Liquavista's E-Paper Plays Full-Color Movies

Electrowetting digital paper combines high contrast with a multi-touch screen

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 10.28.2009 at 11:44 am 4 Comments

Video on E-Paper Liquavista

E-readers such as Amazon's Kindle DX, Sony's Daily Edition, and Barnes & Noble's multi-touch hybrid might want to start trembling. A new e-paper from Liquivista promises to allow video-playing and digital note-taking on a multi-touch, color screen.

Liquivista's secret is an electrowetting display. The electrowetting technology uses an oil and water layer along with a hydrophobic surface, and applies light voltage to change the "wetting" properties of the surface. This helps create a light switch twice as efficient as LCDs.

The company licensed the electrowetting technology from Philips, and hopes to roll out three products soon.

It retains the high contrast of e-ink, but it uses significantly more power, a limitation that likely makes it more suited for use in a phone with 24-hour battery life than a Kindle you charge once a month.

[Engadget via Fast Company]

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4 Comments

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chieffranky

10/28/09 at 11:53 am

Hmmm... yay new phone applications.

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AreYouKidding

10/28/09 at 1:20 pm

"it uses significantly more power, a limitation that likely makes it more suited for use in a phone with 24-hour battery life than a Kindle you charge once a month"

So basically nothing like e-ink and will never be a contender. What was the point of this article?

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chieffranky

10/28/09 at 2:19 pm

Not sure what you were going for there AreYouKidding... "So basically nothing like e-ink and will never be a contender." Were you trying to say so basically nothing likes e-ink and it will never be a contender, or possibly that this area of technology isn't worth trying to improve because it is currently under par in the energy area? Or possibly that nothing like e-ink or any electrowetting technology would be able to compete with other fields?

And to answer your question, entertainment was the point of this article. I was entertained. It succeeded.

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animemaster

10/28/09 at 4:51 pm

I don't get it, all the pictures linger too long before fading out. It better be cheep or improve loads in quality or no one will buy them. It has battery life in between e ink and lcd but where would oled fit in your continuum?