Earlier this year I had the honor of sharing the same stage with Joe Jacobson at the Media Lab. Joe is the scientist behind E-Ink, a product from a company of the same name that embues paper-like qualities in electronic displays. Joe updated lab sponsors on current enhancements to the technology (full motion graphics, better color, insane military applications), and also re-capped the concept of "bi-stable" displays. Microcapsules filled with oil and dark particles are printed on to an electrically-addressable surface that can deliver an electromagetic field to each of the microcapsules to turn them black or white. The displays are said to be bi-stable because after a microcapsule is switched, it doesn't need power to maintain its black or white state. Imagine something that works like a Magna-Doodle board but the microcapsules are packed together at close to 200 per inch.

Joe talked about the first consumer product to use E-Ink, the Sony Libre e-Book reader. Well even though they are only sold in Japan with a Japanse operating system, thanks to a couple enterprising importers and a hack popularized by Phil Torrone of Make Magazine, we now own one!

While I was photographing Jessica this afternoon, Wife Amy was using Cianna's nap time to run the hack to convert the device's firmware to english. We haven't converted and loaded any of our own e-books yet--tomorrow--but the display is a joy to behold even with Japanese content. I can easily read the super high contrast display in very dim light.

More to say after we get some more books loaded...

- mike lee - wheaton, md