Archive for the ‘Fujitsu Flepia’ tag
Fujitsu demos newest color epaper no comments
Fujitsu showed off the latest version of its color epaper at the International Digital Publishing Forum last week. The display appears to be faster and the colors more vibrant than previous versions. The prototype is also thinner and lighter than the displays previously used in Fujitsu’s FLEPia color ereaders. Fujitsu is now using Linux rather than Windows to operate the display.
The video below is from DigInfo TV.
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Color eReaders – Liquavista and Freescale Collaborating on New eReaders no comments
Liquavista and Freescale Semiconductor announced today that the two companies are collaborating to bring ereaders to market by the middle of 2011 that feature Liquavista’s electrowetting displays and the Freescale i.MX515 processor. From the press release:
Freescale’s high-performance i.MX51 system-on-chip provides the necessary file decoding capabilities to match the enhanced graphics and video functionality of Liquavista’s displays. By combining both technologies, eReader manufacturers can produce a wide range of highly compelling consumer products that enable increased usability and enhanced content.
Liquavista’s displays create bright and colourful images that deliver excellent indoor and outdoor viewability and use dramatically less battery power. Offering significant advantages over existing eReader technologies, Liquavista’s high performance displays support color and high-speed video providing a true multimedia experience not currently available with today’s eReaders.
Freescale’s highly integrated i.MX515 processor has multiple processing units including an ARM Cortex™-A8 core, a vector floating point unit and an image processing unit. The i.MX515 provides up to 1680 Dhrystone MIPS and can scale in performance up to 800MHz. Advanced power management features allow for extended battery life and eliminate the need for fans or heat sinks.
Available for two of Liquavista’s launched product platforms, LiquavistaBright and LiquavistaColor, each SDK includes a 6” electrowetting display, driving circuitry, a mobile application processor host platform and a Linux based operating system.
Qualcomm has said that there will be ereaders using its Mirasol based displays on the market by the fall of 2010. Unless Mirasol hits some kind of production snags it still looks like this will be the first color ereader display technology to hit the US market. If I had to place a bet as to which color display the first color Kindle ereader will use my money would be on Mirasol.
Meanwhile Fujitsu announced (via Akihabara News) a few days ago that it has developed new color epaper with a 7:1 contrast ratio and much faster page rewrites than the epaper used in its FLEPia ereader. Fujitsu says that they plan to commercialize the new technology this fall for the Japanese market. The FLEPia ereader was priced at around a thousand dollars and was only sold in Japan.
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New Fujitsu Color eReader Prototype no comments
Remember the FLEPia, Fujitsu’s color ereader? Fujitsu is showing a new color ereader prototype that appears to have a much sleeker and more elegant design. There are no technical details as of yet, but Akihabara News has photos.
The original FLEPia had very slow page refresh times, was priced at around $1000 and was only available in Japan.
Via Slashgear
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Fujitsu’s FLEPia; Worlds first color ebook reader no comments
Fujitsu’s FLEPia, the world’s first color ebook reader has recently gone on sale in Japan. FLEPia uses Fujitsu’s flexible color electronic paper which works by slowly rewriting the next page over the previous one.
The feature set is impressive, and it better be for the $1000 + price tag. FLEPia currently comes in both A4 and A5 versions, weighing 320g and 480g, and sporting 8” and 12” screens respectively. Both models are 12 millimeters thick. The unit can display up to 260,000 colors, is equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a touch screen which has a resolution of 1024 x 768. An SD card (up to 4 GB) is used to store books purchased from the online bookstore Papyless. The keyboard is on-screen. FLEPia consumes power only on redraw, not for the display of a continuous image and Fujitsu claims battery life of 40 hours, though wi-fi will no doubt shorten that. The FLEPia is a little bigger and heavier than the Kindle 2, and the screen takes up to 8 seconds to refresh at 260,000 colors, so you better not be in a hurry. Even at lower color settings screen refresh rates are slow.
FLEPia comes with a trio of body color choices: white pearl, pink pearl and silver. The unit also comes with a stylus. There is no word yet when or if it will be available outside of Japan. The ebook formats it now uses are primarily used in Japan.
The FLEPia has other capabilities in addition to reading books: it comes with Windows CE 5. This means support for e-mail, internet and document handling. These capabilities potentially raise the FLEPia to a level somewhere between Amazon’s Kindle 2 and more powerful computing devices such as laptops.
E-ink, used in Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s readers, will probably not be available in color until the end of 2010 at the earliest; more likely 2011. iRex, maker of the iLiad ereaders, has also promised a color model by 2011, and in addition claims that their device’s display will be three times brighter than existing color displays.
Probably the greatest significance of the Flepia is that it is a first step towards the next generation of color ebook readers, and provides incentive for other manufacturers to ready their color devices.
