Despite the world being saturated by tablets, the humble e-reader has remained pretty popular. Indeed, since the day the first Kindle launched, the simple, low-cost, low-power devices have become among Amazon's best-selling products. As much as e-readers have improved over the years, however, there is still one aspect of the technology that is yet to make it to the devices - color e-ink panels.

That might all change, however, E Ink, a firm specializing in the development of cutting-edge e-paper technology, just unveiled its latest flagship product, the Advanced Color ePaper, or ACeP, for short. The ACeP is so advanced that it is able to reproduce 32,000 colors, with each pixel on the panel containing all the necessary pigments to display every color in the spectrum.

Color e-paper has actually been around for some time, with some popular devices such as the Pebble Time smartwatch using color e-ink panels. However, as much as the displays do show color, today's conventional color e-ink displays have looked pretty much washed out. E Ink's ACeP, of course, aims to change all that.

As much a the technology is quite revolutionary, the ACeP is currently designed to be used only for signages. This is because its current iteration exists in the form of a 20-inch panel with a resolution of 2500x1600, translating to a rather low 150 pixels per inch. With mainstream e-readers such as the 2015 Kindle Paperwhite already sporting 300 ppi panels, the ACeP's current resolution is a bit too low to be used effectively as an alternative to high-resolution black and white e-reader displays.

Then again, it must also be noted that the Kindle DX, Amazon's larger-than-usual e-reader, also sported a 150 ppi black and white panel. When the DX was released, users rarely commented on the low resolution of the device.

Besides, even with the current ACeP not being designed for e-readers, the fact that the company was able to bring the new color e-ink technology out there is already a significant step forward. With the Advanced Color ePaper already on the market, it might only be a matter of time before Kindles and other popular e-readers would be able to adopt the new color technology to their devices.

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