E ink Corporation is the company behind the innovation that will change everything we know about paper and digital displays. Founded in 1997 and based on research from none other than MIT’s Media Lab, E Ink is the leading supplier of electronic paper display (EPD) technologies and the sole technology behind handheld e-readers such as Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

If you’re interested, here’s a bit of info on how this technology works. (If you don’t care, proceed to last sentence of this paragraph.) E ink is using electrophoretic deposition - also EPD. (I guess they coined the term electronic paper display so that they could keep the abbreviation and avoid the tongue-twister). Essentially, particles, and in this case pigment particles, are suspended in a medium operating under the influence of an electric field. Because the composition of the pigment particles and the medium are different, the particles are suspended in the medium rather than dissolved, which allows for the display of the text against the screen. The electric field is what charges the particles positively or negatively and results in the display of text or images. Put simply, it's kind of like a modern day Etch-a-Sketch: the stuff behind the screen is the medium, the particles are the gray specs, and the electric field is the stylus that creates the image.
 

As if this isn’t awesome enough, E ink’s goal is to continue work on this technology so that it’s eventually compatible with full-color displays. Right now they are a little stumped as to how to accomplish this with particles of different colors: each color corresponds to a different wavelength which means that they would require different levels of electrical charge from the same device. But just imagine the possibilities: Instead of wallpaper and paint we would have radio wallpaper that would be able to change color or pattern on the fly. And in terms of design and signage, this puts a whole new spin on the term interactive.

Good luck E ink. In the meantime, want a new website?