Russ Wilcox, co-founder and CEO of E Ink, the company behind the low-power, high-contrast “electronic paper” screen on the Kindle 2 and e-paper:

E-paper has taken 12 years and $150 million to develop.

What we’ve got here is a technology that could be saving the [global print media] $80 billion a year.”

2010 will be a big year for flexible displays. And then at the end of 2010, you will start to see improvements in the ink. We will have a whiter white and a blacker black, and we will start to experiment with color. You will probably see 2011 be the year of color.

The next big wave after e-books will be e-newspapers, enabled by the flexible screens in larger sizes. Then there will be a second wave of e-newspapers enabled by color.

By distributing electronically, the book-publishing industry could save 30 percent on their costs, which would add $25 billion a year to their profitability.