Pocket PC devices have many advantages for the enterprise. Among these are their high mobility, powerful applications, integration with the desktop, and low cost. But there are still barriers to widespread acceptance, including the challenge of centrally administering these devices and securing corporate data. Various efforts are underway to lower these barriers and make PDAs even more important than they already are. One is the fingerprint security feature on the new HP iPAQ 5450.
There are two problems with Pocket PCs, however, that seem to defy ready solutions: limited battery life and small screen size. It seems an accepted fact that to run bright, colorful displays and powerful small versions of popular desktop applications such as Word, Excel, and Outlook, battery power will drain quickly. The "solutions" are to recharge often, to wait for further advances in battery technology, or to use low power, monochrome displays with limited brightness and contrast. Further, small screen size limits the device's usefulness to business. Though obviously one would prefer to view images on a laptop or desktop-sized monitor, to enjoy the advantages of using a PDA, one has to cope with a very small screen. Here are just a few examples of screen size limitations: Interpreting a large spreadsheet on a PDA screen is tedious at best. Viewing maps for GPS applications is difficult. And trying to use specialized vertical market applications--such as viewing medical graphics at the point of patient care--is inconvenient and could potentially compromise the patients' care (see Jeffrey Wales, "Pocket PC's Prescription for the Health Care Industry", Pocket PC, May 2003, p. 45).
Real solutions to small screen size and limited battery life appear to be not far off. There are a number of technologies in development, including organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and displays with onscreen circuitry. LCDs, common on laptops, use two sheets of polarizing material between which resides a liquid-crystal solution. When a current passes through the solution, crystals align to block the backlight thereby creating words or images. OLEDs, by contrast, emit their own light. When a current is applied to organic material called light-emitting polymers, or LEPs, they glow to create an image.
Displays with microprocessor circuitry on the screen itself are also being developed. The displays will function much like those of a desktop PC, thereby reducing production costs and saving space.
However, the technology to be featured here is "electronic ink." What follows is a discussion of what electronic ink is, how it works, who is developing it, and how it can be applied to PDAs to solve the screen size and battery life problems simultaneously.
Fig. 1. E Ink employees demonstrating
flexibility of electronic displays.
What electronic ink is
Electronic ink looks like any other ink, and can be applied to the same surfaces as is regular ink, including paper, plastic, billboards, walls, and even clothing. But, there the similarities end. Unlike regular ink, e-ink can be connected to electronic circuitry and controlled by software drivers. As a result, the words and pictures displayed by e-ink can be changed over and over again, much like the images that one sees on a computer monitor. If e-ink were then coupled to wired or wireless networks, the oft-stated goal of information anywhere at anytime would be much closer to reality. Imagine possessing a book that looks and feels much like a traditional book, but has the capability of instantaneously changing its content. The latest best-selling novel could instantly transform into the latest best-selling business book. Content would come from storage devices internal to the book itself, or from various distant networks.
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