Readius: The rollable display device that will make eBooks cool again

Posted on June 11, 2007
Filed Under Technology |

Readius closedFor the last 5 years, we hear about how ebooks will change the way we read books. We won’t have to kill so many trees to print books. We are all going to get portable devices and download our favorite books on them so that we can read them at home before going to sleep or on the road. All would be very convenient except for one problem. To this day, no company has produced a portable ebook reader that has long battery life and a large, bright and easy to read screen.

Polymer Vision may be about to change all these with their Readius portable device. Readius is the size of your mobile phone weighing only 150 grams but it packs a huge 5 inch screen. How did Polymer Vision managed to fit such a huge screen on such a small device? They invented the best flexible and hence rollable screen. When not in use, the screen folds neatly around the device; when it is time to read then a user just unrolls the screen and off he goes. The Readius’ screen uses a technology known as E Ink, which floats pigments to the surface of tiny capsules to produce black-and-white text or images in 14 shades of gray. The company is also working on a color version of the screen. In addition to its incredible display, Readius is also boasting a very long battery life as it can go up to 10 days before needing a recharge.

Readius will be useful for more than reading books. The device will be able to access the Internet via wireless broadband networking just like your cell phone which means that you will have access to your email and even the World Wide Web. The company has huge plans for their screen technology including making much larger and thinner screens capable of playing full motion video. The Readius will very likely make your video iPod a thing of the past.

Readius will be going on sale first in Italy later this year and then the company will be introducing it to the North American market. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these.

Readius open in hand

Photos of Readius are copyright Polymer Vision.

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