TAIPEI, Taiwan － To have a movie-liked “Paper computer” is definitely a cool thing, however, in real life, your needs always overloaded for a paper. This is surely a Mission Impossible circumstances to Electronic Paper Displays(EPD) technology, too blank to accomplish everything.
Thanks for the movie “Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation”, it brought back our impression and imagination of EPD. In some appropriate time, EPD is really wonderful.
As a science fiction-like technology, EPD has seen better days. The MIT Media Lab borned technology, used to have a perfect combination of Amazon's Kindle, was fashionable in the United States and Europe. But after 10 years of ups and downs, E Ink, the leading electronic paper display provider, now is a Taiwanese company.
After acquisition of E Ink, The PVI(now named E Ink) also remains in a loss situation, very hard to try to identify its market segments which can lead to profit sustainably. But it is still struggling.
E Ink said that the company this year would focus on the double screen phone, phone back cover, electronic shelf labels, electronic digital billboards and building applications. E Ink will also participate in Touch Taiwan 2015, to exhibit the above-mentioned applications.
Honestly, the EPD is not bad, but it's really not good enough. It is not enough attractive compared with other competitors, the resolution is not high, the color is not splendid, the reaction speed is insufficient, the only two advantages here are low power consumption and flexible ability. But with the rise of AMOLED technology, the advantages of these two becomes unhelpful.
Today, the mobile devices is about to enter the flexible and foldable era, coupled with the rise of a wearable devices, this may be a reversal of EPD. But facing on the more powerful opponents, the EPD is bound to have a considerable attractions to win the favor of consumers.
It's really like to complete an impossible mission, you need to have a super surprising plan, die-hard agents, and one percent chance of miracle.
