E-ink and Epson To Develop High-Res Electronic Paper

It seems rather fitting that Epson, a company that produces printers among many other things, is collaborating with E Ink to create a 300-dpi electronic paper device.  View the press release after the break:

“E Ink Holdings Inc. and Seiko Epson Corporation (“Epson”) today announced the joint development of a 300-dpi electronic paper device with razor-sharp text and images for ePaper Document Readers. Combining E Ink’s high-resolution ePaper display and Epson’s high-speed display controller platform, the new device will enable the world’s highest resolution ePaper tablets. With sharply improved readability and ease-of-use the ePaper Document Reader is expected to catch on in business and education settings where huge amounts of data have to be processed, as well as in countries that use character-based text, including Japan and China.”

The task of creating the device will be split into two, whereby E Ink will “manufacture, sell and support the newly developed 300-dpi ePaper displays, which measure 9.68 inches on the diagonal and have 2,400 x 1,650 pixels. These paper-like, high-resolution displays demonstrate in full the very best features of ePaper: crisp and clear text and images on an easy-on-the-eyes screen, a thin and light form factor, and ultra-low power consumption.”

Epson on the other hand “will manufacture, sell and support a high-resolution, high-speed display controller platform optimized for controlling E Ink’s high-resolution display. Leveraging Epson’s experience with image processing technology developed for photo-quality printers, the display controller platform combines a display controller IC, applications processor, system power management IC, and firmware to provide excellent display control and improved operability.”

This electronic paper hopes to be popularized within business and education circles which seems to be appropriate as it is hard to see electronic paper being used for tablet devices designed for consumers at the moment who want to surf the web, watch videos and play games on their tablets. Perhaps the next Kindle device will be adopting this technology?