The latest e-paper prototype from Fujitsu tackles one of the technology's biggest weaknesses: the amount of time it takes to refresh a page.

On electronic paper, screens like those used in Amazon.com's Kindle or Sony's Reader for electronic books, it typically takes a second or more to redraw the image on the screen. Sometimes the screen flickers a few times as the new image appears or, as in the case of Fujitsu's display, the image is slowly revealed in a long sweep across the screen -- but it's a long way from the milliseconds required on other display screens.

To tackle this problem Fujitsu has tried to confine the refresh to just the parts of the screen that need to be changed.

For example on this electronic form just a few rows are refreshed when a box is ticked. The speed is the same as before but because a much smaller area is changed, the user perceives an improvement in performance.

Fujitsu has been developing electronic paper for several years, and last year began offering sample portable information tablets with 8-inch screens to customers in Japan that are based on e-paper and include a network connection.

E-paper displays offer several advantages over conventional LCD panels. They can be made almost paper-thin, only use power when the on-screen image is being changed and are easy to read in bright light -- look at this laptop screen compared to an e-paper screen.

At the Fujitsu Forum in Tokyo this is Martyn Williams, IDG News Service.