The electronic paper chase.

RELATED LINKS It offers excellent resolution and high contrast under a wide range of viewing angles, requires no external power to retain its image, weighs little, costs less and is remarkably flexible (literally and figuratively)-unlike today's computer displays. No wonder traditional ink on paper continues to flourish in a digital world that was expected to all but do away with it. Yet ink on paper is lacking in one of the essential traits of computer displays: instantaneous erasure and reuse, millions of times without wearing out. Electronic ink on paper with this ability could usher in an era of store signs and billboards that could be updated without pulping acres of trees; of e-books that embody the familiar tactile interface of traditional books; of magazines and newspapers delivered wirelessly to thin, flexible page displays, convenient for reading, whether on crowded subways or desert islands. There have been intermittent efforts to produce such electronic paper over the past three decades, but only recently has research gone into full swing. The day thin-film-transistor panel OFFERING A GLIMPSE of a future with rewritable periodicals, this E Ink Corporation prototype "prints" text using electronic ink. Voltages are supplied to the ink by a thin-film-transistor panel, from IBM. The panel is 800 by 600 pixels; each pixel is formed by charged pigment-the "ink." Electrically erasable programmable memory sticks (sitting atop display, at right) are used in setting the text.