Intel®, Plastic Logic and Queen’s University work together to revolutionize tablet computing

Cambridge, UK and Kingston, Canada - January 7, 2013– Watch out tablet lovers – a flexible paper computer developed at Queen’s University in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel Labs will revolutionize the way people work with tablets and computers.

The PaperTab tablet looks and feels just like a sheet of paper. However, it is fully interactive with a flexible, high-resolution 10.7” plastic display developed by Plastic Logic, a flexible touchscreen, and powered by the second generation Intel® CoreTM i5 Processor. Instead of using several apps or windows on a single display, users have ten or more interactive displays or “PaperTabs”: one per app in use.

Ryan Brotman, Research Scientist at Intel elaborates “We are actively exploring disruptive user experiences. The ‘PaperTab’ project, developed by the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University and Plastic Logic, demonstrates innovative interactions powered by Intel Core processors that could potentially delight tablet users in the future.”

“Using several PaperTabs makes it much easier to work with multiple documents,” says Roel Vertegaal, Director of Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab. “Within five to ten years, most computers, from ultra-notebooks to tablets, will look and feel just like these sheets of printed color paper.”

For example, PaperTab’s intuitive interface allows a user to send a photo simply by tapping one PaperTab showing a draft email with another PaperTab showing the photo. The photo is then automatically attached to the draft email. The email is sent either by placing the PaperTab in an out tray, or by bending the top corner of the display. Similarly, a larger drawing or display surface is created simply by placing two or more PaperTabs side by side. PaperTab thus emulates the natural handling of multiple sheets of paper by combining thin-film display, thin-film input and computing technologies through intuitive interaction design.

PaperTab can file and display thousands of paper documents, replacing the need for a computer monitor and stacks of papers or printouts. Unlike traditional tablets, PaperTabs keep track of their location relative to each other, and the user, providing a seamless experience across all apps, as if they were physical computer windows. For example, when a PaperTab is placed outside of reaching distance it reverts to a thumbnail overview of a document, just like icons on a computer desktop. When picked up or touched a PaperTab switches back to a full screen page view, just like opening a window on a computer.

PaperTabs are lightweight and robust, so they can easily be tossed around on a desk while providing a magazine-like reading experience. By bending one side of the display, users can also navigate through pages like a magazine, without needing to press a button.

“Plastic Logic’s flexible plastic displays are completely transformational in terms of product interaction. They allow a natural human interaction with electronic paper, being lighter, thinner and more robust compared with today’s standard glass-based displays. This is just one example of the innovative revolutionary design approaches enabled by flexible displays.” explains Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic.

A video and high resolution photographs of PaperTab are available below.

Plastic Logic and the Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab will reveal PaperTab to the press at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2013) in Las Vegas on January 8.



About Plastic Logic

Since Plastic Logic was founded by researchers from the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, the company has been at the forefront of research and investment into plastic electronics. The company has achieved many technological firsts including the production of high quality colour rugged plastic displays, demonstration of animation on an EPD driven by OTFTs and production yields of its flexible plastic displays comparable to the LCD industry. Plastic Logic is backed by major investors including Oak Investment Partners and Rusnano.

Find out more about Plastic Logic and its robust, flexible displays by visiting http://www.plasticlogic.comandhttp://www.youtube.com/plasticlogic.

Companies interested in working together with Plastic Logic should contact info@plasticlogic.com.



About Human Media Lab

The Human Media Lab (HML) at Queen’s University is one of Canada's premier Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) laboratories. Inventions include ubiquitous eye tracking sensors, eye tracking TVs and cellphones, PaperPhone, the world’s first flexible phone and TeleHuman, the world’s first pseudo-holographic teleconferencing system. HML is directed by Dr. Roel Vertegaal, Professor of HCI at Queen's University's School of Computing. Working with him is a number of graduate and undergraduate students with computing, design, psychology and engineering backgrounds. Graduate students Aneesh Tarun and Peng Wang are the current architects of the PaperTab system. See http://www.humanmedialab.org.



Media Contact at Plastic Logic:

Rachel Lichten

Business Communications Manager

An der Bartlake 5, 01109 Dresden, Germany

Tel.: +49 351 88344-120

Email: rachel.lichten@plasticlogic.com



Media Contact at Queen’s University

Michael Onesi

Communications Officer

Queen's University

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Tel.: +1 613 533 6000 ext. 77513

Email: michael.onesi@queensu.ca

References

Tarun, A., Wang, P., Girouard, A., Strohmeier, P., Reilly, D., and Vertegaal, R. PaperTab: An Electronic Paper Computer with Multiple Large Flexible Electrophoretic Displays. In Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI’13 Conference on Human Factors in Computing. ACM Press, 2013, pp. 3131-3134. [PDF]

For high resolution images please click on an image in the thumbnail gallery below.