Hasta La Gadget!

Plastic Logic may have bowed out of building its own e-readers, but that’s not stopping the company from making its presence felt at CES. It’s teaming up with Intel and Queen’s University on the PaperTab, a 10.7-inch tablet concept built around a flexible, e-paper touchscreen. The prototype runs a Sandy Bridge-era Core i5 processor that lets it stand on its own, but it’s ultimately designed to work as part of a team: position awareness lets multiple PaperTabs join together to share a work area, and tapping one tablet with content can send it to a waiting document in another. The bendy nature isn’t just for durability and a paper-like feel, either, as readers can flip through pages just by bending the relevant side. A fuller reveal is planned for January 8th, but you can get an initial sense of how the plastic slate works through the video after the break.

Continue reading Intel, Plastic Logic and Queen’s U build the PaperTab: a flexible e-paper tablet (video)

Filed under: Tablets, Intel

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Source: Queen’s University

This is pretty darn cool. It’s called Popslate — an iPhone 5 case with a four-inch E Ink screen on the back — and it’s launching right now on Indiegogo for $79 in two colors. Combined with a bespoke social imaging app, it lets you take and share pics, then “pop” them to the back of your phone. Better yet, the always-on, ultra low-power, black and white display becomes a canvas for notifications, sports scores, maps, lists and notes, all just a glance away.

An open API allows third-party developers to design custom apps for Popslate — including accelerometer support to interact with the backside screen by tapping on it. Imagine a micro e-reader app which uses the E Ink display instead of the main panel to conserve battery.

The company is still in the early stages of development and sadly didn’t have a prototype to show us, but it’s already gathered a team of talented designers, engineers and developers. It’s also secured a partnership with E Ink to use the latest in ruggedized e-paper technology and is hoping to raise enough funds to make Popslate a reality. Two colors are available at launch (black and white) with prices starting at $79 for the first 500 supporters, then $99 and up. Hit the break for the demo video and IndieGogo link.

Continue reading Popslate launches iPhone 5 case with four-inch E Ink screen (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Sadly, Pebble won’t be making its way to backers by its original September estimate, but the design team wants you to know that it’s hard at work, traveling the world to source components, running shipping tests and spending time refining the user interface in order to provide a top-notch experience once you do receive your device in the mail. To that end, Martijn, the UI designer, has dropped by Vimeo to provide us with a “sneak peek” at the device’s operation, including some demos on iOS and a connected prototyping board, using a custom tool that sends designs to the Pebble screen from any graphics program in real-time (a feature that will reportedly also be available in the SDK). From what we’ve seen, there appears to be plenty of space on the screen to show incoming calls, read emails with eight lines of text at a time, view appointment details, select songs and control volume, and, of course, see the current time. Commenters seem to be quite pleased with the design so far, and we have to agree — it’s a pretty slick UI. Jump past the break to see it in action.

Continue reading Pebble team posts UI preview, provides an early look at how you’ll interact with the E-Paper Watch

Filed under: Displays, Wireless

Pebble team posts UI preview, provides an early look at how you’ll interact with the E-Paper Watch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm has quietly confirmed that it is backing out of mirasol display production, instead looking to license the color e-paper technology amid struggles to mass-produce the screens. The news was announced by Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs as part of the company’s financial results call last week, and described as being a strategy to “better align our updated roadmap with the addressable opportunities.”

According to Jacobs, “only certain” of the mirasol products previously on Qualcomm’s roadmap – i.e. certain sizes of display and certain ereaders – will now be produced and sold by the company itself. Instead, it will look to third-parties who want to adopt mirasol instead.

“With respect to QMT, we’re now focusing on licensing our next-generation mirasol display technology and will directly commercialize only certain mirasol products. We believe that this strategy will better align our updated roadmap with the addressable opportunities” Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm

mirasol’s path to the marketplace hasn’t been an easy one. It’s been several years since we first saw the fruits of Qualcomm’s labor in small screens, and took from a 2009 reveal to late 2011 for the first mirasol ereader to go on sale.

Along there way there have been various delays and postponed or cancelled launches, and Qualcomm has apparently struggled to meet output goals from its manufacturing facilities. There have been roughly four mirasol product launches, all using an Android-based ereader reference design of the company’s own making, though market feedback has been muted.

Exactly who might jump in and license mirasol remains to be seen; Qualcomm did not mention any potential partners during the results call. The decision echoes that of Plastic Logic, another next-gen screen company which shifted its focus from device production to licensing and partnership deals, in the face of increasing competition within the low-power display market.

[via The Digital Reader; via SeekingAlpha]

Mirasol production doused as Qualcomm chases licensing instead is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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