WebProNews

At Fujitsu's Forum 2005, the company announced the arrival of bendable color paper with an image memory function.

Fujitsu has overcome the problem of making electronic paper "bendable." Bending posed an issue with the clarity of images displayed. But it appears the company has overcome that obstacle.

The e-paper doesn't require continuous power to display a single image. And that image can be changed with minimal electrical usage, which the company describes as being equivalent to the weak radiowaves used in contactless cards.

Three layers of red, blue, and green displays comprise e-paper. Fujitsu says the screen color is unaffected by touching or bending the e-paper, while being more vivid than typical reflective LCDs.

Advertising looks like the immediate beneficiary of such a technology. Ads that can change themselves with a minimal power requirement could be posted on virtually any surface. Transit authorities can post schedules for flights or trains that would update themselves over the course of a day.

And perhaps operating manuals could be rendered this way. Imagine the usefulness of being able to toss an e-paper manual onto a workbench and watch someone step through the process of building a project.

But there's one segment of consumers who may really take the concept of e-paper when it becomes more widely available and run with it: scrapbookers. The hobby of pasting bits of memorabilia into a big scrapbook would get a huge boost when people in pictures could wave back to the reader, a la the "magic photographs" in the Harry Potter books.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.