Taiwanese researchers have developed a form of electronic paper that can be erased and reused up to 260 times. Not the same kind of e-paper as current e-book readers use, this is paper that can be printed on a thermal printer, then erased by plugging it into electrical current. "In many cases, such as transportation tickets or ID badges, it will save you from printing the same thing 259 times. In terms of environmental production, this is very meaningful." An A4-sized piece of this paper costs approximately $2. Its developers hope to have...

Ars Technica has a report on a new form of e-paper that could offer the same low power consumption rate as the e-ink used in current e-readers, but at a much higher refresh rate and better screen reflectiveness. Gamma Dynamics’s e-paper screen uses layers of oil and pigment that can be induced to change places through an electrical voltage. It could offer a refresh rate of 50Hz, and possibly color eventually. (At the moment it works best in grayscale.) The screen will reflect 75% of ambient light, rather than the 40% of e-ink or 30% of electrowetting, making...

Pixel Qi is creating a new device that may well be the first of its kind—a self-contained 10” Pixel Qi monitor that connects to a laptop or “even some phones” (or, for that matter, a desktop) using wired or wireless USB. Pixel Qi’s 10” $275 swap-in displays had been available for Samsung N130 and Lenovo S10 netbooks, but they required end-users to install the parts themselves. This new device would act as a fully-powered stand-alone monitor, useful for more screen area or for showing someone else screen data. As far as I know, nobody’s come out...

Gizmodo’s Kat Hannaford has a piece indicating that LG is planning begin “mass producing” flexible e-paper screens in both 9.7” color and 19” monochrome sizes. While the prospect of color e-ink continues to be enticing (especially if they can solve the refresh rate problem to let it show video), Hannaford admits to being fascinated by the larger-sized monochrome screen. Weighing in at 130g and measuring 0.3mm thick, it could provide a basis for the newspaper-sized e-newspaper reader that Plastic Logic’s Que turned out not to be. Of course, price and battery life are going to be...

Our sister blog Gadgetell reports on a Digitimes story that Asus is planning to release an 8” 64-greyscale e-paper reader at “under $599”. (E-Reader Info and Engadget also have coverage.) When I saw this story, I had to glance at my new wristwatch, which helpfully provides a display for the year as well as month and day, to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally slipped one or two years back in time. (The watch synchronizes by radio with the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, so I can know for certain that it’s still 2010—the atoms say so!)...

We know of e-paper (or e-ink) technology as the driving force behind the Sony, Kindle, Nook, and a number of other e-book readers. But as Technology Review points out, books are just one use of normal paper that e-paper could replace. For example, Nemoptic has created miniature e-paper displays intended to replace grocery shelf price labels. If you’ve been to a grocery store, and almost everybody has, it should only take a moment’s thought to realize how much work this could save. Any given grocery store will have literally thousands of shelf labels in use at...

MediaBistro’s eBookNewser and GalleyCat have been putting together a directory of good Twitter accounts to follow for e-book news. Gratifyingly, our very own Paul Biba tops their list. Thanks for the mention, MediaBistro! Engadget reports that Amazon and ASUS are teaming up to pre-install the Kindle Reader software on some of the netbooks and laptops ASUS sells through Amazon. Engadget speculates that the pre-installation might extend to ASUS’s forthcoming Eee Pad tablet, but expects to hear more about that at an upcoming industry event. Also found on Engadget, Amazon’s Kindle 2.5 software is now rolling...

United Kingdom book industry news site TheBookseller.com, which has been the source of a number of TeleRead stories, is being sold. The site’s owner, the Nielsen media research company, has arranged to sell it for an undisclosed sum to its managing director, Nigel Roby. The site expects its current staff to remain in place. The Bookseller also reports from the London Book Fair on academic librarians stating that “students are dissatisfied with the lack of an interactive experience in academic e-books.” The librarians say that students want e-books to help them learn rather than just reproduce the contents...

Chip Chicklets has taken a look at this new unit which is expected out this spring. They liked it and said it was very well made. It will come in a couple of colors and has a color touchscreen as well as a qwerty keyboard. The Flip is expected to sell for about $60. More information here....

LG Display is showing a new 19" flexible E Ink prototype - that's almost as big as an A3-sized newpaper. It is only 0.3mm thin and weights only 130 grams. The display uses metal foil, and so it can recover its original shape after being bent. Thanks to E-Ink-Info for the story....

They are selling the 5-inch reader for $149 along with $50 of free ebooks. This is a pretty good deal. The jetBook will read encrypted and unencrypted eReader PDB, along with unencrypted ePub, Mobi, PRC, RTF, txt, dpf and fb2. It contains a dictionary and will have the CIA World Factbook pre-loaded. One nice thing is that the jetBook uses AA batteries, so you never have to worry about remembering to bring a charger. You can find all the details here. ...

Kat Hannaford at Gizmodo has an opinion piece that appears to start out as Yet Another Anti-E-Book Screed. She writes about how books have been around forever, reading worked just fine the way it was, and so on. While she never quite brings up the smell of a book (my personal favorite anti-e-book cliché), she does go into the same “books-as-objects” fetishism to which e-book skeptics often cling: Our grandchildren won't be housing first edition ebook copies of War and Peace in an antiquated Kindle, passed down from generation to generation. There's no opportunity...