 the ID TechX and who are you? I'm Asad Khan from Ken Displays, makers of Boogie Board and I oversee some of the technical development for our products. So you're the CTO? Yes. All right and this is the Boogie Board, it's quite popular right? Yes it is, it's an amazing writing experience, completely analog, right fingernails, stylus, you can do whatever you want and when the push of a button you can electronically erase. These tablets are everywhere in the market and consumer retail and retail from anywhere in the US for for somewhere from $15 all the way to to $40 or so. So how does it work? How do you send this signal? What is the signal that goes in? So all we're doing with this thing is is you're really applying pressure which creates a deformation and that forces flow, the liquid crystal inside flows and it's bistable so it stays where you left it until you push the erase button. And the erase does like a sense current everywhere? Yes it's one pixel so that's why when you look at the line fidelity it's extremely extremely high resolution because there are no pixels it's completely analog. So it's like ink on paper? Correct. So and it's instant and feels like writing for real? We always like to say that if you have to ask about how much is the response time it probably is too long. The response time is like pen on paper it's instant there is no time. And while you write there's no power at all happening? Correct. And so you have capacity to make unlimited of this material what's inside? So inside is a liquid crystal polymer mixture and that's what we produce in our in our roll-to-roll factories in Kent, Ohio and the US and and then we we we design and build consumer products using those e-writer displays and the e-writer products are then sold globally. We also sell films e-writer films to other OEM customers for for unique applications and embedded stuff such as mobile phone cases and things like that. So and then you have a transparent right here? Yes, so yeah so I have a I have a new new product to show you here which is which is a toy product we launched and and this is also a boogie board which has transparency and and I can now look through it and trace things for kids for different applications and just a fun can also be used we we have things like our play and trace application templates so kids can draw different types different models things like that and and kids can can play with it they're learning ones there's also mobile apps for iPad that can give more moving content for educational purposes and things like that and you have color yes so now after all this what we're doing is we are also have have released this very recently this new product which is similar to our boogie board same writing experience but but now has multiple colors in it and and because of that it's for kids for fun factors this is the boogie board scribble and play and and all what you can do is you can use these different styluses to to play with it to write on it again the same erase and and kids have a really fun time this has been very very popular and is expected to be a very big seller this this holiday season you have a also a new product that's transparent and color yes so so we're we're very proud to introduce also through through our TV campaign a product that sells through the TV channels it's called magic sketch and and that product is very similar to this has has color but it's transparency also the color and transparency are combined and we really encourage people to go to magic sketch comm to look at that product it's it's being sold on TV and online right now it's pretty good price right yes so it should be a million Zoro we don't we don't talk about the volumes but but yes the the idea is that this this could be a very big program for both for us and for in the in the toy in the retail markets and then then potentially grow from there globally right now it's limited to North America and so I guess as a CTO at that can displays you you have all kinds of projects and potential ways you might go and considering to do right sure sure so we work a lot a lot of our time is spent on different performance levels and brightness and contrasts and line with and reliability robustness new technologies how to integrate more things into it working with OEM customers and ourselves there's so many different things we do we actually really honestly have a lot of fun also because this is such an incredible technology to work with where we are touching and feeling things all the time in in the e writer space so we also work with sensing technologies in order like our boogie board sink which uses an EMR sensor we're working on other sensing technologies that make them lower cost or transparent to be able to put those in in next-generation products you can combine with the with touch sensor to record right yes so there are different ways to do it whether it's metal mesh sensors and capacitive or resistive sensors or electromagnetic resonance sensors so they're different sensing technologies everything has pros and cons and cost benefit so so we try to figure out what's the best fit for particular product lines so they can display the chlcd doesn't have like it's analog so there's unlimited resolution kind of but when you do all these sensors they have a limited resolution no correct so the sensing the writing will still have this amazing feel the sensing will that you're digitizing that writing so when once you digitize there will be some resolution our boogie board sink really has an EMR sensor that has very very high resolution so we actually don't even use the entire resolution available in the sensor keep the file sizes small the files are recorded as vector PDFs and and so they really are incredible in terms of analog look and feel and represent very closely what the actual writing is and the actual writing experience so I'd like to see this in the back of phones of tablets are you working in that direction yeah so we have here's here's my phone and so we do have this is one of our customers that has here's my iPhone on the left and on the right is a is is is one of our e-writing tablets which which again you write on it and and then you can erase in this case it's not connected it's just a simple memo pad in order for me to jot down what time is lunch let's meet at 12 o'clock for lunch things like that but but yes we are working and through other customers working on applications where there will be sensing in those perhaps more designs that can be integrated closer we have customers that do inking pads and and those kinds of application signature authentication so there are lots of e-writing applications that that our product is is in in place through through those through those partners there's many places where you go and they have a little pad where you have to sign you know yes but you don't actually see your signature or they get scratched up or they're hard to see there there are lots of nuances and that's where our technology comes in is really good good fit for that so you can really have a very good visual feedback and tactile feedback of literally as if you were using ink on paper but yet it's electronic so it's just you just add your screen on top right it's the same under it but it's just your screen on top yes so that's a really way really easy and good way to do it and that's all comes from the transparency of the material which is inherent and it's if you do it as a case for a phone is there any is it fragile is possible that the kid displays get scratched up or it doesn't have to be sure sure so everything has some limits or some some level at which they can break down but but our stuff is made out of rugged plastic so compared to phones which have fragile glass screens the plastic part is actually very very robust and for for shock and impact and things like that of course you can take a sharp object and scratch or damage the screen because you're touching a plastic material so so those kinds of things do do remain but but we have millions of products in the marketplace and both from toys and kids to to home and office applications and they tend to do really well I'd like to see like a phone case a tablet case where you can just swap out the display if it gets used up too much or scratched up you just swept this just your display is not so expensive right well no the display part in all of these applications is is the is the expensive part but but yeah in this application for example it's not exactly sure what you're asking but I'm talking about just the display to swap it out put a new one in you can but it's it's got a really long lifetime and it's very rugged I've had this case for a long time all of these products that I've been showing you are really robust so you can see here it's it's flexible it's plastic these kinds of things are not so easy to do with with your typical glass based products like your phones and tablets and things like that so so the ruggedness and robustness of our products is inherent which is makes them really good for home office use again last long as well as for kids so this is 2016 so with what year do you think everybody in the world is going to be using can this place how can it happen I'm pretty sure that's 2017 is we're talking no I don't I don't know certainly certainly that's that would be a pretty lofty goal but but we are our growth has been very consistent and and has been going year over year we started boogie boards in 2010 and and going very strong so we have really strong hopes and it's it's becoming more and more prevalent you can you can now see people with them you can hear about them so that's and they're really available in a tremendous amount of retail outlets globally so so it continues to grow and we we have high hopes of of really really good growth in the coming years this Christmas is gonna be interesting yeah yeah we have a lot of products and and and of course for for us this is a in retail this is a really big season in the North America market and we look forward to it it seems it all the indicators say that it's it's good it's strong and we're excited about 2017 there's more and more kids out there and they all like to scribble you know it's a good solution for parents who are looking for gifts who are looking for gifts for kids for for birthday parties things like that so this is really good for gifting and we have so many different price points that it really there's something for everyone are you focusing also in Europe and Asia and everywhere we have we have a lot of Japan is a big market for us Australia we do sell a lot in China and in other parts of of the far eastern markets Europe is also we're present we have distribution in Europe as well so so we tend to to to address a wide variety of global markets we actually have strong presence in the Middle East as well right and the people of a new project should contact you and see if there's a chance that you can work together we'd love to hear from from anyone that wants to talk to us and come and visit can displays calm or my boogie board calm and that that's a good place to start and reach out to us with ideas with questions with comments and and and everyone writes writing is part of human nature we all do it and this is a really great and fun experience to have so everyone should experience it