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E-Paper Moves Closer

Posted by michael on from the e-paper-airplanes-not-far-behind dept.

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...

4 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Would it still have the rights of wooden paper? by itsnotme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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..

    1. Re:Would it still have the rights of wooden paper? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  2. Re:Think of the savings in $$$! by gnovos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
  3. I simply don't like this. by c.r.o.c.o · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.