Samsung could challenge Kindle Colorsoft with a future e-reader made from plants

Samsung Electronics has developed a brand new e-paper technology.

The 13-inch Samsung Color E-Paper is a world first, too – it's the first display designed with a bio-resin housing derived from phytoplankton. That essentially means it is part manufactured using plants.

Phytoplankton, aka microalgae, are a crucial and abundant part of the aquatic food chain, and so could end up being a key part of devices in future – including a potential rival to the Kindle Colorsoft.

The new display isn't designed for consumers just yet, but you might see a lot of them. Samsung is pitching the Color E-Paper to retailers and other businesses at present, as an alternative to traditional printed signage.

The 13-inch model is the smallest in the range, roughly the size of a sheet of A4, and has a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. Samsung is also unveiling a 20-inch version, and currently sells a 32-inch model too.

Why is Samsung picking on plankton?

The new display has been made with sustainability in mind. Its housing mixes 45% recycled plastic and 10% of the phytoplankton-based bio-resin instead of the usual petroleum-based plastics, and according to Samsung that can reduce the manufacturing process's carbon emissions by more than 40%.

Also, because it's e-paper, it uses zero watts of energy between refreshes, so it's much more efficient than other forms of digital signage.

This device isn't quite ready for your ebook library yet though. It's purely a display and requires the use of an app on either iOS or Android or Samsung's cloud-based VXT system to update it.

But, it demonstrates some key features, including a new colour imaging algorithm that Samsung says delivers "a paper-like look and feel" by smoothing gradations and refining contours. An algae-rithm, if you like (I'm here all week).

The result, Samsung says, resembles traditional posters and point-of-purchase displays. That makes me hopeful that e-paper's going to keep getting better.

As much as I love the convenience of digital, I really miss the heyday of printed magazines – reading my various magazine subscriptions on my iPad isn't as tactile or as comfortable as settling down with print. So the closer e-paper can get to old-school magazines, the happier I'll be.