Cambridge, UK, 3rd April, 2007. Plastic Logic, the leading flexible displays manufacturer, has engaged Broadsight, a consultancy specialising in cutting edge media and digital technologies, to define content delivery architectures that will ensure that rich streams of compelling content are available for the next generation of electronic reader products, enabled by Plastic Logic’s revolutionary flexible display technology.
Electronic readers offer an alternative to paper, allowing written content to be used in many different ways. For example, they enable “text-casts” to push daily papers or blog content, technical libraries that can be carried around, user generated content and mark-up, supported by secure content handling.
One of the interesting trends in the “convergence” of technology, media and telecoms has been the divergence of user devices for specific roles e.g. iPod, Blackberry and Wii. Reading electronic text has always been an elusive problem to attack until the recent development of flexible text rendering technologies such as Plastic Logic’s thin, light and durable paper-like display. Used in conjunction with emerging broadband “Web 2.0” content delivery and navigation technologies, this will create new ways for people to read books and other textual content.
Alan Patrick, Principal at Broadsight said “the technology that Plastic Logic is creating has the potential to replace conventional books and magazines in many situations and also creates new ways of creating, distributing and using written content. We think this is a very exciting project to be involved with.”
Simon Jones, Vice President of Product Development at Plastic Logic said “our technology will enable a revolution in reading and we are pleased to be working with Broadsight to make sure that content providers can easily participate in the eco-system we are creating.”
About Broadsight.
Broadsight is a UK based company focused on providing strategic, commercial and technical consultancy in the overall Broadband / Web 2.0 Media space. It has an extensive track record in broadcasting, Internet and mobile industries. Broadsight specialises in the creation of new business opportunities in the emerging Broadband world, and has worked with small startups and large enterprises. Broadsight are committed to pioneering open media models, interacting with customers and other stakeholders alike, and are committed to building an open knowledge base, enabling its partners and associates to access a Social Network of information and data and operate in a truly collegiate manner. For more information about Broadsight, go to www.broadsight.com/contact. To read the Broadsight weblog, go to www.broadstuff.com
About Plastic Logic
Plastic Logic is a leading developer of plastic electronics – a new technology for manufacturing (or printing) electronics. The Plastic Logic approach solves the critical issues in manufacturing high resolution transistor arrays on flexible plastic substrates by using a low temperature process without mask alignment that is scaleable for large area, high volume and low cost.
This enables radical new product concepts in a wide range of applications including flexible displays and sensors. Independent experts from IDTechEx forecast plastic electronics will be a $30 billion industry by 2015, and could reach as much as $250 billion by 2025.
Plastic Logic was spun out of Cambridge University in 2000 to build on 10 years of research and has a team of more than 60 employees. The company has now raised equity and venture finance from financial and industrial investors including Amadeus Capital Partners (UK), BASF (Germany), Bank of America (US), Dow Chemical (US), Intel Capital (US), Morningside (Hong Kong), Merifin Capital (Belgium), Nanotech Partners (an international nanotechnology fund established principally by Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan), Oak Investment Partners (US), PolyTechnos Venture-Partners (Germany), Siemens (Germany), Tudor Investment Corporation (US) and Yasuda Enterprise Development (Japan). Other shareholders include Cambridge Display Technology, Seiko Epson and the University of Cambridge. Venture finance has been provided by European Technology Ventures and European Venture Partners.
For more information www.plasticlogic.com