Introduction

An electronic paper (E Paper) capable of playing videos has

been invented at the Philips Research Laboratory in
Eindhoven the Netherlands.

one display device could hold an entire library

A single sheet looks pretty much like ordinary paper. But

the ink can be rearranged electronically fast enough to show
video movies.

Its devisers, Robert Hayes and Johan Feenstra, have also

figured outhow to create full-colour displays. Their colour
screens would be four times brighter than the flat devices
currently made from liquid crystals.The invention is the latest
version of 'electronic ink1. Researchers hope to combine the
convenience, robustness and readability of printed material
with the vast and flexible information content of laptop
computers.

In principle, a plastic sheet covered with electronic ink

could displayan entire library, page by page. The information
would be stored in aportable chip, and the display would be
powered by a slim line, lightweight battery. Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix would weigh no more than a feather.

E-paper much like traditional paper, would be flexible,

rugged, light weight and easy to view. Unlike conventional
paper, the information displayed won't be permanent; it can be
changed, and with little cost in power. So a plastic newspaper
that is continually updated throughout the day or seeing an
animated ad in a magazine is not too distant a future. E-paper
could replace traditional, rigid displays for mobile phones and
computers, making them more portable.

E-INK

E-Ink used for writing on e-paper changes colour in

response to electric fields generated by the E-Paper's circuitry.
The ink is a water based fluid containing clear plastic
microcapsules filled with white titanium dioxide suspended in
hydrocarbon oil.

This ink can be controlled electronically, stays as sharp as

regular ink, and doesn't require extra power to retain text or
images. Electronic ink consists of tiny capsules full of minute
particles of black and white pigment that is sensitive to
electrical charges. With a negative charge,white particles
move to a capsule's surface; with a positive charge, black
particles move up, to form words and pictures. With no, the
pigment stays in place, so that text or graphics remain
unchanged.

E Ink's first commercial product was electronic signs for

use in stores and other public places. E Ink's signs used
electronic ink to change their messages every few seconds via
wireless connections, eliminating the need to constantly paste
up new printed notices.

The company's most recent research has been to "write"

with electronic ink on a high-resolution flexible computer
screen. E Ink's new research prototype is little larger than a
business card, and no thicker than three sheets of paper. It can
be rolled up into a cylinder without distorting
words or pictures. The secret of its slimness and flexibility is
very thinstainless steel foil. Traditional computer screens are
backed by inflexible glass covered with silicon transistors.
Plastic can be flexible, but may melt in the high temperatures
required to fabricate transistors. McCreary's team discovered
that unlike plastic, thin metal foil could withstand heat while
remaining flexible.

EInk
"One of the advantages of Radio Paper™ as we envision it,"
McCreary explains, "is that you could download many kinds
of information onto it, wirelessly or through an Internet
connection." He foresees pocket-sized electronic books that
tell a different tale every week,smart cards that let you know
your credit balance or your train fare, and even wearable
computer clothing.

Early next year, E Ink displays will be used to make electronic

books, a new way to read changing content on a display that
looks very similar to paper. The researchers' next steps toward
electronic newspapers including making the display thin
enough to be folded, improving the ink's switching speed, and
adding color.

Switch in time

High-resolution monochrome electronic paper is already on

the verge of commercialization, produced by Massachusetts-
based Company,E-Ink, in collaboration with Philips.
Here the 'ink consists of countless tiny, transparent capsules of
black and white powdered pigments, which are drawn by
electric fields to the front face.

This system is fine for viewing successive pages of a book,

but its switching time is too slow for moving pictures. Hayes
and Feenstra switch the colour of their e-ink in a completely
different way.

Each pixel of the new display contains a drop of coloured,

oily ink that spreads over a reflective white background. The
white backing is coated first with a transparent material that
conducts electricity – permitting electrical control of the pixel
colour - and then with a transparent film of a water-repellent
plastic.

Left to its own devices, the ink droplet spreads across the
entire pixel. If a voltage is applied, it retracts like a bead of
water in a Teflon pan, exposing the white area below. If the
pixel is small enough, these white and inky regions are not
visible, just an average brightness. When the droplet is fully
spread, the pixel looks dark. When it retracts, the pixelmuch
lighter
Full-colour displays can be made with sub pixels of yellow,
cyan and magenta

therefore capable of a continuous grey scale, not just of a two-

tone contrast. So monochrome images can look very smooth.

The key to the system's success is its switching voltage. It is

low enough that controlling the electronic ink requires only a
small power source. Switching between dark and bright states
takes only about ten milliseconds - fast enough to produce
sharp video images.

Electronic paper being bent

In principle full-colour images might be produced this

way, Hayes and Feenstra show. Pixels can be composed of
three sub-pixels inked with the standard yellow-cyan-magenta
tricolour system.

If computer screens were as light weight and flexible as a

sheet of paper, your newspaper could update you every hour
and still be portable. Some nanotechnologists say that soon
everyone could be reading off electronic paper.
Electrifying Reading

One of nanotechnology's visions is a newspaper that

updates itself constantly, and fits in your pocket. Electronic
paper would offer all the pluses of old - fashioned newsprint:
excellent resolution, high contrast that can be read in strong or
dim light, no need for external power to maintain an image . It
would be light and flexible enough to carry easily on your
morning commute. But unlike newsprint, electronic paper
would spare trees and wouldn't leave any messy newsprint on
your fingers.

Such a dream will require computer screens as thin and supple

as paper. Now E-Ink, a company in Cambridge,Massachusetts
has announced a big step forward: an ultra - slim computer
display that bends and rolls up into a narrow tube, about one
inch in diameter.

The flexible display is a prototype of E Ink's ultimate goal,

what the company calls "Radio Paper". Chemist Michael
McCreary, vice president for research and advanced
development, believes that Radio Paper or digital paper as it's
so easily updated.

A key component of Radio Paper is electronic ink, invented

by one of E Ink's cofounders, physist Joseph Jacobson, and his
research teammate the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's Media Lab.
 ELECTRONIC PAPER GOES
ORGANIC

The flexible paver can change its display 75 times a second.

( Electronic paper looks set to start rolling off the presses
soon, thanks to a new process developed at the electronics
company Philips.
The Philips researchers, based at Eindhoven in the
Netherlands, have figured out how to make thin, flexible
sheets of electronic paper using inexpensive and light-weight
organic materials that don't demand the costly production
methods used for conventional silicon microelectronics.

The new 'organic' e-paper unveiled by the Philips team

can be switched up to 75 times per second - faster than a
standard television screen.

E-paper has been heading towards the market-place for

several years. The Philips product uses a form of electronic
ink devised in 1998 by a team at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology-. Their 'e-ink' consists of hollow, transparent
plastic capsules containing black and white pigment powders.
The grains have electrical charges, and either the black or the
white can be pulled to the 'front' of the capsule by switching
electronic devices embedded in the back of the 'paper'.

This electronic circuitry is the hard part of the problem.

Most previous e-ink display devices have used conventional
silicon transistors to do the switching of pixels. Such
transistors are made by depositing hard, brittle materials onto
silicon wafers using techniques that require very clean, high-
vacuum conditions, making their manufacture pricey.
Cheap as paper

To make the process simpler and cheaper, Gerwin

Gelinck and colleagues at Philips made their circuitry from an
organic material called pentacene, which can act as a
semiconductor like silicon. The thin films of pentacene can be
laid down on flexible plastic backing by simply spreading a
solution of the organic material over the plastic.

The team has also use the same organic material to make
some of the processing circuitry that controls when the 'ink'
turns on and off. Making this circuitry part of the 'paper' itself,
rather than having to hook up the display to a separate driving
device, will further reduce the manufacturing cost. This
organic control circuitry can be switched up to 75 times per
second - in principle, fast enough to show video data, but the
eink itself doesn't yet respond quite that fast.

The prototype e-paper made in this way had a fairly crude

resolution: the display contained 64 by 64 pixels, each half a
millimetre across. But the Philips team has now made a 320
by 240 pixel display. By comparison, a computer screen is
typically 800 by 600 pixels. A sheet of epaper weighs only
about a gram, and can be rolled up tightly without damage.
Powered by the kind of battery typically used for portable
electronics, it can operate continuously for 20 hours - but the
researchers want to find ways of reducing the power
consumption.

Philips has formed a company called Polymer Vision to turn

their approach into an industrial process. Polymer Vision is
now setting up a pilot production line, and hopes soon to be
producing more than 5,000 epaper displays a year.

MOST FLEXIBLE PAPER YET

REVEALED

The most flexible electronic display yet developed has been

revealed by researchers at electronics giant Philips. The
company says it plans to begin mass producing such displays
within a few years.
There are many projects aiming to develop "electronic
paper". Such a display could, for example, be used create a
fully updatable newspaper which could rolled up into a coat
pocket. Flexible displays could also be used to create new
mobile phones and other easily collapsible gadgets.

Philips's new display was made possible by the

development of a way to print organic electronics onto a thin
plastic film - previously, it was only possible to print these
components on glass. However, after experimenting with
various different plastics, Philips now has a technique
that works on polyimide film.
 Precise details of the fabrication method have not been
revealed due to their commercially sensitive nature, says the
company. But the process has enabled the company to
produce a screen that can be rolled into a tube just two
centimeters in diameter - the most flexible electronic display
ever made. The use of organic electronics should also make
the device cheap.

The square display measures 12 centimeters diagonally and

consists of 80,000 pixels. It produces a grey scale image and
can refresh in about a second - far too slow to display moving
images.
Size and resolution

A new company called Polymer Vision has been set up to

bring the displays to market. Its general manager, Bas Van
Rens, says the flexible displays are far more advanced than
other bendy screens in terms of size, resolution and the
complexity of the organic electronics used.

Joe Jacobson, a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of

Technology says electronic paper must be thin, flexible, low
power and low cost to become a commercial reality. He says
the new research "represents an important milestone and
another step closer towards 'real' electronic paper".

The Philips screen consists of an organic circuit printed on

a polyimide layer 25 microns thick. In front of this is a 200
micron thick layer containing "electronic ink", developed by a
company called E Ink.

Books with printed pages are unique in that they embody

the simultaneous, high-resolution display of hundreds of
pages of information.
 The representation of information on a large number of
physical pages, which may be physically turned and written
on, constitutes a highly preferred means of information
interaction. An obvious disadvantage of the printed page,
however, is its immutability once typeset. We are currently
developing electronically addressable paper-page displays that
use real paper substrates. This effort includes the development
of novel electronically addressable contrast media, micro
encapsulation chemistry, and desktop printing technologies to
print functional circuits, logic, and display elements on paper
or paper-like substrates, including interconnecting vias and
multi-layer logic.
Here are some snapshots of pictures taken under the
microscope.

MPEG clip demonstrating Simulation of the motion of a

pixel
microencapsulated pixels Another MPEG clip

WORKING

This means that, unlike competing electronic displays like

LCDs, it never needs a backlight. In addition, it only needs
power when the image changes. Once an image has been
produced it will remain visible even with the power switched
off.
 Laptops, palmtops and cell phones with rigid electronic
paper screens will be on the market within the next two years,
says E Ink's Dan Button, who demonstrated the new colour
display this week at the Society for Information Display
conference in San Jose, California.

The new display is based on E Ink's monochrome e-

paper, which consists of millions of transparent microcapsules
sandwiched in a thin layer between two arrays of electrodes.
The array corresponding to the surface of the paper is
transparent.
Quick switch

Each tiny capsule contains white granules suspended in a

dark, oily liquid. When an electrode in the upper surface is
given a negative charge, it attracts granules towards it, making
the surface appear white. Reverse the polarity and the
granules are pulled to the bottom, revealing the dark liquid
and making the surface appear black. The spaces between
electrodes are small enough to give a resolution of 300
monochrome dots per inch (dpi).
To create a full colour display they laid a fine coloured
filter across the top of the monochrome display - the same
trick that lends colour to LCDs. The firm admits it's not an
elegant approach.
"This route gets us on the market quickly, since it uses
technology that already exists," explains Button. E Ink
developed the colour technology with Japanese printing
company Toppan, which makes transparent colour filters for
LCD displays.

The filter makes each pixel appear either red, green or blue
when the pixel below it is white. When the pixel is black, the
filter above reflects very little light so no colour is seen.
Flexible friend

Eventually, they hope e-paper will be flexible enough

to be a paper substitute. Meanwhile, E Ink expects it to rival
liquid crystal displays and the emerging organic LED displays
The firm's next challenge is to improve the resolution of the
colour display. A drawback of the filter approach to colour
generation is that the filters need a single pixel for each
primary colour. This effectively reduces the resolution by
about a third, to 80 dpi.
THIN DISPLAYS

Displays and monitors as thin as paper that carry text ,

images and video move into the light as researchers unveil the
candidates...e ink ,smart paper ,magink and now electronic
paper.

All of these new technologies use ambient light rather than

lug light or light producing equipment with them .All of the
candidates strive for high reflectivity , brilliant colour and
video speed .All of the candidates scrabble for the lead in this
multi-billion-dollor display industry market.
 E- Ink sports small particles that migrate within a bubbles
to change its reflective surface.

Smart paper twirls two toned spheres to alter its reflected

image. Magink tilts helical molecules to bounce the colourful
image across its surface and now electronic paper dazzles its
reflection through oil .Electronic paper spreads a thin film
across the tiny picture elements (pixels) of its display screen .
Ambient light flows through a fluid sandwich of water and oil
before bouncing off the white backboard of the screen .

Trapped between water and an oil repelling surface, the oil

provides a colour filter to alter the colours from its surface .
This full colour , reflective display technology flows at video
speed.Colourful electronic oils , like microscopic belly
dancers draped in thin veils of colour , cover and uncover the
bright white reflective skin below. With 100 pixels/inch of
display screen , the image resolution is high and quick... too
fast for us to see the dance of the individual pixels... only
the overall image moving fluidly on the surface of the screen.

Thin display technologies will push the limits of the

viewing surfaces and change our expectations for newspapers
that update continuously, electronic books carrying o library
of information and billboards that flow with images and ads.

ELECTRONIC PAPER MOVES A

STEP NEARER

Electronic paper has taken a step closer with the

development of a prototype flexible electronic display.
It has only a few hundred pixels, but, say its inventors, it
shows that high quality displays could be built cheaply.
The aim of E-paper is to show electronic text on thin, flexible
sheets that look and feel like paper.

The new display is printed onto plastic.

It would be put together in the form of a book or

newspaper, withelectronic pages downloaded using wireless
technology."There is no fundamental technology hurdle. All
of the pieces are there," John Rogers of Bell Labs told BBC
News Online.
His team, from Bell Labs and E Ink Corporation in the
United States, have pictures of their display showing simple
words and images while being flexed by hand.

Battery life

It runs for several months on a small battery pack, they report

in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.The key step forward with this new prototype is that
it uses a very simple manufacturing technique called
microcontact printing.
 ...and can display simple images.

This process, similar to rubber stamping, means that the

makers of the display will not need the expensive clean rooms
used to build today's electronic components.
"Electronic inks are not new, but this is the first time that
they've been integrated with rubber-stamped plastic drive
circuitry," explained John Rogers.

Flexible plastic

The display components are stamped on to a thin, flexible

sheet of plastic less than a millimetre thick. And the inventors
are confident that their technology will scale down to the sizes
needed to make useful electronic paper.

"Moving it out of the research lab will require some

development,but we think it'll scale in a very straightforward
way."The actual transistors are around 50 microns across, so
we could have pixels of a couple of hundred microns, pretty
close to the size of those on a laptop display," John Rogers
explained.
It is not possible to write on the prototype display, but there
is no reason why a production display could not be written
upon.The pixels on the prototype are switched electrically, but
a charged stylus would do the same job, he added.
The electronic paper chase

Thin-film transfer control

OFFERING A GLIMPSE of a future with rewritable

periodicals, this E Ink Corporation prototype "prints" text
using electronic ink. Voltages are supplied to the ink by a
thin-film-transistor panel, from IBM.The panel is 800 by 600
pixels; each pixel is formed by charged pigment—the "ink."
Electrically erasable programmable memory sticks (sitting
atop display, at right) are used in setting the text.

It offers excellent resolution and high contrast under a

wide range of viewing angles, requires no external power to
retain its image, weighs little, costs less and is remarkably
flexible (literally and figuratively) unlike today's computer
displays. No wonder traditional ink on paper continues to
flourish in a digital world that was expected to all but do away
with it.

Yet ink on paper is lacking in one of the essential traits of

computer displays: instantaneous erasure and reuse, millions
of times without wearing out.
 Electronic ink on paper with this ability could usher in an
era of store signs and billboards that could be updated without
pulping acres of trees; of e-books that embody the familiar
tactile interface of traditional books; of magazines and
newspapers delivered wirelessly to thin, flexible page
displays, convenient for reading, whether on crowded
subways or desert islands.

There have been intermittent efforts to produce such

electronic paper over the past three decades, but only recently
has research gone into full swing. The day when Scientific
American and other periodicals are routinely published in this
medium may come before 2010, thanks to competition
between two start-up firms. Both companies are off shoots of
major research institutions: the Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC) and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Laboratory. Both firms base their core
technologies on tiny, electrically charged beads, with the
imaging capability controlled electronically. And they are not
only racing each other to commercialize their efforts but are
also anticipating competition from the organic light-emitting
diodes that are beginning to emerge from laboratories.
Spinning off Electric Paper

THREE DECADES AFTER his initial vision of creating

an electronic display with as many of the features of paper as
possible,Nicholas K. Sheridon of Gyricon Media
demonstrates the feasibility of Smart Paper displays. The
displays, which are now being marketed under the Maestro
Sign brand, could save individual stores thousands of dollars
in signage costs.
The earliest attempt at "electric paper," as it was originally
called,came as a response to the poor visual quality of the
computer displays available in the early 1970s. "The CRTs
[cathode-ray tubes] were too dim," recalls Nicholas K.
Sheridon. "I wanted to find a display material with as many of
the properties of paper as possible.

Smart Paper Display

When Scientific American last caught up with Sheridon

three years ago [see "The Reinvention of Paper," by W. Wayt
Gibbs, September 1998], he was a senior research fellow at
PARC, demonstrating prototypes of what Xerox was by then
calling "electronic reusable paper." More than 20 years earlier
at PARC he had come up with the basic idea for this display
medium, embedding plastic beads scarcely the width of a
human hair in a flexible transparent film. Each bead is two-
toned: one half white and one half black, with an opposing
electrical charge on each half. Apply an appropriate electric
field to the transparent surface, and a bead can be rotated to
lock either a white or black dot onto the viewing plan
creating, in effect, ink that twists itself into the right place.
Sheridon called his invention Gyricon, Greek for "rotating
image." Soon shelved by Xerox managers who were more
interested in exploring new printing technologies than in
making displays, the reusable-paper concept wasn't revived
until 15 years later—hence Sheridon's demo described in
these pages at the time.
Electronic Reusable paper

Electronic reusable paper is a display material that has

many of the properties of paper. It stores an image, is viewed
in reflective light, has a wide viewing angle, is flexible, and is
relatively inexpensive. Unlike conventional paper, however, it
is electrically writeable and erasable. Although projected to
cost somewhat more than a normal piece of paper, a sheet of
electronic reusable paper could be re-used 1000s of times.
Thismaterial has many potential applications in the field of
information display including digital books, low-power
portable displays, wall- sized displays,
and fold-up display.

Electronic reusable paper utilizes a display technology,

invented at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC),
called "Gyricon." A Gyricon sheet is a thin layer of
transparent plastic in which millions of small beads,
somewhat like toner particles, are randomly dispersed. The
beads, each contained in an oil-filled cavity, are free to rotate
within those cavities. The beads are "bichromal," with
hemispheres of two contrasting colors (e.g. black and white,
red and white), and charged so they exhibit an electrical
dipole. When voltage is applied to the surface of the sheet, the
beads rotate to present one colored side to the viewer.
Voltages can be applied to the surface to create images such
as text and pictures. The image will persist until new voltage
patterns are applied.
There are many ways an image can be created in
electronic reusable paper. For example, sheets can be fed into
printer-like devices that will erase old images and create new
images. Printer-like devices can be made compact and
inexpensive that you can imagine carrying one in a purse
or briefcase at all times. One envisioned device, called a
wand, could be pulled by hand across a sheet of electronic
reusable paper to create an image. With a built-in input
scanner, this wand becomes a hand-operated multi-function
device a printer, copier, fax, and scanner, all in one.

For applications requiring more rapid and direct electronic

update,the Gyricon material might be packaged with a simple
electrode structure on the surface and used more like a
traditional display. An electronic reusable paper display could
be very thin and flexible. A collection of these displays could
be bound into an electronic book. With the appropriate
electronics stored in the spine of the book, pages could be
updated at will to display different content.

For portable applications, an active matrix array may be used

to rapidly update a partial- or full-page display, much like
what is used in today's portable devices. Gyricon displays
don't require backlighting or constant refreshing, and are
brighter than today's reflective displays. These attributes will
lead to Gyricon's utilization in lightweight and lower-power
applications.

Research into electronic reusable paper and its applications

is continuing at Xerox PARC. Xerox is also pursing
commercialization opportunities through the Xerox Venture
Laboratory.

This electronic reusable paper printing device may one day

be small enough to Tit into a purse.

Small bichromal beads can be black and white or other

contrasting colors.
 The paper pulp of the future..

MAKING ELECTRONIC PAPER

Researchers embed bacterial cellulose with electronic dye. A

new type of electronic paper was announced by scientists at
the ACS meeting held March 28 to April 1, in Anaheim, Calif.
The paper consists of bacterial cellulose with an electronic
dye between transparent electrodes.

INKED A pen applies a voltage to a prototype of electronic

paper, and the electrochromic dye darkens on the dynamic
display.
To make the paper, professor of molecular genetics and
microbiology R. Malcolm Brown Jr., and graduate student Jay
Shah at the University of Texas, Austin, start with a sheet of
pure cellulose, which is one of the main structural components
of wood and reflects and bends like conventional paper. This
cellulose, however, is made not by plants but by Acetobacter
xylinum bacteria. The bacterial cellulose is more structurally
uniform and hardy than wood cellulose and can be grown in
any shape.

Brown and Shah use a well-established process to harvest

the bacterial cellulose, embed an electronic dye into a sheet of
the material,and then place the sheet between the transparent
electrodes. The device at first looks like fine white paper. But
when a voltage is applied, the dye turns dark and remains
dark, even when the power is turned off. Low power
consumption is one of the main advantages of the technology.

When an opposite voltage is applied, the dye lightens and

the device again appears paper-white. Shah sees the
technology as a basis for electronic books, wallpaper that
changes patterns, flexible electronic newspapers, and dynamic
paper (similar to an Etch A Sketch screen).

Other electronic paper devices, such as products produced

by E-Ink and Gyricon, are closer to commercialization, Shah
says. But he notes that the new electronic paper is the first
with a surface that has the same reflective quality as
conventional paper. "The whole idea is to get an inkon-
paper look," he says. "In our case, it is dye-on-cellulose."

Electronic paper prepares for

video
 Flexible paper-like colour computer displays that can show
moving video are under development by the Dutch electronics
giant Philips.

Two scientists at the company's research facility in

Eindhoven describe the latest step forward in e-paper
technology in the journal Nature.

Philips - and other firms like E Ink in the US - have

already succeeded in making prototype flexible displays, but
their refresh rates - the speed at which they can turn a single
dot on or off - have been slow.

These previous prototypes have used a principle called

electrophoresis to switch pixels on or off.

The technology is still in the lab

But now the Philips team says its new technology can
significantly improve the refresh rate using a faster effect
called electrowetting.

"Electrophoresis involves moving particles around in a liquid

applying a voltage and getting them to move," explained
Robert Hayes, one of the pair of researchers who have
published details of their work. Electro wetting gets liquids to
move around in other liquids." Electrowetting devices are
quick. Electrophoresis is a slow effect"

Books and video

The two technologies clearly lend themselves to different

applications. The new electrowetting colour displays now in
development will be able to display full colour moving video.

The new displays will use coloured liquids

The slower moving electrophoresis displays will be more

suited for use in electronic books and display signs where the
information on display is relatively static.

Video displays in Europe conventionally display 25 frames

per second to provide the viewer with a lifelike impression of
motion.
 The electrowetting displays described by Dr Hayes and his
colleague Johan Feenstra refresh within 12-13 milliseconds,
fast enough to refresh 80 times a second.

Development process

The task now is to get the technology off the lab bench,
through prototyping and into production.
"We're working with colleagues to develop fairly small
prototypes.We're at the end of the research stage and starting
to scale up.
"We anticipate a one-inch (2.5 centimetres) diagonal
working monochrome prototype by the end of the year
"Moving from monochrome to colour is no big problem," said
Dr Hayes.
LATEST REPORTS

Electronic paper to supersede paper

Director Hannu Linna of VTT Information Technology's

research group says that electronic paper is not yet a big thing,
but it may become just that. Mika Mannermaa, futures studies,
forecasts that paper will be given up in the long run as it is an
old-fashioned technology.

Finnish companies monitor the development of display

technologies closely. VTT Electronics is developing new
printing technology which could bring electric and optical
structures on various platforms. The project involves UPM,
M-real, Metso Paper, Hansaprint and Aspiration. Nokia is
not involved in the project, but it has shown interest as well.

Director Petri Vasama of Jaakko Poyry Consulting's New

Technologies estimates that electronic paper can in the long
run become a dangerous competitor for newsprint. The
pressure on magazine paper is smaller.

Director Pentti Kurumaki of the Finnish Newspapers

Association expects paper to remain a familiar user interface
for a long time. However, electronic distribution will increase
its market share. Kurumaki considers it possible that
electronic paper will supersede traditional paper.
President Seppo Kievari of Sanoma Corporation emphasises
that the contents are the most important. The sector will look
for alternatives for paper if the price fluctuates and increases.

Director Kari Luukko of the Finnish Forest Industries

Federation forecasts traditional paper to retain its strong
position also in future.Development director Sami Leinonen
of UPM's New Ventures estimates there to be more
opportunities than threats in the future. He does not expect
electronic paper to affect the use of traditional paper.