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INTRODUCTION
With a world full of monitors and electronic displays made with liquid crystals,

light-emitting diodes and gas plasma, we probably don't think of paper as being a revolutionary display technology, but the Chinese invention of paper in 105 A.D. forever changed the way the world communicates. Without it, books might still be printed on silk scrolls that only the wealthy could afford, making literacy a rare skill. For nearly 2,000 years, ink on paper was the only way to display words and images, and it still beats computer displays when it comes to portability and price. Paper also doesn't require an external power supply. Yet it does have some limitations: Once you've printed words on paper, those words cannot be changed without at least leaving some marks, and it is also difficult to carry around a large number of books. In this era of modern computing, a lot of books are present in digital form i.e., eBooks. Once in a while a new technological development can create a revolution. One of the most recent examples can be found in the music industry. It was the brilliant combination of the internet, mp3, and the iPod that created a massive change in the music industry, and in the way consumers buy and listen to their music. When looking closely into the matter of the publishing industry, we can almost feel that something similar is about to happen. Through the internet, many people have access to a huge range of electronic documents. The PDF format can almost be seen as the mp3 equivalent of the publishing industry. The only thing that seemed to have been missing for a while was a new piece of hardware that could do for electronic texts, what the iPod did for mp3s. In

the last few years, a number of different devices (eReaders) have made been introduced in this market.

1.1

Basic Definitions

1.1.1 E- Book E-book is short for electronic book, book or any text that is digitized. They are essentially electronic or digital copies of printed books and normally follow the format of their printed counterpart with table of contents, chapters, and index.

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book" but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent. E-books are usually read on dedicated hardware devices known as e-Readers or e-book devices. Personal computers and some cell phones can also be used to read e-books. 1.1.2 E-Reader An e-book reader, also called an e-book device or e-reader, is an electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital books and periodicals and uses e-ink technology to display content to readers.

1.1.3 EPDs An Electronic Paper Display is a display that possesses a paper-like high contrast appearance, ultra-low power consumption, and a thin, light form. It gives the viewer the experience of reading from paper, while having the power of updatable information.

1.1.4 E-ink Technology Electronic-ink is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of regular ink on paper. Electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity or using processor power, while allowing the paper to be changed. One important feature needed is that the pixels be image stable, so that the state of each pixel can be maintained without a constant supply of power.

E-books
E-book is short for electronic book, they are electronic versions of printed

books. E-Books now come in all types of eBook designs and are available on the web for almost everybody with a computer, and even specially designed cell phones.

E-books are the electronic translation of a book. It is downloaded to any type of computer or electronic device like a cell phone and can be read on the screen. The first eBooks were prepared for technical subject matters and were restricted to a few and select audience. With the entry of the internet in peoples' everyday life, eBooks also became very popular. There are eBooks for almost every subject matter under the sun and eBook version of all the latest best-sellers by your favorite authors. E-book design, eBook formatting, ecover design are only some of the new areas of skill and expertise that have opened doors for a new breed of professionals.

E-books are becoming so popular because of its accessibility and because of the convenience it offers the reader. Buying or purchasing an e-book through the internet is simple and trouble free. Anybody with a computer and has access to the internet can purchase an e-book, it has become as easy as buying any other product on the internet. Once you've paid for it, all you need to do is download it and it's all yours, without having to leave the comfort of your own home. You have your book ready to read at any time of the day or night.

2.1 Different Formats of e-books o Plain text files o Hypertext Markup Language o Amazon Kindle o Open Electronic Package o Tome Raider o Arghos Diffusion o Flip Books o Fiction Book (Fb2) o Text Encoding Initiative o Plucker o Compressed HM o Portable Document Format o PostScript o DjVu o eReader o Desktop Author o Newton eBook o Founder Electronics o Mobipocket o EPUB o Broadband eBooks (BBeB)

o SSReader o TealDoc o IEC 62448 o Comic Book Archive file

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Multimedia eBooks

2.2 Advantages

E-books are instantly available for download. E-Books are often cheaper than the paper editions as there is no printing and delivery involved.

The wide range of formats means that e-books can be read on most devices Several e-books can be stored on a single device meaning that this is a practical way to carry lots of books.

E-book reading devices allow for the size of text to be altered. The ability to annotate and bookmark text means that this is a useful way to access academic books as well as bestsellers.

There are over 2 million free books available for download as of August 2009. Mobile availability of e-books may be provided for users with a mobile data connection, so that these e-books need not be stored on the device. An e-book can be offered indefinitely, without ever going "out of print". In the space that a comparably sized print book takes up, an e-reader can potentially contain thousands of e-books, limited only by its memory capacity. If space is at a premium, such as in a backpack or at home, it can be an advantage that an e-book collection takes up little room and weight.

E-book websites can include the ability to translate books into many different languages, making the works available to speakers of languages not covered by printed translations. Depending on the device, an e-book may be readable in low light or even total darkness. Many newer readers have the ability to display motion, enlarge or change fonts, use Text-to-speech software to read the text aloud for visually impaired, partially sighted, elderly or dyslectic people, search for key terms, find definitions, or allow highlighting bookmarking and annotation. Devices that utilize E Ink can imitate the look and ease of readability of a printed work while consuming very little power, allowing continuous reading for weeks at time.

While an e-book reader costs much more than one book, the electronic texts are generally cheaper. Moreover, a great share of books are available free of charge. For example, all fiction from before the year 1900 is in the public domain. Also, libraries lend more current e-book titles for limited times, free samples are available of many publications, and there are other lending models being piloted as well. E-books can be printed for less than the price of traditional new books using new on-demand book printers.

An e-book can be purchased/borrowed, downloaded, and used immediately, whereas when one buys or borrows a book, one has to go to a bookshop or library during limited hours, or wait for a delivery. The production of e-books does not consume paper, ink, etc. Printed books use 3 times more raw materials and 78 times more water to produce albeit they do not require a machine for use (out of context). Depending on possible digital rights management, e-books can be backed up to recover them in the case

of loss or damage and it may be possible to recover a new copy without cost from the distributor. Compared to printed publishing, it is cheaper and easier for authors to selfpublish e-books. Also, the dispersal of a free e-book copy can stimulate the sales of the printed version.

2.3 Disadvantages

Many people don't like the fact that there is no paper and that readers can't 'snuggle up in bed with an electronic screen'.

E-books are sometimes protected and the terms of use often prohibit the sharing of books.

While the battery life of many e-book reading devices is good, access to a mains electric supply will be required after several hours of use.

Some e-books are the same price as paper versions.

E-book formats and file types continue to develop and change through time through advances and developments in technology or the introduction of new proprietary formats. While printed books remain readable for many years, e-books may need to be copied or converted to a new carrier or file type over time. PDF and epub are growing standards, but are not universal. The lack of a single universal standard could significantly affect the longevity of some works and their availability or readability in the future as a result of the format(s) used at the time of production.

Not all books are available as e-books. Paper books can be bought and wrapped for a present and a library of books can provide visual appeal, while the digital nature of

e-books makes them non-visible or tangible. E-books cannot provide the physical feel of the cover, paper, and binding of the original printed work. An author who publishes a book often puts more into the work than simply the words on the pages. E-books may cause people "to do the grazing and quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author's ideas". They may use the e-books simply for reference purposes rather than reading for pleasure and leisure. Books with large pictures (such as children's books) or diagrams are more inconvenient for viewing and reading.

A book will never turn off and would be unusable only if damaged or after many decades. The shelf life of a printed book exceeds that of an e-book reader, as over time the reader's battery will drain and require recharging. Additionally, "As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that [electronic] copies will last. Bits become degraded over time. Documents may get lost in cyberspace...Hardware and software become extinct at a distressing rate." E-book readers are more susceptible to damage from being dropped or hit than a print book. Due to faults in hardware or software, e-book readers may malfunction and data loss can occur. As with any piece of technology, the reader must be protected from the elements (such as extreme cold, heat, water, etc.), while print books are not susceptible to damage from electromagnetic pulses, surges, impacts, or extreme temperatures.

The cost of an e-book reader far exceeds that of a single book, and e-books often cost the same as their print versions. Due to the high cost of the initial investment in some form of e-reader, e-books are cost prohibitive to much of the world's population. Furthermore, there is no used e-book market, so consumers will neither be able to recoup

some of their costs by selling an unwanted title they have finished, nor will they be able to buy used copies at significant discounts, as they can now easily do with printed books. Because of the high-tech appeal of the e-reader, they are a greater target for theft than an individual print book. Along with the theft of the physical device, any e-books it contains also become stolen. E-books purchased from vendors like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com are stored "in the cloud" on servers and "digital lockers" and have the benefit of being easily retrieved if an e-reading device is lost. Not all e-booksellers are cloud based; if an e-book is stolen, accidentally lost, or deleted, in the absence of a backup it may have to be repurchased.

The screen resolutions of reading devices are currently lower than actual printed materials. Because of proprietary formats or lack of file support, formatted e-books may be unusable on certain readers. Additionally, the reader's interaction with the reader may cause discomfort, for example glare on the screen or difficulty holding the device. Due to digital rights management, customers typically cannot resell or loan their e-books to other readers. However, some Barnes & Noble e-books are lendable for two weeks via their 'LendMe' technology. Additionally, the potential for piracy of e-books may make publishers and authors reluctant to distribute digitally. E-book readers require various toxic substances to produce, are non-biodegradable, and the disposal of their batteries in particular raises environmental concerns. As technologies rapidly change and old devices become obsolete, there will be larger amounts of toxic wastes that are not easily biodegradable like paper.

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E-books and software can easily track data, times, usage, pages, and details about what one is reading and how often. Similar to this is the growing amount of data available through Google search engines, Facebook, and through data mining. For the first time in history it is now far easier to track and record what specific people might be reading. The notions of privacy, private writing, solitude, and personal reading are changing.

2.4

Digital rights management

Anti-circumvention techniques may be used to restrict what the user may do with an e-book. For instance, it may not be possible to transfer ownership of an e-book to another person, though such a transaction is common with physical books. Some devices can phone home to track readers and reading habits, restrict printing, or arbitrarily modify reading material. This includes restricting the copying and distribution of works in the public domain through the use of "click-wrap" licensing, effectively limiting the rights of the public to distribute, sell or use texts in the public domain freely.

Most e-book publishers do not warn their customers about the possible implications of the digital rights management tied to their products. Generally they claim that digital rights management is meant to prevent copying of the e-book. However in many cases it is also possible that digital rights management will result in the complete denial of access by the purchaser to the e-book. With some formats of DRM, the e-book is tied to a specific computer or device. In these cases the DRM will usually let the purchaser move the book a limited number of times after which he cannot use it on any additional devices. If the purchaser upgrades or replaces their devices eventually they

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may lose access to their purchase. Some forms of digital rights management depend on the existence of online services to authenticate the purchasers. When the company that provides the service goes out of business or decides to stop providing the service, the purchaser will no longer be able to access the e-book.

As with digital rights management in other media, e-books are more like rental or leasing than purchase. The restricted book comes with a number of restrictions, and eventually access to the purchase can be removed by a number of different parties involved. These include the publisher of the book, the provider of the DRM scheme, and the publisher of the reader software. These are all things that are significantly different from the realm of experiences anyone has had with a physical copy of the book.

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E-Readers
An e-book reader, also called an e-book device or e-reader, is an electronic

device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital books and periodicals and uses e-ink technology to display content to readers.

E-readers are portable, low-power, high-resolution devices specifically designed to display digital versions of written material from books, magazines, newspapers, and other printed sources. Some e-readers also provide access to electronic documents like blogs, websites, news feeds, and the like. In many cases, devices with other primary functions such as netbooks and cell phones are pressed into service as e-readers. As used here, however, the term e-reader refers to devices designed specifically for presenting text including the Amazon Kindle, Sonys Reader series, and the Nook by Barnes & Noble and multiuse devices like the eDGe e-book reader by enTourage, the QUE proReader from Plastic Logic, and the iPad from Apple, which were designed with the e-reader market in mind. Most e-readers offer black-and-white resizable text presented on so-called e-ink rather than an LCD screen, and they allow users to store a library of titles in a single device, make annotations, highlight text, and dog-ear pages.

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Figure 1: Hardware of an e-Reader.

3.1 Why use an eReader? Different people may want to use electronic texts for different reasons. But the main reason for reading an electronic document on an eReader instead of a laptop is the display technology (electronic paper). Where regular laptops and other similar devices use a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later. The electronic paper is considered to be much easier on the eyes, compared to computer screens, and is therefore much more comfortable. Also, specific controls in the hardware make it possible to move back- and

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forward through the pages, in a natural way (actually flipping the pages). As usual, specialized devices have the advantage of doing one thing well.

There are a number of different application options for the eReaders. But basically these devices are interesting for everyone who wants, or has to read a lot. One of the first application options can focus on the recreational reading of books. The main advantage for this type of users lies in the fact that they can now easily carry a large number of books with them at the same time, while it is only a fraction of the weight.

A totally different opportunity for these devices lies in the features they posses which are very useful for people with certain disabilities. For example, the ability to magnify the texts opens up the use of eReaders for older people, people with visual impairments or dyslexia.

Another big opportunity lies in education, and the professional world. Especially for students and professionals (who have to read a lot), these devices could come in handy. As mentioned above, in this report the main focus lies on the usability of the eReader in educational settings: what it can do for education, and how it can be used. First the distinction between the two types of eReaders will be explained by using different models. Then the consequences these models have, for education, will be discussed. Additionally the already existing types of hardware will be positioned into the models.

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3.2 Different e-Readers

Amazon Kindle

Figure 2: Amazon Kindle e-Reader.

Sony Reader Apple iPad Nook by Barnes & Noble

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EPDs (Electronic Paper Display)

An Electronic Paper Display is a display that possesses a paper-like high contrast

appearance, ultra-low power consumption, and a thin, light form. It gives the viewer the experience of reading from paper, while having the power of updatable information. Electronic paper display is similar to normal paper in that it uses ambient light to display images and that it can hold the image indefinitely without drawing power. This is contradictory to the current display techniques which uses backlight for illuminating pixels and also uses power for maintaining the display.

Reading eBooks using conventional display technologies like LCD, CRT etc poses these problems: Strain to the eye Poor contrast in sunlight Power is required to maintain the display

Thus Scientists have come up with a revolutionary new technology for displaying text and images. This technology has been named Electronic Paper Display.

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4.1

Technology

4.1.1 Gyricon Gyricon was the first kind of electronic paper display to be developed. It was developed in the 1970's by Nick Sheridon at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. One unit of Gyricon consisted of a dipole bead that can rotate freely in a bubble of oil. One hemisphere of the bead will be +vely charged and other -vely charged. The +vely charged side will be dyed black and the -vely charged side will be dyed white. These spheres are kept between a pair of electrodes which are transparent. A change in polarity of the electrodes rotates the balls and thereby changes the color. 4.1.2 Electrophoretic An electrophoretic display forms visible images by rearranging charged pigment particles using an applied electric field. It consists of Titanium Dioxide particles dispersed in Hydrocarbon oil. The oil is dyed dark. Titanium dioxide particles are natively white in color. These particles are given a charge using certain charging agents. Now, this setup is kept between an electrode and a transparent plate. The transparent plate is the viewing side. By setting the polarity of the electrode, the position of the Titanium Dioxide particles can be controlled. If the particles are on the viewing side, the region appears white. If the particles are at the bottom of the device, the region appears black. The electrode is divided into small picture elements each of which is individually controlled. Then an image can be formed by applying the appropriate voltage to each region of the display to create a pattern of reflecting and absorbing regions.

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These types of displays consume power only when display refresh takes place. It does not require any power to maintain the display. Electrophoretic displays are considered prime examples of the electronic paper category, because of their paper like appearance and low power consumption. Examples of commercial electrophoretic displays include the high-resolution active matrix displays used in the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, Sony Librie, Sony Reader, and iRex iLiad e-readers. These displays are constructed from an electrophoretic imaging film manufactured by E Ink Corporation. Also the technology has been developed by Sipix Microcup and Bridgestone Quick Response Liquid Powder Display (QR-LPD) In the 1990s another type of electronic paper was invented by Joseph Jacobson, who later co-founded the E Ink Corporation which formed a partnership with Philips Components two years later to develop and market the technology. In 2005, Philips sold the electronic paper business as well as its related patents to Prime View International. This used tiny microcapsules filled with electrically charged white particles suspended in colored oil. In early versions, the underlying circuitry controlled whether the white particles were at the top of the capsule (so it looked white to the viewer) or at the bottom of the capsule (so the viewer saw the color of the oil). This was essentially a reintroduction of the well-known electrophoretic display technology, but the use of microcapsules allowed the display to be used on plastic sheets instead of glass. One early version of electronic paper consists of a sheet of very small transparent capsules, each about 40 micrometers across. Each capsule contains an oily solution containing black dye (the electronic ink), with numerous white titanium dioxide particles suspended within. The particles are slightly negatively charged, and each one is naturally white. The microcapsules are held in a layer of liquid polymer,

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sandwiched between two arrays of electrodes, the upper of which is made transparent. The two arrays are aligned so that the sheet is divided into pixels, which each pixel corresponding to a pair of electrodes situated either side of the sheet. The sheet is laminated with transparent plastic for protection, resulting in an overall thickness of 80 micrometers, or twice that of ordinary paper.

Figure 3: Cross Section of E-ink Microcapsules

1. Upper layer 2. Transparent electrode layer 3. Transparent micro-capsules 4. Positive charged white pigments 5. Negative charged black pigments 6. Transparent oil 20

7. Electrode pixel layer 8. Bottom supporting layer 9. Light 10. White 11. Black

Figure 4: Appearance of pixels

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4.1.3 Electro wetting: Electro-wetting display (EWD) is based on controlling the shape of a confined water/oil interface by an applied voltage. With no voltage applied, the (colored) oil forms a flat film between the water and a hydrophobic (water-repellent), insulating coating of an electrode, resulting in a colored pixel. When a voltage is applied between the electrode and the water, the interfacial tension between the water and the coating changes. As a result the stacked state is no longer stable, causing the water to move the oil aside. This results in a partly transparent pixel, or, in case a reactive white surface is used under the switchable element, a white pixel. Because of the small size of the pixel, the user only experiences the average reaction, which means that a high brightness, highcontrast switchable element is obtained, which forms the basis of the selective display. Displays based on electro-wetting have several attractive features. The switching between white and colored reaction is fast enough to display video content. 4.1.4 Displaying Color A technique called sub pixel rendering, which is currently used for displaying color in LCD screens can be used for displaying color in Electronic Paper Displays too. Each pixel is divided into 3 sub pixels of primary colors Red, Green and Blue. The intensity of these three sub pixels select the color that is to be displayed.

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Figure 5: Sub-pixel Rendering. The word is actually white in color.

Figure 6: Scheme of an electrophoretic display using color filters.

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4.2

Flexible Displays

Displays made with E Ink Vizplex Imaging Film are ideally suited for flexible display applications due to their thin form factor and inherent flexibility.

Figure 7: Flexible Display using e-ink technology

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4.3

Advantages

Reflects ambient light: There is no need for a backlight to illuminate the pixels. This provides the impression that one is reading from an actual paper.

Also there is no strain to the eye. Provides good contrast in sunlight: Devices using EPD can be viewed without difficulty outdoors.

Power is needed only to change the display: This can provide longer battery life and so greater mobility.

4.4

Disadvantages

No Backlight: This makes reading in the dark a bit difficult. As a solution an optional front-light can be added to the device.

Low refresh rate: Due to this, devices equipped with Electronic Paper Display cannot handle fast moving media and sophisticated interactive applications.

Better EPDs with higher refresh rates are being developed hoping to solve this problem.

Ghosting: Imprint of an image may be visible after refreshing parts of the screen. Currently, the method adapted to overcome this is to refresh the screen fully when a refresh is needed.

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4.5

Commercial Applications Education: This can be used in creating digital schoolbooks, thereby reducing the burden of the students. E.g. In January 2007, the Dutch specialist in e-Paper edupaper.nl started a pilot project in a secondary school in Maastricht, using e-Paper as digital schoolbooks to reduce costs and students' daily burden of books.

Wristwatches: E-ink displays can be used in wrist watches. E.g. In December 2005 Seiko released their Spectrum SVRD001 wristwatch, which has a flexible electrophoretic display and in March 2010 Seiko released a second generation of this famous e-ink watch with an active matrix display. E.g. Phosphor of Hong Kong has launched 3 series of watches using flexible electrophoretic display using eink technology.

E-Book readers: The scope for dedicated eBook readers is fairly large in the current scenario. EBook readers that have Wi-Fi connectivity and basic web. In 2004 Sony released Libri EBR-1000EP in Japan, the first e-book reader with an electronic paper display. In September 2006 Sony released the PRS-500 Sony Reader e-book reader in the USA. On October 2, 2007, Sony announced the PRS505, an updated version of the Reader. In November 2008, Sony released the PRS-700BC which incorporated a backlight and a touch screen. In November 2006, the iRex iLiad was ready for the consumer market. Consumers could initially read e-Books in PDF and HTML formats, and in July

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2007 support for the popular Mobipocket PRC format was added, but price was still a problem. With the introduction of the competing Cybook, prices have decreased almost 50%. In late 2007, Amazon began producing and marketing the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader with an e-paper display. In February 2009, Amazon released the Kindle 2 and in May 2009 the larger Kindle DX was announced. In July 2010 the third generation Kindle was announced. In November 2009 Barnes and Noble launched the Barnes & Noble Nook, based on the Android operating system. It differs from other big name readers in that it has a replaceable battery and a separate touch-screen below the main reading screen.

Browsing capabilities are abundant in market.

Figure 8: Barnes and Noble Nook with Electronic Paper Display.

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Status displays: Devices like external hard disks can have status display embedded in them. It can display available space. This need be updated only when they are plugged into a computer.

Information boards: These can display information without consuming power. Mobile phones: Using EPDs in Mobile phones can significantly improve battery life. E.g. Motorolas low-cost mobile phone, the Motorola F3, also uses an alphanumeric black/white electrophoretic display. E.g. The Samsung Alias 2 mobile phone incorporates electronic ink from E Ink into the keypad, which allows the keypad to change character sets and orientation while in different display modes.

Price tags: Price tags in retail stores and supermarkets can be made of EPDs.

4.6

Devices using EPDs

Currently there are many devices using this technology. Few of them are:

Amazon Kindle Sony reader Irex DR Barnes and Noble Nook Iriver Story Pocketbook Samsung Papyrus

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4.7

Electronic Paper Displays vs. LCD Displays You've heard the old saying, "a penny saved is a penny earned." The same is true

of power in the portable device sector; the more power one can save, the more one earns in terms of performance, size and weight. Why? Consider that, on average, A 12 LCDequipped device uses, in 20 hours, the equivalent of 36 AA batteries while an E Ink 12inch display uses just one battery's worth. What this means is that the power supply for an E Ink equipped device can weigh a few ounces as opposed to a few pounds when it comes to its equivalent LCD counterpart. The ramifications for product design are dramatic. Explained another way, under normal usage conditions, an E Ink enabled reader will last three weeks on a single charge while an LCD-based display will need to be recharged after just one and a half days. If you could apply such a dramatic increase in power efficiency to the automobile, that would be like running for six months on a single tank of gas.

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Figure 9: Advantage of EPDs

4.8

ePaper vs. Printed Paper: The benefits of E Ink over the printed page can easily be measured in the size of

the consumer's carbon footprint. First, we all know that trees breathe in CO2. But did you know that a single tree can remove about one metric ton of CO2 from the air every year? On average, each harvested tree produces 173 reams of paper. Therefore, each ream of paper is the equal to roughly 12 pounds of CO2 that will not be removed from the atmosphere every year. The numbers become more and more compelling from there. In 2004, world paper production was equal to 359 million metric tons, emitting 74 million metric tons of CO2 in its production. We throw away approximately one billion trees worth of paper each

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year, and a portion of that paper is incinerated, creating more carbon emissions. One Sunday's worth of newspapers requires the cutting of 500,000 trees. Conversely, a study out of the University of California Berkeley shows that reading a newspaper electronically releases 32 to 140 times less CO2 and uses 27 times less water than reading the paper version. In short, the difference between electronic ink and printed paper could have a dramatic effect on CO2 in the atmosphere in just one day. If we could replace all paper newspapers with eNewspapers tomorrow, 95 million trees that would remove 98 million tons of greenhouse gas every year could be saved.

Figure 10: Power efficiency

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CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

Electronic Paper Displays are currently used primarily in dedicated e-book readers. The problem with these devices is that the low refresh rates hinder the smooth play back of media. Still these devices are capable of performing basic reading and web browsing activities. These e-book readers are capable of providing a very comfortable reading experience with the help of Electronic Paper Displays. Research is being conducted to construct Electronic Paper Displays with better refresh rates. Electronic Paper Displays which can display colors are also currently under development.

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1]. John A. Rogers, Zhenan Bao, Kirk Baldwin, Ananth Dodabalapur, Paper-like electronic displays: Large-area rubber-stamped plastic sheets of electronics and microencapsulated electrophoretic inks, IEEE 2005. [2]. Karl Amundson, Jay Ewing, Paul Drzaic, Electronic paper and other bistable displays, IEEE 2006. [3]. www.eink.com [4]. www.e-reader-info.com [5]. www.princeton.edu/ereaderpilot/

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