Toshiba mass-producing electronic paper

Toshiba has turned up the speed on its electronic paper production, going into overdrive to deliver its 5-inch monochrome VGA display.

That should be good news for those who can’t wait to get their hands on a new electronic dictionary. The 12:1 contrast ratio is a starting point, but you also get a response time of just 20 ms and 16 full levels of gray. Best of all, power consumption is low: That 16-level grey mode will cost you just 20mW.

So we know this much. What we don’t know is when we can get our hands on one of these displays. The presses are working, but the deadline hasn’t been announced.