Electronic Paper

During the 1970s a breakthrough emerged that was almost lost among other important inventions. Xerox, during this time, was a power house of innovation, many aspects of the modern computer; the mouse, laser printers, Ethernet, and color graphics were all founded. In 1974 an employee of Xerox, Nicholas K. Sheridon invented the basis for modern electronic paper technology, the Gyricon. The Gyricon has many of the same properties as paper; it is flexible, contains an image, but it can also by erased and rewritten thousands of times. In the nineties, as the personal computer became more popular more paper was being consumed. This was caused by the difficulty in reading lengthy documents on the computers’ screens. It was easier to print the document, read it, and then discard it. This introduced the need for a paper like display that would not in fact waste any paper. The earlier invention of the Gyricon was a good candidate for the much needed electronic paper. Though it has been almost forty years since the invention of e-paper, it is just now becoming popular. Still today e-paper isn’t perfect and is still being developed. Since it is technology it isn’t sufficiently paper like. Paper, no matter how long you look at it will never run out of power, a struggle in the production of e-paper was finding a way to make it slim, flexible, and capable of storing readable images without power consumption. Other factors that apply to making e-paper are making sure it is highly readable in ambient light, has high whiteness, good resolution, and good contrast. Electronic paper has to be all this, while also being cheap if it is to be a good alternative to actual paper. Great progress has been made in the field of e-paper. Many companies including; IBM, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, and Phillips are all continuing to develop electronic paper technology. Some applications for e-paper include watches, e-books, newspapers, and mobile phones. In 2004 Sony released the first e-book reader