E-paper in Japan: will it complement RFID?
Nikkei Electronics Asia has a nice in-depth article titled E-Paper Enters Practical Use (in English).
In my mind, e-paper is a kind of a sister technology of RFID. Epson demoed an e-paper RFID tag in September. Also, it's used for e-pop displays and price cards (for example, Mitsukoshi's recent RFID trial at a Jeans shop used e-paper price cards that show information based on the status of RFID-enabled smart shelf.). Human eyes can't see the information stored in RFID tags. e-paper can show it. If RFID tags will be ubiquitous computing dots, e-paper will potentially be ubiquitous computing surfaces.
The nikkei article has pictures of new e-paper products that will be released in Japan this year: Hiachi's general-purpose display, Tianjin Jinke Electronics' Reading terminal, Seiko's wrist watch, Citizen Watch's equipment clock, Ishida's price tags, and Asahi Glass' public display terminals.
Posted by konomi at March 7, 2006 12:53 AM | TrackBack