Magink's full-colour digital ink is based on patented organic materials. Using proprietary technologies, Magink manipulates the size and angle of the molecules in the ink to generate all colours of the visible colour spectrum, including all grey scales.
Magink holds various patents on this technology. The first application for this technology is the billboard industry. Magink is also developing future digital ink display applications for consumer electronic products, as well as point of purchase and promotional displays.
They are not the first company to produce display technologies referred to as electronic paper. Xerox is still in testing mode with it's monochrome 11 inches by 14 inches product called SmartPaper. Another company, E Ink, is developing a monochrome display for use within electronic books. So far Magink is the only company that has not only successfully tested a full-colour billboard size product, but they are also ready to start with production.
"I got really impressed when I saw it," Juan Sanchez, an analyst specializing in biotechnology and nanotechnology for Punk, Ziegel & Company, an investment research firm in New York, said of Magink's technology. He said he traveled to Japan to see the product being manufactured. "I think the good thing about this company is that its technology is really proved and is shipping to its manufacturer," Mr. Sanchez said.
According to Magink their technology has numerous benefits:
Combining 5mm pixel pitch, an RGB colour model with 4096 colours, and a superior contrast ratio of 14:1, Magink digital ink technology achieves an extremely natural look that very much resembles the look of printed images on paper.
Magink' s digital ink display billboard is reflective of incident light and requires no integrated illumination. Light that falls on the display from either the sun or external light sources is actually beneficial to the visibility of the image. A beautiful image is maintainable under the full range of daylight conditions.
Magink display does not require any power to maintain an image: the image is held under power-off conditions. Only when replacing one image with another does the display require punctual application of power in order to set the new image. Since energy is needed only for refreshing the image and since Magink' s digital ink reflective display does not require back lighting, power consumption is low yielding less energy consumption, less heat dissipation and a longer mean time between failure (MTBF).
The display is fully functional between -20º C to +40º C (-4ºF x 113ºF), durable under extreme temperature, UV and wind conditions and offers wide horizontal and vertical viewing angles.
Single displays as well as display networks are remotely controlled by Magink's priority software via a Windows based user-friendly client GUI application.
The display can be divided into a number of independent sub-display areas displaying still images and banners (text and images)
Magink can display an eye-catching combination of publicly-available content sources, such as television broadcasts and Internet feeds, customized advertising content, and local messages.
Magink digital ink display offers new revenue streams and enhanced profitability to media companies by digitising outdoor media; creating more advertising space and inventory as well as new advertising formats: time sensitive advertising (weekly newspapers, lottery results and weekend retail sales), Day part advertising, sponsorship stripes (news, sports, traffic, community announcements and alerts), small-scale advertising and more.
Building a local network of Magink outdoor digital ink displays also offers substantial cost savings: lower operating costs (logistics, paper posting and maintenance, energy consumption), and strategic reduction of location' s inventory.
