Esquire Magazine has announced that its October issue that celebrates the publication's 75th anniversary will embed E Ink technology in its cover as well as in two other pages that will support an ad for Ford. The magazine will thus become the first one to use this sort of technology, and will remain the only one to do so for some time now, because of a deal that was reached with E Ink.

E Ink is a technology that uses segmented display cells to show simple alphanumerical texts or even pictures. While E Ink isn't a new concept, the whole idea of embedding it into a magazine cover certainly is. The thing that posed most of the problems at implementing the idea was the size of the battery that powers the display. It is reported that Esquire, together with its partner Ford, have spent a six digit sum of money on research for developing a battery thin enough to permit integration in the magazine's cover.

Even though the October issue of the magazine will be released in 720,000 copies, only 100,000 of them will have the E Ink display integrated. The reasons for this are both the cost of the technology and the difficulties that integrating it in the magazine's cover and shipping the copies to newsstands pose.

Inserting the display and the battery in the magazine's cover is a process that needs to be done manually. Then, the copies need to be transported to the newsstands and stores where they will be sold in refrigeration trucks. This is an extremely important thing because the battery that powers the display has a life of only 90 days and keeping it cold during shipping prolongs the time the E Ink cover will function properly.

According to the New York Times the E Ink display on the cover of the magazine will read “The 21st Century Begins Now."