Cambridge’s Plastic Logic has demonstrated a large thin e-reader for business users.
Revealed at the DEMOfall show in San Diego, the reader is 20x28cm "yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals", claimed the firm.
Supported document formats include Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and .pdf, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books.
"It has an easy gesture-based user interface and software tools that will help business users to organise and manage their information," said Plastic Logic. "Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly, and store thousands of documents on the device."
Like almost all e-readers, the display has electrophoretic technology from E Ink.
Plastic Logic’s key intellectual property is in printing organic transistors onto flexible plastic substrates.
It has concentrated efforts on developing flexible E-Ink displays which will be made in its factory in Dresden Germany. Production ramp-up starts when the plant opens officially on the 17th of this month.
Philips spin-out Polymer Vision is also making flexible E Ink displays - at a sub-contractor in Southampton. These will be used in Polymer Electronics’ Readius e-reader.
The big difference for users is that Polymer Vision’s displays are very thin and can be rolled to a radius of a few mm. Plastic Logic’s bend like stiff card and are not designed to be flexed in use.
The reader is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009, when the price will be announced.
Plastic Logic’s business strategy "will include direct e-commerce as well as partnerships with publishing, distribution, retail and other information services companies", it said.