E Ink?

According to an article in this morning’s Boston Globe a Cambridge based company has invented electronic paper. E Ink Corp calls its invention “RadioPaper”. It is a flexible display that looks and feels like regular paper, but it has the capability of changing its print. The technology behind “RadioPaper” is far above my understanding, but deals with microcapsules that are white when positively charged and black when negatively charged…letters are formed by sending various charges to the microcapsules. E Ink Corp believes that black print on a white background will always be more comfortable to a reader than a computer screen. The developers also believe that a newspaper “printed” using “E Ink” could be updated many times each day. Imagine this…finish reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”…electronically change the RadioPaper into Patricia Grasso’s “To Charm A Prince”. The possibilities for this changeable paper are endless…train schedules, restaurant menus, supermarket displays etc…and there certainly is no shortage of investors that see the potential. Since its establishment in 1997 E Ink Corp has raised more than $100 million in venture financing. These investors even include several prominent newspapers. It may be time to rephrase Mark Twain’s famous quote… “Don’t pick a fight with a man that buys E Ink buy the gigabyte.