Amazon Kindle (Credit: Amazon)

Another company vying to control the e-newspaper market is the Hearst Corporation. They own 16 daily newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst was also an early investor in E-Ink, using this technology and to distribute electronic versions of some papers on Amazon’s Kindle.

According to Sriram K. Peruvemba, vice president of marketing at E-Ink, the advancement of color displays with moving images and interactive clickable advertisements would be available within a few more years. However, the ideal format of the flexible display which could be rolled or folded like a newspaper still has many years of development ahead.

Plastic Logic's reader - Thinner than a Pad of Paper (Credit: Plastic Logic)

E-Ink‘s technology, commonly known as electronic paper (e-paper), is different from liquid-crystal display (LCD) used in modern computer monitors and televisions. This e-paper technology does not use a backlight and consumes power only when the content of the display changes. Contrasting to current display panels, which are barely visible in strong light, the e-paper’s display will look even brighter in daylight.

Plastic Logic's reader - the next E-Newspaper? (Credit: Plastic Logic)

TFOT has covered numerous electronic paper technologies in the past including “The Future of Electronic Paper,” an article covering the history, technology, and future of what is destined to be the second paper revolution. You can also check out our Cybook Gen3 e-Book review, based on the most recent electronic-paper technology from E-Ink, and more recently flexible computers thatconform to any shape.