In what must be the most exciting conference ever (just ahead of Dewey Decimal 2008), a little feature known as epaper showed up at Display 2008 in Tokyo. It seems several companies, including Bridgestone with a full-size broadsheet e-newspaper(what do tires have to do with epaper?) and a collaboration between Seiko, E Ink and Epson (which also wins for strangest interactive website) to make epaper watches, showed off their wares at the Japanese trade show. Other offerings included epaper that can be written on with a stylus(video at the link).
Along with the obvious books and notepads we’re all thinking of, other attendants were thinking of myriad other places epaper could be useful. Those range from IC or RFID cards with PIN displays for added security, pill bottles, grocery price tags (come to think of it, I’ve seen something awfully like it in the supermarkets here), flash drives and headphones. Interestingly enough, there’s a story about a Fujitsu ebook that’s in color as well, although price seems to be a factor in why it’s not out yet. According to the guys at DWT, August is when many of these products will be available to vendors, so start looking for epaper everythings to start popping up soon after. I know I can’t wait.
Bonus display blogging: 3D displays without the paper glasses.
(via DigitalWorldTokyo, a site I apparently need to visit more often) (image also via DigitalWorldTokyo)
Researchers at the University of Washington are curious to see what effects RFID technology could have on social networking. To see what happens when the tags become ubiquitous, they installed two hundred antennae in and around a campus building and gave tags to twelve researchers. The results? Their every move is recorded by computer. [image by 
