The future of... Ink

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Sumi Das: When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid-1400s, he paved the way for newspapers, magazines, and books.

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More than 500 years later, a new technology is potentially poised to transform the way we read, electronic ink.

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This fall marked a milestone. The first magazine to feature an electronic cover hit newsstands. Like a shrunken Times Square billboard, the cover proclaimed, "The 21st Century begins now" in flashing words and pictures.

Bob O'Donnell: It's a great, high profile launch for a new technology. It's simple, and yet it's effective in what it's trying to do.

Sumi Das: The magazine displays were developed by Massachusetts Company, E-Ink. But several companies produce electronic ink displays; also know as "electronic paper." The technology was originally invented in the 70s. But as this magazine proves, it's starting to generate broader appeal. The key to ePaper? Microcapsules thinner than a strand of hair.

Bob O'Donnell: The basic concept with both electronic ink and electronic paper is you have a display backplane, and you have this special ink material. And what happens is when you provide a small charge to the individual particles -- kind of like pixels on a screen or dots on a printer -- they turn on. They essentially go from a white state to a black state.

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Sumi Das: Unlike energy hungry plasmas, eInk displays are efficient, only using power when switching between states. Displays are easy to read, thanks to high contrast, no backlights, and generous viewing angles. Electronic readers from companies like Sony and Amazon, use eInk to store hundreds of books. Because ePaper displays are thin and efficient, they can pop up almost anywhere. ON a USB memory stick to show how much storage remains. On a car key fob to tell you how much gas is left in the tank. Retail businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations may be particularly eager for the advent of electronic paper. Imagine wirelessly connected displays that update prices automatically.

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In a snowstorm, newspaper deliveries may be delayed, but eInk could make walking to the mailbox for the morning paper a dated ritual. And that could be the killer application for this technology, a flexible, scroll-like ePaper display that could receive multiple papers and magazines.

Bob O'Donnell: The goal is to develop a flexible backplane, again, the part that the ink sits on, so that you could bend it or even roll it up. So you can imagine having a pen that you would pull out a screen, which would be very cool.

Sumi Das: To deliver on this promise, though, will take further fine-tuning.

Bob O'Donnell: It's gonna take even lower price points. It's gonna take the ability to be used in devices that no other display can work in. And it's gonna take color and video. So if all of those things are happening -- and I think we will see them. But again, it could be five, six years before we actually have a bendable, color, video-capable display.

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Sumi Das: Say good-bye to newspaper ink-stained fingers. The future of ink is fluid and limitless. From price tags and magazines to billboards and more, electronic ink can transform displays as if by magic. For ZDNet, I'm Sumi Das.

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