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I thought I’d seen everything in the world of displays, from foldable glass to transparent OLEDs that look like something out of Minority Report. But Samsung just threw a curveball that I genuinely didn't see coming. The company just announced a new 13-inch Color E-Paper display that’s built using a bio-resin derived from phytoplankton, or plankton. No, I’m not making that up!
As Samsung detailed in a blog post, the company is essentially using microscopic marine organisms to build a screen. It sounds like a plot point from a sci-fi novel where we’ve run out of plastic, but the goal here is sustainability. By using this bio-resin, Samsung claims it can slash carbon emissions during the manufacturing process by over 40% compared to traditional petroleum-based plastics. It’s a crazy science project turned into a real-world device.
The tech inside the screen is just as impressive as the plankton-based shell. This is a 13.3-inch panel with a 1600 x 1200 resolution that looks and feels like actual paper, according to Samsung. Since this is a digital paper display, it consumes 0 watts of power when showing a static image. It only drains a bit of juice when it changes to another image.
Now, before you get excited about a potential Samsung Galaxy Tab e-reader, I have some bad news. Right now, this device (the EM13DX model) is aimed strictly at businesses. Samsung wants these on store shelves, restaurant menus, and office doors to replace traditional paper signage. You can’t buy this device from Amazon or Best Buy just yet.
If you’ll permit me to speculate, I can see Samsung eventually bringing this tech to the consumer market. If that happens, we might finally see a true rival for the Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. Those are fantastic tablets that I use all the time, but it would be fascinating to see Samsung’s color-imaging algorithms applied to an e-reader. Again, this is likely wishful thinking on my part—but a man can dream!
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