E-Paper's Killer App: Packaging

[apcmiller]

The cereal aisle at your local supermarket may soon resemble the Las Vegas strip. Electronics maker Siemens is readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging, from milk cartons to boxes of Cheerios.

In less than two years, Siemens says, the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens.

"When kids see flashing pictures on cereal boxes we don't expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, 'I want it,'" said Axel Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the technology.

Siemens' paper-thin display -- composed of a polymer-based photochromic material -- is capable of displaying digital text and images when prodded by an electrochemical reaction powered by a low-voltage charge. When the electric charge is no longer applied, the chemical reaction is reversed, and the electronic ink is no longer visible -- which is how a flashing effect is created. The power source is based on commercially available, ultra-thin batteries. Electronic memory strips store the images.

The company provided Wired News with a sample display during an exclusive interview in Nuremberg, Germany, last month. The display resembles a calculator screen, except the monitor is attached to a flexible, plastic-coated card. Pressing a button on the card causes monochromatic digital text to light up; when the button is released, the text vanishes.

Miniature displays in color could appear on consumer-goods packaging, including medicine vials, in 2007, with a resolution of 80 dpi, Gerlt said. Three or more images could flash consecutively, creating a crude animation effect or cycling through multiple messages. By 2008, the resolution could double, said Gerlt.

However, Siemens' innovation is not about to usher in the dawn of miniature and pliable video screens. The chemical reaction that must occur from the time an electric charge is applied until the picture is rendered is too slow for the instantaneity of video images that change in milliseconds. "Video could happen, but that is not what this technology is about for now," Gerlt said.

Reactions to the development by scientists familiar with the underlying science of Siemens' display ranged from cautiously optimistic to mildly skeptical. Siemens has yet to demonstrate the electrochromic material's stability and performance when it is mass-produced, researchers say.

"So-called 'electronic paper' has been, and is, a target of many corporations worldwide, (and) depending on the color fidelity of the Siemens thin electrochromic display, and its manufacturability, it could have numerous uses," said Bowling Green State University professor Doug Neckers, who directs the university's Center for Photochemical Sciences. "The proof of the value of the new Siemens product will come if it can be manufactured consistently."

Indeed, researchers have been looking at electrochromic materials for digital display applications for more than 30 years, but slow imaging-response time and device instability have been impediments to commercialization, said Jianmin Shi, an organic materials researcher who specializes in optoelectronic device applications for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland. "From the white paper, it seems Siemens partially solved these problems," Shi said.

One scientist, however, was more pessimistic. R.C. Liang, the chief executive officer of Trillion Science, a Silicon Valley display and semiconductor materials startup, said he thought Siemens' technology was "overstated," that it would likely display images slowly and suffer from a narrow viewing angle. "The stability of dyes also may cause some problems for outdoor applications," he said.

For commercial applications, it is the very low cost of the display's substrate that largely sets Siemens' display technology apart. A 1-by-2-inch, paper-thin electronic display that Kodak developed costs more than $40 to make, for example, while Siemens' costs just 30 cents to produce, a Siemens representative said.

Siemens says its display substrate, unlike competing materials, does not have to be produced in a clean-room environment since it only requires the level of cleanliness needed for paper printing.

If and when Siemens can mass-produce the material, the company still has to sell the idea to packaging companies. So far, company officials say they have no deals in place, and they declined to disclose which firms they were targeting.

Making the case for digitized packaging is similar to the challenge researchers faced explaining to watchmakers why they would want to make and sell the first digital watches, and what kind of information they would display, said Norm Lehoullier, managing director of Grey Interactive, a marketing firm based in New York.

"The applications have yet to be created," said Lehoullier, who does new-product consulting for Procter & Gamble. "I believe it's a creative process and not about technology at that point."

Lehoullier said Siemens' miniature displays might meet demand from packaging makers and retailers eager to make smarter consumer products, but more applications for the displays could emerge after their initial adoption. He compares the technology to RFID tags, which were developed to track inventory but increasingly are looked at as a way to track consumer use of a product after purchase -- ethical and privacy issues pending.

"People started figuring out all of the potential applications for RFID tags, and went way beyond using it to stock shelves," Lehoullier said. "I think that is what will happen with (Siemens' technology)."

For now, Siemens' intention is to offer retailers new ways of attracting interest to their products -- flashing labels should draw store goers as they stroll down supermarket aisles. "When you go in a supermarket today, you might see but hardly notice 15 different cereal boxes," said Gerlt. "But (in the future) you will notice when some of them will be flashing."

"The issue comes to understanding how you can use the technology to pull the consumer in, either at point of purchase or when they get the product home," Lehoullier said.

But not everyone thinks that's a good thing. As advertisements increasingly permeate almost every aspect of our lives, the last thing we need is another attention-grabbing technology, said Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters Media Foundation and Buy Nothing Day.

"I think it is great for corporate advertising. I think it is great for advertising agencies. I think it is great for PR and marketing. But I don't think it is great for the mental health of the population," Lasn said. "We live in an age when we the people have lost control of our own culture that is being spoon-fed to us by marketers and advertising agencies -- and that is where all of the breakthroughs are happening."

Indeed, Lasn sees Siemens' displays as part of a bigger trend in which electronic advertising mediums have spun out of control.

"I don't want to throw cold water on the technology until I have seen it, but I would like to look at the bigger picture at why we are going crazy, suffering from mood disorders or why so many kids are on Zoloft or Ritalin," Lasn said. "Let's look at the larger picture and deal with the pollution of our mental environment and see what it means for Siemens to throw one more very powerful, visual device into that."

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