Fujitsu Laboratories will unveil next week a new version of its color electronic paper display that's easier on the eyes, the company said Friday.
The new screen, which will be on show at the company's Fujitsu Forum exhibition in central Tokyo, features several improvements over previous prototypes.
It's about a third brighter due to changes in its construction and offers an improved contrast ratio of 7:1, which is three times that of the previous model. It also writes information on the screen at about double the speed of the previous model. Unlike LCD screens, information is drawn on e-paper displays at a much slower rate so screen rewrite time is an important area of research for developers.
Electronic paper is a type of display that attempts to mimic the appearance of ink on a sheet of paper. The screens are often flexible and use very little power because energy is only required when the image is being written to the screen. Once written the image remains without the need for a power supply.
The screens are most commonly seen in electronic book readers such as Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader. It's the low power consumption of the displays that enables the e-readers to operate for up to a month between recharges.
Fujitsu has been developing color e-paper screens for many years and typically uses the Fujitsu Forum to show off the latest version of its e-paper screen.
Commercial versions of the display should be available later this year.