Liquavista (UK) Ltd. announced a three-year £12m cooperative research program to develop next generation flexible electronic displays that support full colour and video.

In the future, electronic readers using Liquavista technology will support full color and video on devices that are as readable and portable as paper.

The project will use Liquavista’s electrowetting technology to create screens capable of displaying bright, colourful images, which show video content with very low power consumption, as well as being thin, flexible and light. The project is part funded by the government-funded Technology Strategy Board.

Mark Gostick, Liquavista CEO, “Colour and video capability will broaden the application of electronic paper displays to all types of content and device. Together with our partners Plastic Logic and with the help of the Technology Strategy Board, we are aiming to realise the full potential of electronic paper displays as the best way to show any content on the move.”

Liquavista’s innovative mobile device displays use patented electrowetting principles to switch light extremely efficiently. It is the only display technology apart from LCD that can be used in transmissive, transflective or reflective modes, which means it has very broad markets, also like LCD.

Liquavista’s technology is uniquely suitable for colour and video electronic paper displays because of its class leading reflectivity and its intrinsically video-rate switching speed.

Nick Hampshire, senior analyst with publishing technology consultancy MediaIDEAS Group, predicted that ” By 2020 30% of all magazines and books published globally will be digital thanks to the widespread availability of portable, robust, e-paper display based reader devices, many featuring high quality colour and video. In 2020 annual worldwide sales of e-paper based reader devices will be valued at $US25.47billion, of these 93% will be colour.”

As a result of the successful launch of the project, Liquavista is augmenting its team of skilled scientific and engineering staff by building a presence in the Cambridge UK area.