E-Paper Moves Closer

squaretorus sent in this story about electronic paper at the BBC. Seems that everytime any of the e-paper, e-ink, e-whatever companies have a new demo unit they run out and call a press conference. But none of it matters until they have ultra-thin, durable, flexible pages that can be manufactured cheaply...

Comments

I believe it when I see it

[roguerez]

The paperless office is a vision that belongs in the same category as the flying car. Sure, one day it will happen, but it'll take just a little longer than anyone predicted. I suspect we'll be using paper for at least another 50 to 100 years, when electronic paper might be cheaper than the wooden version.

Would it still have the rights of wooden paper?

[itsnotme]

I'll admit that its cool that they're coming up with electronic paper solutions to replace wooden paper, while they'll be a hell of a lot easier to lug around with just one sheet of electronic paper vs 500 sheets of wooden paper in a book, there's still the issue of wether it will have the same rights as the wooden version..

I for one would like to be able to share my books wooden or electronic.. We've seen the problems that come with the electronic version, for example, the E-Book.. Whats to make it so that the companies dont put more restrictive limitations on the eletronic paper version? Once htey get past those issues and it becomes as common and cheap as the wooden version then heck yeah I'll buy it, but until then, and until they get electronic paper to have the same rights as the wooden version, I'm not going to touch it with a 6 foot stick..

Re:Would it still have the rights of wooden paper?

[Jeremi]

The "killer app" to run on this display technology is a wireless HTML browser; nothing less, nothing more. Already HTML can do much more than any so-called e-book format, simply because it isn't artificially limited by herds of lawyers.

Re:Think of the savings in $$$!

[gnovos]

Nope, you won't see those (monetary, at least) savings at all. Why not? Because like all "Intellectual Property" these days, your books will be licensed, not bought. How cheap are CD's to make? How much do they cost to buy? The same will be true for books.

I simply don't like this.

[c.r.o.c.o]

I for one will never replace my 50lb *nix manual with an e-paper one. Or for that matter any of my hundreds (if not more) of real paper books that I have collected. And I'm sure that most, if not all, people will agree with me.

The reason is really simple, imo. The e-paper requires a battery, circuitry, special inks, etc. In the end, it will deccay, break down or I might simply drop it into the bath tub while reading it and zap the hell out of me. I've had many electronic devices fail on me, and in all cases all the information stored on them was lost. Completely. The same is true for e-paper. Sooner or later (most likely really soon) it will break down, no matter how well you take care of it.

The same does not apply to normal, paper books. They last. And last. My oldest book is from the early 1900s, and by no means is it old. There are parchments that are thousands of years old. Granted, it's just as easy to destroy normal paper as it might be e-paper, but given proper care, normal paper has an almost endless life.

So if given the choice, I'd rather get an old-fashioned paper book that I can keep for as long as I want rather that a cool e-paper one that will BSOD in a couple of years.

Right to read

[borgheron]

http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/right-to-read .html

This short story illustrates the evils which could be put into play if digital paper is ever realized. The technology itself is a wonderful leap forward, but, I suspect, that the companies controlling the content might get a little greedy.

Although it's doubtful things will get as bad as are described in the story, the technology certainly opens the door for some of it.

Later, GJC

E-paper has to be perfect

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I read a LOT of books every year. I've also read something like 10 "old" (i.e. non-copyrighted) books from the Gutemberg project on my PalmIII using the Doc reader. I've also tried the Franklin Rocket Ebook and a prototype of the Everybook reader (before they went under).

I hate reading on the Palm : the screen is too small, the contrast sucks and you have to scroll all the time, but the Palm is small and convenient enough to convince me not to load my suitcase sometimes. The Rocket Ebook was much better, but still not very exciting. The Everybook had that dual A4 color display that was big like an open window, and impressive, but I still was uneasy holding the thing to read.

So, it brought me to think about it : what do I like so much better in a book that even the near-perfect Everybook reader didn't provide ? well, of course, there is the fact that books don't need batteries, they are not nearly as fragile, they are less heavy than the majority of paperback releases (I'm not talking about Dostoyevsky). But there is more : the texture of the paper is gratifying to touch, the turning of a paper page is part of the pleasure of reading, the letters never have staircase effect, even if the printing is crappy, the white of the paper reflects different color shades with the lighting, one can see the sun dance on the pages at dawn or dusk while reading on the train, etc etc ... Even the back, with its different material (cardboard), its artwork and sometimes embossed or golden letters is part of the reading experience.

So, to convince conventional "pleasure" readers, E-paper will have to have all of that : round letters, paper-like light reflection, paper-like texture, the exact same text layout than on a regular book. All of that is part of the joy of reading, and E-paper won't provide that for a long time. I, for one, never read for pleasure on any form of computer device. I read a lot of articles, financial reports, tech manuals, online and the cold screen light doesn't bother me because the reading is only pratical, but I would never read Azimov on anything else but a book.

Not the whole story, or not thinking far enough

[Genom]

In the article, they talk about making a "book" of this stuff -- what an incredible waste! If the epaper's contents can be changed electronically, there's no reason to have a whole "book" of it -- one sheet should suffice (with some sort of input device to capture "page turn" requests) for most everything.

Furthermore, if you view the epaper as simply a medium through which to display information, you wouldn't need a seperate physical volume for each book - they could all fit into something, say, the size of a PDA (compactflash, etc for removable, expandable storage, and a hookup to the epaper to display -- or even a PDA screen made OF this stuff (thin, light, flexible (foldable?) PDA ^_^ ) - would be insanely useful.

All of this doesn't come with a price, however. If publishing of mainstream works went electronic, there would be no "ownership" of a copy of a work, only a "license". Then, by simply encrypting the contents, by any means, no matter how light, makes it CRIMINAL to build, use and/or distribute a compatible viewer, under the DMCA. So whomever is first to market, wins, and has a larger stranglehold on the publishing industry than M$ has on PC OS's - because noone will *legally* be able to compete in that arena. ("Your honor, our file format, which is used by every major publication, is encrypted, and thus protected under the DMCA. The defendants willfully broke the law when they decrypted the contents of our file format and used it to create their product...")

There are MANY more issues here than just a superthin, flexible, high-contrast display. The article doesn't really touch on the major issues at all, and instead only glosses over the technology involved.