US newspaper publisher Hearst has announced that it will trial versions of the Seattle Post Intelligencer on flexible colour LCD displays from LG Philips within the next two years. Electronic paper will be used to deliver real-time daily news, meaning the news won"t be a day behind like typical print newspapers. Hearst officials hope to run the trials in other cities where Hearst publishes daily newspapers. The company owns 18 newspapers, 29 TV stations, 18 magazines and numerous websites in the US.
The electronic display will be a colour tabloid size (A3) screen and the thickness of card, so that readers will be able to roll up the screen and carry it. Turning the page, or refreshing the screen with a new page image, will involve touching a pressure-sensitive control at the page edge. While the screens will be made by LG Philips, they use technology developed by E Ink, a company in which Hearst invested when it was spun out of MIT a decade ago.