I’ve been following the development of “e-paper” since the fall of 2000 when I saw a sample at a Seybold Seminar conference in San Francisco. It was there that I heard John Seely Brown (formerly of Xerox PARC fame) describe it as “today’s news on yesterday’s paper.”

My first impression? It was about the size of a sheet of copy paper and had a dirty gray color like a sheet of plastic left out over the winter!

At the time Brown noted that he was talking about technology that was 5 to 10 years away. Looks like we’re right on schedule!

Here are some of the more recent developments in the e-paper revolution…

• Bridgestone - yes, the tire people - has developed a full-sized e-paper newspaper, shown at Display 2008 in Japan in April (right). Unfortunately, the “refresh” rate is awfully slow - 15 seconds per page. But that is likely to change soon!
• Fujistu demonstrated 8″ and 12″ e-paper models at the Fujitsu Forum 2008 in Japan, weighing between 320 grams and 480 grams.
• Seiko Epson and E-Ink are working on e-paper you can write on. This one is expected to have a screen resolution of up to 2048 x 1536 pixels.
• LG Philips has announced that an A4-sized rendition of the vivid bendable display has successfully been developed in its labs (right). The panel reportedly measures just 35.9-centimeters diagonally, is 0.3-millimeter thick, and can display up to 4,096 colors while maintaining the energy efficient qualities that inevitably come with using energy only when the image changes.

2010, here we come!