Gadgetory

here at pocket now we've just finished reviewing the yotaphone to a dual screen smartphone we called one of the most innovative we'd seen and one which wouldn't be possible without something called e ink i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is a guided tour of ink what it does and how it works e ink powers much more than just the yotaphone special feature phones of yesteryear like Samsung's alias 2 and Motorola's Moto phone ran on the technology and a host of electronics from wristwatches to smart cards make use of it today most famously of course if you've ever used an e-reader like Amazon's Kindle you've used e ink in the form of something called an ePaper display or epd but how does it work the e ink corporation invited us to their headquarters and Innovation Centre in Billerica Massachusetts to find out the en corporation got its start at MIT back in 1997 the time since has been filled with hard work dotted by a series of firsts it took seven years for the first EP de book to come out in 2004 followed a year later by the first EPD watch followed a year later by the first ePaper phone it wasn't until 10 years after the MIT spin-off that the first Amazon Kindle launched and it along with various other readers began escalating public consciousness of this strange new display medium so what is it but simply e ink is well ink chemically very similar to pigments used in the printing industry but rather than being deposited on paper this ink takes the form of tiny capsules about the diameter of a human hair sandwiched between two electrodes in the implementation we're most familiar with these capsules contain white and black pigments separated by a transparent fluid the pigments carry opposite charges in this example negative for black and positive for white so a negative charge applied to the bottom of the capsule repels the black pigment forcing it to the top and making it visible on screen as a darkened area reversing that action by applying a positive charge switches positions of the particles creating a white area stet making text or graphics out of these dark or light bits as a matter of applying the correct charge across millions of capsules and the technology can even bifurcate the charge for still sharper results with only monochrome or very limited color options supported in current ePaper implementations you might ask why ePaper exists at all especially given today's super sharp AMOLED and LCD screens which kick out 16 million colors or more at densities sometimes higher than 500 pixels per inch the folks at ian corporation have plenty of answers to that some of which take the form of surprising applications it would be costly and power intensive to make changeable retail price tags with LCD for example a Inc makes a lot more sense here same with oversized wall clocks or cabinet lock readouts for supermarket divider advertisements are really anywhere there's a premium on space and power it's the latter area that really comes into play in our mobile focused world we're almost always bemoaning the poor battery life of this smartphone or that tablet and a inc is a technology that's only using power if it's changing state so when it's just showing a static page it's not consuming any energy at all witness the incredible power savings we got when we switched to the yotaphone 2 Z paper display documented in our full review the tendency of the display to remain static in its inert state also makes e-ink panels ideal for decorations whether they're integrated into the device or added on via a third-party accessory finally the reflective nature of a ink eliminates the need for a backlight in brightly lit environments and the durability of the panel's makes for a very rugged display those factors combined make for an outstanding reading experience on a portable durable device which plays a big part in the enduring popularity of the kindle and other eerie ders I saw a lot more from he Inc during my product tour oversized presentation tablets for the enterprise under sized wearables for the fitness focused Testaments to the technology's resiliency and peaks at its possible future applications and while the more traditional displays of the world are certainly in no danger from yank at least in the mobile space but they're not supposed to be electronic paper is at its best when supplementing more conventional screens in specific applications and given the sense of momentum I got from Ian's corporation during my visit I think the most interesting developments are probably yet to come again folks to seee paper in action be sure to check out our Yoda phone to review here on YouTube and at pocketnow.com and to see more boots on the ground coverage check out our videos on how sapphire screens are made and how AT&T protects its network from natural disasters till next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you to keep your capsules properly polarized we'll see you next time