already launched their products that use
epaper technology and many are in the line. Not just manufacturers,
even the users are excited about the possible applications
of the digitalized paper. s say that epaper has the
potential to pave the way to a near "paperless world"a
world where there will be no piles of files in offices, no
stacks of books in schools and colleges, and no magazines
and newspapers that will fill the recycle bin after being
read. Just one single sheet of "programmable" paper
will replace all.
The
idea of epaper was conceived way back in the 1970s to overcome
the basic drawback of pulpmade paperwhile the real paper
is cheap, flexible, storable and portable, it is static and
is not electronically updatable. Although the data on computers
can be updated, they consume a lot of power and are hardly
portable. Another major disadvantage is that the computer
monitor uses a backlight technique that makes it hard to read
in direct sunlight. Laptops, PDAs, calculators, mobile phones
and almost all modern electronic devices suffer from the same
drawback. Researchers had envisaged a device that will offer
the best of both worlds, and years of research has resulted
in today's epaper. The modernday paper has all the reflective
properties of traditional paper along with the muchdesired
feature of being updatable. It makes images visible by reflecting
light and is comparable to the traditional paper in weight
and thickness and is also foldable. |
