Every once in a while, some news about the development of electronic paper (or electronic ink) comes out. This article from Forbes covers Philips' unveiling of an ultra-thin flexible design, expected to be on the market in 2006.

Red Planet may have been a pretty lousy movie, but one of the neat gadgets on display in the film was the flexible, transparent map scroll, which the marooned astronauts used (for example) to find out where they were after their disastrous landing. Looks like we may see such things in the corner electronics store much sooner than 2050.