Polymer Vision releases new video no comments
As of yet no ereader with a flexible, rollable display has been shipped from Wistron-owned Polymer Vision, but the company is still working on something. To prove this a new video has been uploaded to YouTube. This one demonstrates the unbreakable nature of the company’s display technology by dropping a ball on it. Should be nice — if we ever actually see a shipping product.
Actually I don’t see how anyone can, at this time, put out an ereader with a new cutting edge flexible display that could successfully compete with the very good ereaders that are already available for $130 -$140. I would think the technology would have to debut and be successful in other gadgets first until the price becomes lowered to a point where it could be introduced into ereaders without dramatically raising their selling prices. Perhaps if the iPad had been introduced a year later than it was the prices of dedicated ereaders might have held up longer — not good for consumers’ pocket books or ebook sales, but better for hardware innovation and richer features involving new tech like flexible displays.
P.S. I don’t mean to imply that I wish the iPad hadn’t been released, were released later or that ereaders were still priced at $300-$500. Now is a good time to be a reader — in large part because of the iPad. The iPad forced the prices of dedicated ereaders down, making them more affordable for more people. The resultant surge in ebook sales means that most newly published books and many from the backlists are being published in digital format.
I do think that flexible display technology was killed (or at least set back several years) before it was really born by the iPad. It is interesting to speculate that if the iPad would have been released today or early next year instead of early 2010, it might possibly have featured a lightweight plastic display rather than its current heavy glass screen. A flexible screen that might have first gone into mass production for ereaders, which would have been a good vehicle for the technology.
