E Ink Corporation is a privately held manufacturer of electrophoretic displays (EPDs), a kind of electronic paper

Electronic paper

Electronic paper, e-paper and electronic ink are a range of display technology which are designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displays, electronic paper displays reflect light like ordinary paper...

. E Ink is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, and was co-founded in 1997 by Joseph Jacobson

Joseph Jacobson

Joseph Jacobson, a native and resident of Newton, Massachusetts, is a tenured professor and head of the Molecular Machines group at the Center for Bits and Atoms at the MIT Media Lab...

, a professor in the MIT Media Lab

MIT Media Lab

The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...

. Two years later, E Ink partnered with Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

 to develop and market the technology. In 2005, Philips sold the electronic paper business as well as its related patents to Prime View International.

E Ink has since partnered with various companies, including Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

, Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 and Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, to allow for the development of products like the Sony Reader

Sony Reader

The Sony Reader is a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation.Sony sells e-books for the Reader...

, MOTOFONE F3, Barnes & Noble nook, and Kindle

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

, Hanlin E-book which utilize E Ink technology

E Ink

E Ink is a specific proprietary type of electronic paper manufactured by E Ink Corporation, founded in 1997 based on research started at the MIT Media Lab...

.

On June 1, 2009, E Ink Corporation announced an agreement to be purchased by one of its primary business partners, Prime View International (TPO: 8089), a Hsinchu, Taiwan-based manufacturer, for USD

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

$215 million. PVI has since been renamed E Ink Holdings Inc. It is predicted that the purchase by Prime View will speed the development of color E Ink.

E Ink's "Vizplex" technology is used by Nook and Kindle 2.
E Ink's "Pearl" technology is claimed to have a 50% better contrast ratio. It is used by Kindle 3 and Sony.