LG shows off newspaper-sized flexible e-ink display

Whoa, LG, why didn't you show us this flexible e-ink display at CES? For whatever reason, the Korean company decided to break the news now of this 19-inch-wide display, about the size of a regular newspaper page. At a thin 0.3mm, it's slightly thicker than a piece of paper (about 0.06mm), and its 4.5-ounce weight will feel a lot heftier than a newspaper.
LG accomplishes this trick by mounting the e-ink screen on metal foil instead of the usual glass or plastic we've seen in other e-ink displays. It's similar to the thicker Skiff display we saw at CES, which has a slightly flexible display mounted in a non-flexible reader. LG's big 19-inch prototype is obviously designed to capture our attention, but LG plans to actually mass produce smaller 11.5-inch flexible-ink displays by the end of June.
Too bad this breakthrough didn't happen a year earlier, because even though the current crop of computer tablets aren't flexible yet, they'll probably elbow e-paper technology aside. That is, until the e-ink is bright and colorful — but we'll have to wait a few more years for that Minority Report future to arrive.
[DVICE via Digitimes]

Tire maker Bridgestone shows world’s first flexible e-book reader

Tire maker Bridgestone isn’t the first company that comes to mind when thinking about electronic paper, but the company has been experimenting in this field for quite some time now. Today, Bridgestone claimed that it has developed the world’s first flexible e-book reader [JP]. The device, which is pictured above, uses electronic paper (instead of, say, an LCD) and will display the content on the screen even after you turn it off.
Bridgestone says the prototype has a 10.7-inch-screen, is just 5.8mm thick (Kindle 2: 9.1mm) and can display color pages. The device can be bent to some extent since the circuit board and the electronic paper are flexible.
First tests with end consumers will begin in spring of next year, but Bridgestone already said it doesn’t plan to commercialize the e-book reader at this point.

The company also unveiled another device that features a 13.1-inch e-paper (touch screen) that can display up to 4,096 colors, communicate with cell phones and comes with a reaction rate of 0.8sec (that’s how long it takes to refresh a screen). It’s pictured above.
[CrunchGear]