Flexible e-ink display "months away"

Future tech not far off

4 August 2009 9:27 GMT / By Duncan Geere

A Cambridge-based company is "months away" from launching an e-ink reader with a flexible screen, according to The Times. Plastic Logic reckons that it'll be able to have a product in the market in early 2009.

The company has spent a decade and £120 million developing the display, which features plastic circuits, rather than silicon. However, Plastic Logic says that roll-up screens haven't seen high consumer demand: "People worry that it will break if they roll up a device and dump it in their bag", said Martin Jackson, the company's vice president of Technology.

Due to the nature of e-ink, the company says the battery of its reader device only needs charging once a fortnight and only consumes power when the image on the page changes. The A4-sized display aims to rival the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Jackson also predicts that "colour is a year or two off, and video will be a few years while later". The Plastic Logic, which also seems to be the name of the device, will initially launch in the USA but then roll out into Europe and the UK in 2010/2011. Pricing isn't yet set, but should be roughly equivalent to the price of the Kindle.

Southampton-based rival Polymer Vision, which was aiming to launch a mobile-phone/e-reader hybrid device called the Readius, recently shut down all its operations due to lack of funding from its Dutch parent company.

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