I came across a video on YouTube uploaded by Pocketnow with a guided tour showing how E Ink displays work.
None of it is new exactly, but the video is entertaining and educational so it’s worth watching if you want to know more about E Ink’s various electronic papers displays and how the technology works.
The video also explains a little history of E Ink as a company, and how it took 7 years to develop the first EPD (electronic paper display) for ebook readers.
Then three years later in 2007 the first Kindle was released and E Ink started gaining in popularity.
The video goes on to explain the science behind E Ink displays, how tiny ink microcapsules placed between two electrodes rearrange charged white and black pigment chips suspended in clear fluid to form the text or images we see materialize on the display.
E Ink displays come in a number of shapes and sizes, and they are used for a lot more things than ereader screens. Smartphones like the Yotaphone 2 have a secondary E Ink screen. There are E Ink shelf labels, watches, photo frames, clocks, and a lot more.
On a side note, it’s interesting how nobody ever really talks about color E Ink anymore, other than the red shelf labels and other non-ereader applications. E Ink was trying to promote color displays for a couple years with their Triton technology, but they didn’t catch on and now it seems like the development of color ereader displays has been pushed aside. You never hear much about it anymore.