Electronic Paper

Omega Prime writes: "The BBC has an article about the latest advances in E-Paper. That is, flexible display media that is both cheap and reuseable. The possibilities for this are endless, Can you say Holodeck wallpaper?" There's also an AP article. Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?

Comments

Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous DWord]

I'll bet book publishers can't wait to get ahold of this stuff. Then they can bring in (joy!) digital rights management, so if you buy a normal looking book, you can only read it for two weeks before you have to "renew" your licence.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[phoneboy]

Digital Rights Management isn't such a horrible thing, provided they respect the right of first sale throughout the process (meaning, I can buy something and they can't restrict my right to sell it to someone else). However, the cynic in me says this is just one of many ways to eliminate that right.

Personally, I'd love to have a single piece of e-paper for much of my periodical reading. I get many trade rags every week and I throw them away when I'm done with them. A single piece of paper that handles all my trade rags, hm, my wife might like that. :-)

-- PhoneBoy

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous DWord]

Well I think the obvious next machination would be a wireless net connection embedded in each one. Then you can take Slashdot on the bus, read the NY Times, all your email, and take care of all your business. Even run a whole OS, eventually. Then you could really take your work home with you.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[tuxlove]

Digital Rights Management isn't such a horrible thing, provided they respect the right of first sale throughout the process (meaning, I can buy something and they can't restrict my right to sell it to someone else). However, the cynic in me says this is just one of many ways to eliminate that right.

I think the cynic in you is correct. DRM is merely a euphemism for "Digital Profit Management", and has little to do with *your* rights at all. The concept of digital paper is cool beyond words, but the potential loss of personal control over works you purchase will probably nullify the coolness. When I buy a book or newspaper, I like to know that I've actually bought it rather than licensed it for some term, and that I will always have the ability to read it whenever I desire. Anyone who believes that when electronic paper is available publishers will play by the same rules that they follow now is naive.

Not to mention that books don't go blank when their batteries run out. :)

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[JimPooley]

Actually, while the 'rights' are not perhaps yours, they are the very real rights of the people who create content to be suitably rewarded for their work.

If I write a book, and get it published, I have a right to be financially rewarded for my creative work.
You do NOT have a right to take my work and plaster it all over the fucking internet.
And that's what they're trying to stop. If stopping that means you can't make copies whenever you want, then that's just too bad...
People making copies of my work denies me of my right to be compensated for my time. This is also the right of all the people who work for the publisher, the printers, and the bookshops to be paid for their time, and without people buying books these people will all be out of a job.

You know, every time I hear someone parrot "Information wants to be free" I translate it as "I want everything handed to me on a plate and I shouldn't have to pay for it".

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Kryptonomic]

You do NOT have a right to take my work and plaster it all over the fucking internet.

And why not? You don't want people reading your book?

And don't tell me about lost profits. It's not as if I would have necessarily "compensated you for your time" by buying your book if it had NOT been available for free on the net.

Do you also object public libraries? After all libraries allow people to read your book without "compensating" you.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[calibanDNS]

You do NOT have a right to take my work and plaster it all over the fucking internet.

True. Very true.

And that's what they're trying to stop. If stopping that means you can't make copies whenever you want, then that's just too bad...

Wrong. Very wrong. As a US citizen I'm subject to it's laws which grant me the right to make copies of legally obtained works whenever I want for limited purposes. See Title 17 of the US Code for more information. It's not "just too bad" if I can't, it's a violation of my civil liberties.

I've just finished college where I had a friend who insisted on photocopying the textbooks for all of his classes to avoid paying the (sometime outrageous) prices at the campus store. Is that legal? No. Could just about everyone at the university have done it? Yes. But of the 6000+ students at the school, I'm aware of very few (actually, only the one) that do this. If loads of college students, many of whom are living on tight budgets, don't try to cheat the system now despite how easy it is, then I doubt that many more people will try to cheat the system just because they can with ebooks.

Lack of DRM in ebooks most likely won't lead to a noticeable increase in the piracy of books. However, DRM that infringes on my rights as a US citizen (to make legal copies of a work for certain purposes or to resell the work) will stop me from purchasing a particular book. The inconveniences of DRM are likely to be more harmful to publishers than piracy of ebooks.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[gazbo]

I've just finished college where I had a friend who insisted on photocopying the textbooks etc

Reminds me of my final year at university. One of the lecturer's courses was based almost entirely on a book he had published, and to do wel in the course it was understood that you had to buy this book. He figured this wasn't too bad, as it only cost £15.

One day he came in and said 'I've just been told that the publishers have increased the price to £40. I think that's out of the price range for most student, and can't ask you to pay that'

His solution? Telling everybody to fuck the publishers and photocopy the entire book! Those publishers must've been mightily pissed off.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[erlando]

Then you could really take your work home with you

Oh yes. Just what we need. Another brick on that wheel-barrel that is information overload. You know, there has already been studies that shows that access to work-email from home and work-cellphones are heavily increasing stress-related illnesses.

People need time away from their jobs. Yes, it's possible to work 60-70-80 hour weeks. Just not for a prolonged period of time.

Electronic paper is an über-cool idea. No doubt. But let's not use it for bringing more work into our spare time.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Annoying]

For some people this could be a bad thing by increasing information overload.
Most of the information I access recreationally is digital, this would be a wonderful thing for me by allowing me to carry information in digital form rather than printing it. I'm a broke college student so being able to access freely avialable information and saving the money on printing ink would be valuable to me.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[sylvester]

If I write a book, and get it published, I have a right to be financially rewarded for my creative work.


Bullshit. You have no such right. Show me where you gain that right. The *only* 'right' that you have (which is, of course, a completely artificial right) is the right to restrict most kinds of copyiing for the limited (sort of) time granted by congress. That's it. No rights to profit. No rights to fucking your users to get that profit.

Copyright is artificial. I think information *does* have a tendency towards freeflowingness. I'm not sure whether I think copyright is a good idea or not. I certainly don't think it's a good idea in its current form. Completely b0rked.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[drayath]

Note that most of the electronic paper in development does NOT need power to maintain the display. The only time it need power is when you want to change the display images/text.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[jcupitt65]

Do you also object public libraries? After all libraries allow people to read your book without "compensating" you.


Ahh, no. Authors get paid when their books are borrowed from libraries. Some popular writers would find it hard to survive without this.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[shimmin]

Book publishers have traditionally had a much better relationship with their customers than a/v publishers. I think part of the reason is that the hardware needed to "rip" books en masse is not economical for the average geek to purchase (not the scanner itself, but the automated debinding equipment).

But I think there's also a tradition in the book arena that would render such an approach less marketable. The existence of public libraries (which have enormous social credit -- even the most draconian of copyright laws so far has contained a safe haven clause for public libraries) has always meant that people have access to most published material without paying for it. People don't buy mass-market literature in order to read it -- they could do that without buying it -- they buy it to have a chunk of dead tree sitting on the bookshelf. I know I have bought books I have already read just so I could have a copy of the thing lying around.

A "pay-per-read" scheme would only work if the cost was substantially less than a typical paperback book. Personally, I would only pay about $1 for a pay-per-read lisence. When I buy a paperback, the other $6 buys the chuck of dead tree.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[testharness]

No rights to fucking your users to get that profit.

As oppose to the users fucking the authors!!

Why is it that as an author you would not allow me to make any money - or a living, but most other professions are?

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[erlando]

But I agree.. :o) I see tons of really good possibilities open up once we have electronic paper. It was just the idea of "taking more work home" that bothered me.. :o)

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[mpe]

If I write a book, and get it published, I have a right to be financially rewarded for my creative work.

You don't actually have the have the right to be financially rewarded for your writing. Any more than someone making a widget has the right to to make a profit.
The right you have is to control who can copy your writing (in places such as the US this is specifically to encourage the author to continue writing.) But it isn't a right to money only something which can help in the making of money.

If stopping that means you can't make copies whenever you want, then that's just too bad...

Except that if you sell copies of something you can't control what someone does to them. The best you can do is to make a "pirate" copy more expensive than a legitimate copy. Which has been the case with books. But isn't the case with CDs, where the media coat is considerably less than the usual sale price.

People making copies of my work denies me of my right to be compensated for my time. This is also the right of all the people who work for the publisher, the printers, and the bookshops to be paid for their time, and without people buying books these people will all be out of a job.

Not only do you not have such a right the publisher has no right to make a profit from publishing. It's a business like any other, subject to the "dog eat dog" rules of capitalism.
Changes in technology can easily render certain type of business model obsolete. But entrenched businesses (with entrenched business models) don't like the fact that changing the way they work has a big risk associated with it. A current way of dealing with this is to lobby for laws which attempt to make current business methods the law of the land and to force new technologies to emulate older ones.
Consider also that new technologies, like the web, also effectivly mean that any author can publish their own work, rather than having to convince a third party to do so. This also frightens publishing companies.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[TeeWee]

Lack of DRM in ebooks most likely won't lead to a noticeable increase in the piracy of books. [...]

This ignores the fact that e-books are different in essence than paper books. A photocopied paper book is far more unwieldy than the original, and is degraded in quality as well. E-books don't suffer this, so it's far more tempting, and likely far easier, to copy e-books than it is with physical books.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[mpe]

I've just finished college where I had a friend who insisted on photocopying the textbooks for all of his classes to avoid paying the (sometime outrageous) prices at the campus store.

However people don't routinely photocopy books, for the simple reason that the resultant copy costs more than a bought copy. (Unless the book in question is out of print, etc)
Indeed you could probably apply a rule of thumb that a book which is cheaper to photocopy than to buy is overpriced...

Lack of DRM in ebooks most likely won't lead to a noticeable increase in the piracy of books.

Also DRM is something which fundermentally cannot work. Especially since once it has been broken any "script kiddie" can then use the methods.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, while the 'rights' are not perhaps yours, they are the very real rights of the people who create content to be suitably rewarded for their work. "

False! According to US law, Copyright is not a natural right, and it does not derive from the hard work of the authors. See Feist v. Rural Telephone Service for details.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[HiThere]

There are lots of problems here though. The chief one is that those who design a process will design it in such a way that it is to their benefit. Benefit to others will be a side issue (they need to provide enough to make it sell, but other than that ...).

Inidividual people aren't quite this way, but companies and corporations can be reliable predicted to attempt to take as much advantage of the target market as they can. Individuals, when considered at all, will be dehumanized as "customer"s.

Given the DMCA, e-paper is a terrible concept. If the UCITA were more wide-spread then it would be outrageously unacceptable, but even as it is there would need to be a better than 30% price advantage for equivalent materials. How much, specifically, would be needed depends on the precise details of what I wanted to get out of the purchase, and what the "license" was. But a 30% advantage would be the minimum. That would be for, say, a newspaper, or a comic book. Actual books would probably be in the 50% or greater range. Reference books would be in the 90-95% range. Text books in the 80-90% range. Literature would be in the 60-99% range. Gift books might get into the 50% range, largely because I make a lot of errors in predicting what someone else would want.

OTOH, if the book were released under an equitable license, say pay once and we'll let you download it whenever you want into the particular (coded) receiver that you use the first time, then there are circumstances where it might be worth even more than a paper book. Perhaps. But even that requires a degree of trust on my part considerably higher than a paper book would require. And even then the DMCA could be interpreted to mean that it was illegal to extract quotations, etc. So I doubt that it could be worth more than, say, 80% as much as a regular book. (I don't extract quotations very often, but being prohibited from doing so would degrade the entire experience associated with the book. And the more I liked some section, the more the experience would be degraded. ["You've got to remember not to quote this..."].)

Perhaps my feelings are unusual. They often are. But I expect that they are more common among those people who buy more books.
.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you could really take your work home with you.

You meant then you would really have to take work home with you, right ?

Think about it some time -- as long as you have got any left, that is.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its his choice as the creator of the work. Thats why you dont have the right. It doesnt matter why the author chooses to restrict distribution, and its not your place to demand a reason. Creators should be given control of thier work, and those who would deny the creator of the work thier societal protections for thier own ends (be it fun, sloth, cheapness, self-entitlement or profit) are selfish and shortsighted. Sorry for the negative tone, but it upsets me so when I see people attack the protections society has given creative people for very important reasons.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[Anonymous DWord]

Shit, I don't care. I'm retired. That's why I said "you," not "we." :-P

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[tuxlove]

Actually, while the 'rights' are not perhaps yours, they are the very real rights of the people who create content to be suitably rewarded for their work.

I agree with you completely on this statement. I was not advocating theft. I think anyone who redistributes copyrighted works is breaking the law. But we users of copyrighted materials *do* have rights, by law. One of those is the right to make backup copies of copyrighted works we have purchased. If copyright holders remove that ability through technical means, effectively circumventing the law, then they're just as evil as those who steal their work. The "fair use" sections of copyright law are extremely important and nobody should be allowed to nullify them just because they've discovered an extralegal way of doing so.

A prime example of this is the new copy protection schemes the music labels are starting to use on CDs. Those schemes won't stop skilled, determined users from encoding and distributing them. They will, however, stop your average user from making copies for any reason. Why do the labels do this then, if the copy protection is full of holes? Because they hope to sell digital copies to those users who can't make or acquire their own digital copies from CDs they've already purchased. In other words, they want to sell you the same music twice.

That's the kind of loss of control of your rights that I'm talking about. That's why DRM should really be called DPM, "Digital Profits Management".

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[sylvester]

I never said that.

The copyright construct is artificial, and is a balance between stimulating creation and restricting society. This balance should be reasonable - neither party should get fucked.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[mmol_6453]

So by putting it in an electronic format, it'll be more difficult to plaster on the internet? There's something wrong with that.

It'd be just as easy to place a piece of e-paper on a scanner and use OCR software as it would be to do the same with my college textbook.

It'd be much easier just to load the book ROM into my ROM reader and make a fortune file out of my favorite quotes.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[mmol_6453]

But then the script kiddie gets arrested...or at least the guy who explained how to do it.

Re:Phase Three: Profit!

[discogravy]

1) the internet is not like a library. when you're done with a library book, you have to return it to the library or pay for it. libraries do not make copies of each book for their patrons to check-out; they'll have 1 copy which they buy.

2) while authors generally want their books read, that doesn't mean you can appropriate their desire to publish things for them.

3) i will tell you about lost profits: if you don't want to "compensate authors for their time" (or their effort which is the part people forget,) you shouldn't read the book. It's directly analogue to a temporary product, like food: if you didn't pay for the pizza, you shouldn't eat it; due to the way this particular food is made (i.e. e-books) it's really fucking easy to make copies and put them on the 'net.

people look at writing or music (art in general, really,) as if it were a simple skill anyone could do given the chance. while this is true, most people forget that it takes time and effort and lots of fucking practice to get good at some skill; you can't fucking learn to write anything (even code) very well overnight. when you buy a book or a piece of music, you're paying for the author's time, effort, skill and unique viewpoint.

have I downloaded e-books? you bet! I downloaded all 4 harry potter books; and although I didn't particularly feel bad about not giving J.K Rowling (or her publishers) my money, after I read them, I went out and bought copies of my own, because it was the fucking right thing to do.

It's a real simple equation: if you're going to steal, don't pretend that it's not. It's all well to read or listen to something and not buy it; but only if you don't keep it in a physical manner -- i'm including mp3 files in that.

I don't believe that it's the responsibility of any company or government to make people honest, but it would be nice if people didn't exempt themselves from honesty. A lot of publishing companies are trying to get 'digital rights management' (whatever the fuck that means,) because they think that people aren't trustworthy...can you blame them?

A common conciousness?

[Usquebaugh]

I was just thinking about this today, check out eink, they say they have a product for release in 1st Quater '02.

Re:A common conciousness?

[frisket]

IBM's Mimi Jett made a detailed presentation on their concepts for electronic paper at this summer's
TeX Users Group (TUG) Conference at UDel (Newark, DE). Concepts only at this stage, but the fact that they took the trouble to present/consult the typesetting field *before* shipping product indicates they are very serious about it, and from the presentation they have clearly put a lot of research into this.

///Peter

Famous last words

[PhuCknuT]

from the article: "We don't expect any major hurdles."

I'll believe it when I can buy it.

Re:Famous last words

[Anonymous Coward]

why is this modded as redundant if it's the first time it was said?

Real advance is the refresh rate.

[John Harrison]

The advane made is that It also refreshes at about 50 Hertz, fast enough to stream video.

This makes video possible. This is in contrast to other efforts, which have concentrated at static images with relatively slow refresh.

Also, the display is capable of displaying 256 shades of gray. This would make anti-aliased text possible.

Imagine having a roll-up video screen in your pda/laptop. You could have a pen-sized cylinder that is your pda and simply pull the screen out when you needed it.

Re:Real advance is the refresh rate.

[x136]

Oh, man. I don't think I'm ready to open up a book and see the author introducing the book in full motion video on the first page, and the trailer for the movie on the last...

Re:Real advance is the refresh rate.

[mshiltonj]

Oh, man. I don't think I'm ready to open up a book and see the author introducing the book in full motion video on the first page, and the trailer for the movie on the last...

True, but with this technology, I can guarantee that I will *never* let my Penthouse subscription expire.

Re:Real advance is the refresh rate.

[PhilHibbs]

Don't forget the animated adverts in the margin.

Re:Real advance is the refresh rate.

[testharness]

Imagine having a roll-up video screen in your pda/laptop.

I think, in the end, it will be about as popular as one of those roll-up keyboard things you can get!

Possibilities are few =(

[jeremyf]

This doesn't seem exciting to me compared to OLED (Organic LED).. OLED is also supposed to be cheap (although there are no good estimates for either technology) but production is already getting started and it already uses very little power.

The major selling point for e-paper is that it is "bendable"... eg, you can make a t-shirt out of it :) They'd have to get the power consumption really low, like the article said, for it to be more worthwhile for "flat" technology (eg, holodeck walls) than OLED.

Philips' e-paper will probably have a monopoly in Internet basketballs though.. :-\

Re:First Post

[Dynedain]

Seriously though - Epaper is a cool thing! The main reason why cell phones/pdas/etc are expensive is because the current LCD process is relatively expensive, and in short supply. If Epaper can prove to be a cheap viable alternative then "disposable phones" and miniscule display devices become a reality. Food could have labels that indicate they have passed their freshness date by changing the entire label. I/O with computers becomes easier since you are no longer dependent on "clunky" devices but rather something more intuitive. Billboards can be rewritten without massive printing and painting costs. Magazines could target adds to specific readers (insert scary .Net foreshadowing here). Granted, the idea of the daily news appearing on the same pad every day isn't gonna happen. Its pointless. But being able to read an E-book in a more concrete form? Invaluable. No more strained eyes from trying to read a glaring monitor or a backlit Palm.

Regardless if E-paper really is just arround the corner or not, I'm looking forward to it as I think it has a lot of potential. And yes, it will happen in our lifetimes.

could work for the holodeck...

[Dave_bsr]

Sure, eventually you could use this for a simulation-room (aka holodeck)'s walls. but what about something useful now, like a tv-screen you can fold up, or maybe displays that you can use anywhere, wherever a regular monitor type wouldn't work, where it had to be compressible (spy stuff) or something. We might not see real video-paper yet, but I bet we see it in a spy film soon.

-Dave

Re:could work for the holodeck...

[Dave_bsr]

Replying to myself:

Or, upon reading the AP article, what about a newspaper that you buy and then keep for a week, downloading the news each day, and getting a new one when your old paper rips or something? I'm assuming that since it is paper it must be cheap enought to be sold like paper, or at least an approximately similar price...so a video-newspaper does sound like a spiffy idea.

Or you could just slap it on a PDA and make them thinner...

-dave

Re:could work for the holodeck...

[satanami69]

Can you imagine rolling up a 61" projector screen from COM to COM, it only weighing three pounds and using a nickel of energy? That's what this "paper" can do.

You can have windowless cars that are completely safe because the inside can be plastered with Closed Circuit pictures of what's outside. Heck, imagine walking to your door and being able to look at whose standing there, without them being able to look in, because your door has a sheet of this paper on it.

Of course, take it a step further. You can folder this paper, imagine now that you mold it to someone's face, where it as a mask, and used a computer controlled face to impersonate someone.

There some picture from the developers here

Re:could work for the holodeck...

[gazbo]

WTF is wrong with you people? Just because the car is Windowless doesn't make it any safer. Presumably you'd prefer Linux? Well not may people know how to use that - and I know that if I'm driving at 70mph I want to have support from a proper large company rather than the open source community.
I mean come on, while it's fun for desktops, and even servers, when we're talking about people's safety, we need to know that there's a company who is culpable in case anything goes wrong, in order to guarantee they will thoroughly test the systems.

I don't want to gamble with my family's life just because I dislike Microsoft.

Re:could work for the holodeck...

[Anonymous Coward]

Calm down, they are just ideas.

reams and reams of vaporware

[fonebone]

Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?

it really does seem like a story on e-paper or biological-monitors gets posted about every month. i imagine that it's a technology people are just really excited about, but may not be fully practical cost-wise and otherwise for a while.

sort of like fridges that scan upc's inside to make grocery lists.. or flying cars..

Re:reams and reams of vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Every technology has the potential of being worth the cost, given it is well researched and mass produced.
Actually, most standards and products we own today are great examples why pouring money over a problem CAN make it disappear. Usually, it's the old, technically inferior technologies that are being used.

Paper will never be replaced...

[Tsar]

Although flexible electronic display media may someday surpass paper's resolution and readability, it will never equal its absorbency.

The previous mental connection explains why I bust out in grins whenever someone mentions "the paperless office." The image of a pointy-haired boss beckoning pitifully from the executive washroom door comes to mind every time.

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[Dyolf Knip]

As I recall, Xerox PARC was working on something similar to this. It's not a paper monitor so much as reprintable paper, though. You have to feed the sheet through the printer to change it, but then it doesn't use any power. Or dead trees, which is always a bonus for any kind of e-paper.

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll have some good uses though - it could help stop the massive daily print output of newspapers - all that wasted paper, ink and, after rush hour, incredible amounts of litter could all be a bad memory

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[fishebulb]

i always liked the idea of a paperless office, but it kind of had the reverse effect. Instead of printing one copy because it was expensive/hard. people print 20 copies, which usually end up in the garbage (or recycled in theory). my boss wants job orders printed out so he can sign it physically so someone else can check it off electronically instead of him just checking it off in the software. of course he also schedules people to schedule a meeting for him too. so wahtever

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[Sabalon]

In college there was a professor who had a "paperless" class. All assignments were turned in/handed out via e-mail on the mainframe.

I would watch people working on their assignments. They would type the paper in, print it out to read it over, make corrections, print it again, and when they finally got done, e-mail it off to the prof.

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me hijack your tangent for a moment...

I read a study by Stefan Schmause from U. of Chicago talking about the domestication of wild dogs during the dawn of human civilization. He seems to think that dogs would...*ahem*...wipe for people.

Gives a new meaning to "Man's best friend", and "Here doggie doggie", eh?

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[linzeal]

You know my girlfriend is an editor and has worked without paper for the most of 5 years now and she would never go back. But it has everything to do with what you are editing on. She has a 21 inch monstrosity at work that does 1600x1024 @100+Hz. At home she actually prefers the LCD of her laptop she says she does not like to look into the "bulb" anymore. We do have 2 21" monitors both nice trinitron tubes and I prefer them. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[linzeal]

1600x1200,doh! See, you know I'm no editor.

Re:Paper will never be replaced...

[gpinzone]

Instead, the streets will be filled with non-biodegradable silicon "video" sheets. Yeah, much better.

Further Slashdot coverage

[headkase]

Slashdot has covered this kind of story before - here, here and here.

Do you ever get the feeling...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that michael is a real bummer to be around at parties?

Obligatory remark

[bnitsua]

I'd like to see beowulf on a cluster of these!

Cool.. at least its coming along

[itsnotme]

Yeah there's other articles on slashdot about it but heck, you haave to admit that its cool that the e-paper technology is coming along instead of becoming vaporware ( ok it still can but at least its still progressing! ) Yes, people are still going to want their paper copies because they need the FEEL of paper.. cant suppress your lifelong concept of what a book FEELS like!

Maybe its time for a change, with this coming out then maybe we wouldnt have to give the students laptops when this would suffice, since its a source of information that can hold (I'm assuming more than just one book?? Pretty please?!?!) quite a bit of information and teachers can know that teh students are getting enough information to do their article and parents will know their kids arent looking at p0rn ( well y'know.. kids are bound to hack this thing and put p0rn on it but at least give the parents some peace of mind for a little while :-) )

So dont complain about previous articles.. jsut be happy the technology is progressing..

Moderation Points: Insightful:+1 Funny:+1 Underrated:+1 ( do I have enough points yet? :-) )

Scientific American Writeup on E-Paper

[umeshunni]

is here

I'd put my money on...

[vscjoe]

organic LEDs in the short term. They seem more likely to result in small, flexible, high-quality displays in the short term. Flexible active-matrix LCDs of acceptable quality seem further off at this point.

But neither of those, in my opinion, qualifies as "electronic paper". What distinguishes "electronic paper" from other kinds of displays is that it retains its contents even in the complete absence of power; with real "electronic paper" you only need power to change the display.

Readability the big win

[darkov]

I think the most exciting thing about plastic LCDs is that they are reflective. This will make displays much much more usable than right now. I want one soley for this reason. I can't really see why flexibility is so exciting. Who wants a floppy display?

Re:Readability the big win

[armb]

> Who wants a floppy display?

Anyone who doesn't have permanent room for a rigid one the size they want. Most home cinema projection screens roll up. Now you don't need the projecter.

On a smaller scale, you can fit a large laptop sized screen in your pocket with your Palm sized device.

Re:Readability the big win

[Teun]

I can't really see why flexibility is so exciting

Maybe because it becomes unbreakable?
Maybe because it's easier to put away?
Maybe because you can now attach it to non-flat surfaces?

Think!
Dream!

Re:Readability the big win

[anonymous loser]

Who wants a floppy display?

Me. In fact, my ultimate PDA would be a folded-up piece of paper that I could take out of my wallet, unfold and use like a laptop computer. The bottom portion of the paper would be a keyboard/drawing area, and the top part would be the display. All memory and storage would be contained within the paper, and it would connect to other devices wirelessly.

Re:Readability the big win

[KillboyPHD]

> Who wants a floppy display?

Anyone who doesn't have permanent room for a rigid one the size they want. Most home cinema projection screens roll up. Now you don't need the projecter.

Untrue. You'll still need a good light source to illuminate the screen. Something equivalent to a projector in terms of power/lumens. Keep in mind that e-paper doesn't glow.

Re:Readability the big win

[armb]

> You'll still need a good light source to illuminate the screen.

Yes, but it doesn't need to be accurately focused. Think of the difference between using an overhead projector and a flipchart. The flipchart is easier to move around, set up, and use.

And the discussion here also includes flexible displays that do glow (e.g. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24536&cid=2664 108) (which might well be better for home cinema use).

Logical next step

[wildsurf]

The e-pencil?

Just let's not start with the white-out jokes.

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[darkPHi3er]

this is the kind of advance that shows how far the Kingdoms of the Sun and the Soft are out of it...

The NextGen of Tech may well go to the device manufacturers and the consumer megalopolies who actually try to deliver what customers want...

Imagine the Gibsonian uses for this stuff...

1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls

2. Guess, Gap, Gucci, Hillfiger, Lauren, et al incorporating streaming logo displays in clothing

3. Functional PDA's that are wearable and shapeable to specialized applications

4. Rooms that can be turned in SensorySurround MM experiences with 5.1 or DTS or DolbyPro, throw in a DVD or IMAX experience, talk about "Immersive"!!

5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps

6. Completely accurate training environments for many, many "environmentally difficult" training situations from fire/rescue, law enforcement, combat, flight, driving, to Wall Street Trading Floor Simulations...WHOO DOGGIE!

7.??????????????

Gibson, Shirley, Bova, Vinge, Cadigan...Your World and Welcome to it!
......

Human Interface Design

[WalterSobchak]

Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?
I have the feeling that the development will be around for a long, long time. Real paper has evolved now for more than 2,000 years (correct me if I'm wrong), electronic paper will have some catching up to do. Granted, today things develop faster, but the overall user interface of books and paper is pretty witty. Alex

Probably 5 years off...

[niola]

Seems like this technology is still 5 years off. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single practical use i would have for it. Guess that this isn't the kind of paper you would run through a shredder if you mess up ;)

--Jon

Yet another advertising medium...

[mr. phantastik]

Doesn't this present a whole host of wonderful advertising ideas? Yay!

I'm waiting for the day when I get to wipe with a McDonalds commercial.

Re:Yet another advertising medium...

[Eccles]

I'm waiting for the day when I get to wipe with a McDonalds commercial.

Speaking of which, I assume a significant fraction of you use public urinals some of the time. Ever notice at the bottom of many there's a "Say No To Drugs" label on the rubber splash reducer, and there's no way to avoid pissing on that slogan?

Self-folding?

[PhReaKyDMoNKeY]

I want self-folding, touch/voice-activated, back-lit, cine-feed-capable paper. Then we can get started on A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. We'll have to introduce a big helping of Chinese culture into our society first, though...

Oh, I want a skull gun and a pair of sights, too.

Re:Self-folding?

[RDskutter]

We'll have to introduce a big helping of Chinese culture into our society first, though...

That won't take long what with China becomming a superpower pretty quickly. I was in China this summer and those guys *really* value their culture.

Re:Self-folding?

[gpinzone]

Somehow, I don't think putting a crease in "e-paper" is going to be a good idea.

I can't make up my mind...

[the_furies]

Which is the more useless example of "digital age" innovtive bullshit no well-adjusted adult will ever need: "interactive television" or "e-paper"?

How a bout e-toilet paper? You run a current through it and it automatically incinerates your shitsmears, so it's reusable: you only ever need 1 bunch of the stuff. Now there's an improvement on an already existing product.

Re: I can't make up my mind...

[richie2000]

You run a current through it and it automatically incinerates your shitsmears

Eh, wouldn't that burn your butthair? Then again, maybe that's better than stea^H^H^H^Hborrowing the SO's Ladyshave and having to explain why it needs a new blade every week. OK, I'm all for it. :-)

I always

[nervlord1]

I always remember being told by my teacher that computers along time ago where being touted as going to make "the paperless office"

Didn't happen did it.
Oh well, does anyone else remember that?

electronic paper

[Jeff Probst]

is fun and games until you need to wipe your arse with it

Comeon, you rely BBC on technology news?

[jsse]

BBC latest news on technology issue? Come on Michael....

Slashdotors want technical details!

The real reason E-paper will never take off...

[case_igl]

It's because all those congressmen won't look so smart in front of the fake bookcases they use on all the TV interviews and speeches.

Yes, I do

[Jebediah21]

I also get the feeling that we'll be reading michael's inane comments at the end of stories for a long, long time. Doesn't mean you have to say anything.

Some questions....

[kndnice]

Am I the only one that jumped a little when they said the screen was so small?

How are they planning to sell this in bundles? And another question is, they say "inexpensive," but how "inexpensive" is it?

I wonder how close they are to having the same e-paper work as a scratch pad that can be written on...?

Log-jam breaker?

[John Guilt]

Maybe what it needs to catch on is a large purchase while it's still not really worth its while, enough to make economies of scale operative.

My guess: a big government purchase, probably military

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[Aceticon]

Imagine the Gibsonian uses for this stuff...

1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls


This will definitly come to be - specially if producing large surfaces of e-paper is cheap enough. Then again, having moving images all around you might be a bit of a sensory overload ...


2. Guess, Gap, Gucci, Hillfiger, Lauren, et al incorporating streaming logo displays in clothing


Transparent clothing with smoothly moving semi-transparent areas ....


3. Functional PDA's that are wearable and shapeable to specialized applications


The problem here is how to input data and give commands to the PDA. An actual flexible screen is probably a no-no for most applications (imagine reading your newspaper with no hands - not very practical)


4. Rooms that can be turned in SensorySurround MM experiences with 5.1 or DTS or DolbyPro, throw in a DVD or IMAX experience, talk about "Immersive"!!


If the wide e-paper surfaces are made cheaply maybe. The problem here is either big pixels (small number of pixels - big surface) or lack of storage and bandwidth (lots of pixels, lots of data - to keep the same pixel-size, the number of pixels increases roughly with the square of the diagonal, and so does the ammount of data)


5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps


If you can get good enough sensors to feed the screens plus color screens, then yes, this is a very realistic possibility.


6. Completely accurate training environments for many, many "environmentally difficult" training situations from fire/rescue, law enforcement, combat, flight, driving, to Wall Street Trading Floor Simulations...WHOO DOGGIE!


Preparing for high-stress situations wich happen in non-controled environments (an airplane cockpit is a controled environment) requires not only quality imaging but also other inputs such as sound, smell, temperature - imagine training fireman - some of the most inportant inputs for an experienced fireman come from the senses of smell (smoke), sound (a wooden beam starting to break) and touch (feeling burning hot air coming from a certain direction).

yeah, I did kinda have that feeling....

[Kraft]

.... that e-paper is just around the corner, because someone told me that E-Paper Moves Closer and someone else said that Electronic paper moving off the drawing board and then I heard that that Full Color Electronic Paper was a Reality.

.... if I got a nickle for every time.....

Re:yeah, I did kinda have that feeling....

[blafasel]

as we all know, our knowledgeable slashdot staff does not provide us with mediea hyped shit, pampering their readers instead only with well researched "Stuff that Matters".

to michael: hate to break the news to you, man, but this seems to have to do with the stepwise development approach that science & engineering tend to take.

Re:yeah, I did kinda have that feeling....

[TeamSPAM]

You'd have 20 cents?

Oooh, oooh I know!

[Hektor_Troy]

Portable holes, like in cartoons. People step on them and fall in!

No wait - that's portable anti-matter sheets.

This just out

[Screamer49]

In a related story, Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum Incorporated's stock jumped 15 points this morning.

what about burn-in...?

[xlurker]

so having a display on paper gives a whole new
meaning to burn-in, eh? ;)

can't help it, one more:

it can't be to hard to push the envelope with
this technology: just fold and ...

oo! oo! one more:

eh... and then there's the cutting edge
to be considered also...

Well, there goes one excuse......

[Y-Crate]

Kid: "My dog ate my homework!

Teacher: "Let me see the grave"

It's been a long time already

[GCP]

Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?

I saw a presentation of this at Stanford about ten years ago by some MIT guys. Like the "revolutionary new flat screen technology" of one sort or another that keeps threatening to obsolete LCDs every year or two, this e-paper stuff is like watching summer reruns of the same tired episodes.

Good point

[HanzoSan]

That would be revolutionary

Re:Good point

[RogrWilco]

What would be revolutinary would be that you could buy it for $0.50 like a newspaper.

Re:Good point

[TulioSerpio]

What would be revolutinary would be that you could buy it for $0.50 like a newspaper.

why? you only have to buy one.

You have a right to be paid for your SERVICE

[HanzoSan]

NOT for you creativity.

In my honest opinion, no one owns it after you release it. You still are needed to create it though, so paying you for the service of writing the book would ensure you get paid in a world where you dont own the books you release.

Stop making excuses, it works for steven king, its working for redhat, its working for mandrakesoft, transgaming, so it can work for you.

256 shades of one color is not impressive

[HanzoSan]

I'd rather have 256 diffrent colors, why the hell have 256 shades of GREY. That would totally defeat the purpose, an artist now can only use 2 colors on digital paper, and artists will be the first ones to buy this, cartoon markets will buy this and when they find out they can only use grey this will be useless.

As far as streaming movies, who wants movies in 256 shades of grey.

When they get 256 colors, then it will be decent, when they get milliosn of colors, then it will be revolutionary.

Re:256 shades of one color is not impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, for f*ck's sake, get a grip and stop being such a whinger.
256 monochrome shades is a damn sight more impressive than anything you've ever created I'll wager

Re:256 shades of one color is not impressive

[phossie]

1. grey is neutral
2. do you want smooth edges, gradients, any subtlety whatsoever? you want 256-shade greyscale.

honestly, i think the most beautiful monitor i've ever used was an old radius full-page greyscale monitor... no eyestrain whatsoever.

Well

[HanzoSan]

We already have the combat gear.
The government has the money to create a few prototypes of anything, problem is, its only a few prototypes and until it costs less than a few billion per suit, or per cloaked aircraft, etc it wont be used in real life situations.

Thats why stealth aircrafts made in 1960-70 are being used in such small numbers even thuogh they are 30 - 40 years old and also why old aircrafts are still being used even thuogh they may be 60 years old.

Egological aspects?

[Jugalator]

What do you need to manufacture large quantities of e-paper?

Since if it uses materials we only have limited amounts of, nothing is gained from an ecological perspective.

I suppose they use more lasting material(s) than wood, but which exactly?

Also, how does one recycle these papers? Do you just burn them? I guess you can just flash their memory, but due to human laziness, enormous amounts will probably be just thrown away, and there has to be a good way of taking care of this. We're, after all, talking about e-papers that may not be too uncommon if they get a breakthrough.

Re:Egological aspects?

[jeti]

Ok. You subscribe to a newspaper for one year.
Instead of dumping some paper into you mailbox
every morning, they send you the electronic
version which is updated every day.

What is more environment friendly?

Re:Egological aspects?

[KarmaBlackballed]

...how does one recycle these papers? Do you just burn them?

Think outside the fireplace. The idea here is that you do not throw them away. We call it paper, but it is really a device. You keep using it until it breaks.

A good analogy to throwing epaper away after reading it is to discard your monitor after reading this slashdot post.

Re:Egological aspects?

[gpinzone]

How do the news stories get uploaded to the paper? The "e-paper" might be light and thin, but a wireless networked computer isn't. What happens when it gets dirty? Breaks? Oh, and what about batteries? They're not exactly environmentally-friendly.

People treat magazines and newspapers as disposable items. It's going to take a serious cultural change for people to treat their periodicals with love and tenderness. Quite frankly, why should they? To replace a highly recyclable product like newspaper?

Follow the money...

[s390]

to figure out how ePaper might actually be used.

Once it becomes reliable and relatively cheap to produce (compared to the dead-tree stuff plus its recurring production and distribution costs), publishers of all stripes will be all over this, mark my words. Eliminating most of those recurring production and distribution costs will drive the adoption of ePaper by publishers (consumers won't pull this, except by choosing lower costs of data delivery). Here's my off the cuff analysis of how the markets will treat this new medium (and I will welcome all comments):

1) Ephemeral publishers - all newspapers, plus the major consumer networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, AOL/TW, FOX, Sky, etc.) will be falling all over each other to offer X pages of ePaper to subscribers, where the cost of the blank "product" will be _inversely_ proportional on a per-page basis to the number of ePages purchased initially (the rationale here will be that the more ePages you buy, the more ads they get to winkle into your "viewing experience" every few hours or each day). Just economics, actually.

2) Periodical publishers - i.e., magazines, see above for the consumer cost and rationale for it. A twist here if one wants a hard copy of an issue, but I'm sure it will be done.

3) Book publishers - limited adoption; when I buy a book I want to own it, dammit. As a consumer of books, I certainly don't want that book I bought to disappear when I buy another one. Here, ePaper will be limited to perusal before purchase of the real thing (bye bye, Borders etc. coffee-shops), but this might stimulate the higher value online presentation of books (cover art, reviews, et al - Amazon, are you listening?). A tricky dimension, verging on the periodical model: Do you want to lease a book for a month? Do you also want an option to buy the real paper version eventually? The marketing models for this will be trial and error (mostly error) initially, but they all _will_ get done.

ePaper is coming, it would seem. One can mourn the Library of Alexandria (lost in a great fire over two thousand years ago), silently revere the generations of medieval monks who doggedly copied the learned manuscripts on parchment, celebrate the invention of the printing press, deplore the recent debasement of popular "information" by the major networks (those mass-media "entertainment" conglomerates), and be wary of this new medium (I will). But maybe that's just my own double-plus-ungood outlook.

Re:Follow the money...

[Gibbys Box of Trix]

It's said that the pr0n industry drove the internet and more noteably the WWW to the position it's in today. It seems likely that e-paper would be a useful addition to the pr0nographer's trade. Moving and changeable erm... articles with the added advantage of being easy to hide and, of course, wipe-clean.

Re:Follow the money...

[s390]

Urm... who said that? Got any quotes or sources? I didn't think so. The Internet isn't mostly pornography (though I'll admit there's a lot of it out there), it's mostly _information_ and _commerce_. If you think otherwise, you're obviously spending too much time surfing one-handed. And how would your vision be any different than now?

Oh, hi honey! Just reading the WSJ on my ePaper. Yeah, it's blank now, I was just switching over to USA Today, they have such insightful and more in-depth editorials.

Yeah, right.

Re:Follow the money...

[Gibbys Box of Trix]

Lol... well there's this which although wasn't exactly what I was thinking of as "driving" is obviously a factor. (I thought that article was a send-up on first reading).

I think what I was getting at is that the online porn industry has driven many innovations, such as pop-ups (I didn't say you had to like it). Here's another article supporting my claim. This one points out some ways in which the online porn business model was adopted by the e-commerce pioneers.

Will it really be cheap?

[reachinmark]

I'm curious - suppose this is a great bit of technology, and it can produce cleaner, sharper images on a much larger "screen" than conventional methods, then surely it would give us the highest quality televisions seen so far, and flatter. It should, quite simply, put all other types of televisions to rest.

Given this, will they really sell it at close to what it costs to make, or are they going charge twice the price of a plasma TV? Are TV prices based more on how much they cost to make, or on the quality of their image reproduction?

nintendo could bounce all over this...

[Cinematique]

add some buttons... and you could have a gameboy-style videogame player!

put a roll of nintendo gameboy paper in your bathroom...

see where i'm going with this?!

... or not

Re:nintendo could bounce all over this...

[egg troll]

Go pluck the dingleberries from your ass, Adam, you English muffin.

Usefullness...

[Per Abich]

I belive this "e-paper" first starts becoming useable (for me) when they bundle it into books, and the only difference from a normal book is that you have a (hidden) plug to upload a new book - I really would hate when I had to have batteries in there. That would spoil my hiking trips far of the next shop where I can get fresh batteries.

Lose the glass

[4thAce]

This will be a whole lot cooler when the flexible media is mounted on a flexible substrate. Otherwise it just looks like another 5cm square LCD display, with low resolution. It should not be too hard to use that flexible plastic they use inside photocopiers to print circuits onto, I should think.

When that happens, I predict that the first commercial application will be in advertising.

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

electronic toilet-paper.

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[mistr]

i was going to comment something along these lines, but with a few minor modifications.

see, the commercial aspects are so strong, i fear what the end-user will se, will be naught but the 24/7 streaming videowalls, the videopanels and the videolabeled clothing. anything that can be used to transmit commercial messages...

what I would like, is that Rorschach mask from Wathcmen... i allways loved that mask.

Reasons why paper replacements are still far away

[TeeWee]

Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?

First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.

Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!

Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.

While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.

And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.

And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.

These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.

schweet

[el'gwato]

I sat through a Toshiba presentation at work the showcased flexible close to credit card thick screens only they were building a processor into the material to make a clipboard style note book. I can't wait till this stuff gets cheep enough to paint my walls with! Imagine coming home and deciding to sprues up the place with a new colour and your favourite art (pr0n) on the walls all with the click of a few buttons.

Paperless? No - but only by preference

[Gibbys Box of Trix]

My office is practically paperless. My inbox is my intray. All my work comes by way of email, electronic change requests or electronic problem reports. Meeting minutes are online. My reference material is all available on the intranet and internet. The documentation for our system is all kept and maintained on a shared drive. Communication is done via email or Instant Message (or vocal of course).

The only stuff I have on paper is a couple of O'Reilly's and some stuff I look at so often it's more practical to have it in a drawer - and that is just printed copies of what's available online.

If I wanted to I could go through my working life here without a single slip of dead tree on my desk.

I hate to admit it, but it's probably that way because of Lotus Notes.

Re:Paperless? No - but only by preference

[station23]

My office is almost the same... but I still print things out occasionally - mainly so that I can put big red ink crosses over them, and write rude remarks about the author... which is somehow much more satisfying with a real pen than a computerised one!

I'll fight this tooth and nail

[empesey]

I hear talk of paperless offices and paperless this and paperless that. Why are we so opposed to paper? As someone who spends 50-60 hours a week on a computer, I need my paper. It's the last bastion of sanity I have left.

I don't want to be permanently attached to cell phones and hand-helds. I keep my to-do list on a little scrap of paper, that neatly fits into my pocket. At the end of the day, it's dutifully thrown into the trash bin. It works just as well as any $160 dollar device, and it never breaks down or crashes. Heck, it's not even bulky like those personal organizers.

Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail

[sydbarrett74]

Why are we opposed to paper? For one thing, it has grave environmental costs. Even with all the recycling of paper (and most of it still gets thrown out), trees still need to get cut down to make virgin pulp, because paper has a limit to how many times it can be recycled (eventually the fibres break down). Not to mention the fact that rather nasty chemicals are used in its production. One may counter that the production of ePaper will involve equally nasty and toxic compounds (after all, electronics manufacturing is one of the dirtiest industries on the planet), but if I produce one unit that will last twenty years, I'm using fewer harmful chemicals than if I produce many millions of pieces of paper, and saving trees in the process. Ever since the advent of the electronic computer, the world's consumption of paper has increased exponentially -- meaning large swathes of virgin forest have to be cut down. This is a trend that NEEDS to be reversed or at least stopped dead in its tracks. I mean, get over it. The argument for the 'feel' of paper and all of that sentimental tosh is a strawman. If I had an ePaper medium that was easy on the eyes, I'd gladly abandon paper for it. Are you going to use the same sentimental argument about cuneiform? 'Boy, that new-fangled paper stuff just doesn't have the "feel" of chiselling into hard slate or granite. I need to keep my sanity by etching runes into this stone here.' Nonsense! If our ancestors could abandon the old in favour of the new, so could we.

Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail

[theaphila]

i'd like to see a comparison of the ecological impact of throwing out a to-do list every day vs. throwing out (and manufacturing) an electronic device every year or two.

Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail

[ballpoint]

I need my (toilet) paper too, but it's not the only bastion of sanity I have.

Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail

[Philbert Desenex]

Why are we so opposed to paper?

I don't think that we (you and I, at least, maybe others) are opposed to paper. It has a lot of advantages: very high resolution, doesn't need a power supply, cheap, for the most part durable, doesn't require a license to re-read, you can make margin notes, and (here's the kicker, I believe) very high standards exist and are commonly upheld for things like typography, typesetting, spelling, and indexing.

"Electronic paper" is mostly an Upper Managment Fantasy. Presidents and CEOs and COOs hope to license content per-viewing, and they have noticed what the record industry does when it changes formats - the record industry ditches unprofitable back catalog. Also, in a new medium, people will expect less. On-line documentation, as an example, is usually not spell-checked, or paginated, and neither table of contents nor index is customary. Corporate Upper Management doesn't want to pay anyone but the janitor and themselves, so they want to ditch those pesky proofreaders, typesetters and most of all those squirrely indexers.

Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be REALLY naive, if you think there's any less ecological impact between developing paper and electronic goods.

More Links

[Jethro73]

Picture and Yahoo! Article.

Jethro73

eBooks require more than ePaper

[cygnusx]

ePaper is fine, but to be viable, eBooks need:

- a convenient, ubiquitous *wireless* network from where books can be purchased/downloaded freely. (no booklover would want to hook up to a ethernet/modem jack on a sunday afternoon to read the Maybe 802.11b?

- enough *free* content to lure early adopters and spread the "ebook culture". Yeah, Project Gutenberg exists and does a fine job, but book publishers (and the music industry as well) has not yet done a good enough job in giving away *recent* content to draw users.

- eBook readers may have to given away on a large scale initially to create demand. This may sound impractical, and yet someone -- maybe the hardware unit makers -- has to do this to create demand.

OTHO, many book publishers -- and book lovers -- may feel that this is not required, since they are quite happy with paper books and paper book sales. eBooks may yet turn out to be a solution to a problem nobody has, imho.

Digital clothes

[Scratch-O-Matic]

...Transparent clothing with smoothly moving semi-transparent areas ....

...She dimmed the lights and slowly turned off her blouse.

Re:Digital clothes

[connorbd]

Mod parent up as (+2, absofreakinlutely hilarious)...

Seriously, though. I do like the whole idea of "holodeck wallpaper", though I would tend to wonder how long it would take to become affordable.

Though I wouldn't buy an epaper book; too iffy.

/Brian

Re:Digital clothes

[gpinzone]

Seriously, though. I do like the whole idea of "holodeck wallpaper", though I would tend to wonder how long it would take to become affordable.

I tried using "holodeck wallpaper" once. Every time I tried to jump on Natalie Portman, I smashed into the wall.

Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?"

It is a little known fact that Marijuana is illegal because Hemp threatened to ruin the textile industry. Indeed, the 'Documentary' "Reefer Madness" was Government funded at the insistance of textile lobbyists, and is widely attributed as the FUD that lead the public to vote the way they did (read the reviews on Amazon to see a few people review the flick who know this, and many more who don't.) At first I was worried something like this might happen with e-paper, until I realized one important fact ...

While the Hemp industry never existed, and therefore couldn't fight back against the FUD, high technology companies have even deeper pockets than the textile industry, and more political connections as well. So this probably will take off eventually, much to the chagrin of the old boys network in the textile industry. I like to think of it as a bit of Karma that has been a long time coming!

Now if we could only educate the public about the truth behind Marijuana's illegality ... where did that thought come from? I definitely must have smoked too much weed when I was younger to think that might ever happen ;^}

Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[sydbarrett74]

There's a second lobby that fought against marijuana too -- the printing industry (how ironic). Someone came up with an economical method to produce hemp paper. However, this would mean printers having to retool their presses. William Randolph Hearst (the billionaire media mogul and Patty Hearst's daddy) lobbied Congress to make marijuana illegal because he didn't want to spend a dime in retooling presses that, to him, were perfectly good at what they did.

Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had also read from a book called "The emperor wears no clothes" that said that the head person at Dupont had a lot to do with making marijuana illegal (he was a bit more scared of the oils that could be made from hemp, much much cheaper then using the normal oils they use in plastics).

Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[Animats]

It is a little known fact that Marijuana is illegal because Hemp threatened to ruin the textile industry.

No way. Hemp just isn't that good a material. Sailing ships used to use hemp rope, but it rots from the inside, looking good until it breaks. It was phased out around the time Moby Dick was written. That's why you won't find hemp rope at the boat supply store. If you need strength, synthetics are far better, and if you want comfort, cotton has a better "hand", or feel.

I notice that the hemp enthusiasts don't also promote jute, sisal, and manila, similar coarse fibres which were also major textile materials a century ago. Wonder why.

Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a rumor involving the tobacco industry, for obvious reasons...

Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might.

[Zero__Kelvin]

" That's why you won't find hemp rope at the boat supply store. If you need strength, synthetics are far better, and if you want comfort, cotton has a better "hand", or feel."

Think 1930s here!!! You won't find Hemp rope because synthetics are better in 2001, and you might not have in the 1930s either, but for a very different reason to be sure. But I actually also meant paper, since that is the subject of this whole thing, and I certainly wouldn't want to be off-topic! Perhaps paper isn't a 'textile', but I am thinking it is.

Also, I wasn't promoting Hemp, merely pointing out how industries can use undue influence to stop a good idea, and then concluding that it wasn't likely to happen here because the bullies of the 1930s are the scared children on the run in 2001.

"Wonder why."

Don't tell me what to do 8^}

E-Paper could bring about social injustice

[wackysootroom]

If e-paper ever becomes standard, only people with computers or access to a computer will be able to write books and letters. If books are distributed digitally, then printed on e-paper, poor people may not be able to afford to read.

The document about the right to read really applies here whether you agree with it or not.

E-paper should go the way of E-toilet paper....
flush it down the toilet.

Re:E-Paper could bring about social injustice

[unorthod0x]

If e-paper ever becomes standard, only people with computers or access to a computer will be able to write books and letters.

I'd be willing to place a wager on e-paper not becoming a standard until everyone has access to a computer anyway. That either means "never" or "in a really long time", as we all know. I don't think this is a realistic concern - after all, everyone on this planet is acutely aware of the advantage that a pencil and piece of paper have over any kind of e-paper, any place, any day. The pulp and paper industry has a long road ahead of them still..

Re:E-Paper could bring about social injustice

[freeweed]

And if books ever became a standard, only people with money and access to stores/libraries would be able to read. Poor people can't afford even the bus ticket to the library (or so activists try to claim in my city).

Guess what? The poor are very rarely that poor that they have *nothing*. E-paper becoming standard sort of implies that it will also become exceedingly cheap. No reason why a person couldn't "check out" an e-book from the library just as easily as they could a dead tree version.

Then again, blaming the technology and not the implementation is one way to ensure that the sky is always falling...

It's not quite like your thinking...

[tweakt]

I've seen this stuff on TV. If this is what I am thinking of, it's not really "electronic" in any way, but more electronically generated. It's nothing more than reusable paper that still needs to be "printed on" by means of eltromagnetic fields.

Essentially what they've done is taken a laser printer and replaced the toner with pixels that are embedded into the paper. That's it.

E-Paper will not fly

[KarmaBlackballed]

I had the opportunity to experiment with a small sample of ePaper and was very disappointed for the following reasons:

1. It was not very reusable. After making one paper airplane, the creases remained very pronounced and at some folds it looked a little cracked.

2. The airplanes I made did not fly very far or well. The material is both heavy and limp.

I cannot imagine ever switching to E-Paper until it is much lighter and stiffer.

Profit for society

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal of copyright is to encourage authors and other artists to create more works. Encouragement is done by giving them exclusive copyrights to the work they create, protected by law, for a limited time.

Distributing a work over the internet without the author's permission or even knowledge isn't just illegal, it's immoral.

And as for that last line, libraries do not republish material, they lend a specific copy. And they *do* pay for the copies they lend out, unless they're donations.

Publishing a file on the Internet is republishing, and *that* is prohibited by law for a specific reason.

(of course, having the 'limited time' being shorter than a human lifespan would be nice)

Re:Profit for society

[stubear]

,blockquote>Publishing a file on the Internet is republishing, and *that* is prohibited by law for a specific reason.

Actually, it's redistribution, but it's illegal none the less. "Artists" or creators of intellectual property have five basic rights concering their intellectual property; make copies, make derivative works, public display, public perforamance and distribution. They can give up all, some or none of these rights for any given period of time. That's how the music industry works. Musicians don't give up their entire copyrights (unless they don't read the contract carefully), they normally give up distribution rights and they share the right to make copies, though they only give up mechanicals here which allows a company to press multiple CDs, cassettes or LPs.

The public only has a couple of rights that were granted through fair use and subsequent litigation to better define fair use. Making copies of a CD to be played in your car stereo is an example of the audio home recording act, an act formed out of better defining fair use. When you give this copy to a friend you have violated fair use and copyright laws.

The digital world creates a number of problems with this system and I find DRM fixes most of these without causing too many problems. I can personally atest to this as I use DRM when copying eBooks and WMA files to my PocketPC. It's simple and painless unless you try to violate copyright laws.

The only drawback is reselling digital media. DRM hasn't been fleshed out enough to allow for this right but give it time. Beaming a file should delete the local copy and hinder any attempt to recopy the file to your system without wiping the whole flash memory (some things DRM won't be able to get around).

Contrary to popular belief, copyright laws protect an artists rights to benefit financially or otherwise from their work. They don;t have to strictly enforce these laws and they can give their work over to the public domain at ANY time. However, this is a choice the IP holder, not the public, should be allowed to make.

Re:Profit for society

[Anonymous Coward]

Encouragement is done by giving them exclusive copyrights to the work they create, protected by law, for a limited time.

In reality however, most Authors are pressed by publishers to write over their copyright.
Also, in my country the copyright does not expire upon death of the author, but it is transferred to the inheritor(s) who can benefit from it another 75 years.

And they *do* pay for the copies they lend out, unless they're donations.

In my country (in Europe) libraries have to maintain statistics which serves the Authors Rights Association as basis for distributing fee to the subscribes Authors.

1984?

[fanatic]

What happens when documents can be changed at will, including copies already 'printed'? Orwell said: "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." If all documents a published on this stuff, a level of control becomes possible that was previously unthought of. Give me documents that are immutable, please.

Re:1984?

[3am]

A 1984 reference. So obligatory... are you really so paranoid that you don't see any practical upside to this technology? And what in the world keeps people from replacing/altering hard copies of historical records?

And all that to the side, it would be impractical to change over record to e-paper from the cost alone. That's assuming most records were in paper form - which they're not. Most of them are already in electronic already and in a database.

Nothing is immutable, and it never will be. So relax and enjoy e-paper.

Re:1984?

[fanatic]

A 1984 reference. So obligatory... are you really so paranoid that you don't see any practical upside to this technology? And what in the world keeps people from replacing/altering hard copies of historical records?

So if the reference is so obligatory, how come I'm the first of several hundred (at least those at >=1) to make it? Yes there are advantages and yes paper can be modified, destroyed or replaced. But think how much easier it when when it's dynamic. Just as hi-res graphics and powerfuil computers are destroying the probative nature of photographs, this trechnology undermines paper evidence. And no, I'm not a Luddite, but I do wonder where we're headed.

Profit for society

[the grace of R'hllor]

Let's try this while logged in:

The goal of copyright is to encourage authors and other artists to create more works. Encouragement is done by giving them exclusive copyrights to the work they create, protected by law, for a limited time.

Distributing a work over the internet without the author's permission or even knowledge isn't just illegal, it's immoral.

And as for that last line, libraries do not republish material, they lend a specific copy. And they *do* pay for the copies they lend out, unless they're donations.

Publishing a file on the Internet is republishing, and *that* is prohibited by law for a specific reason.

If the law said that any author who wrote a work would not be allowed to profit from it, how many good authors do you think there'd be left?

(of course, having the 'limited time' being shorter than a human lifespan would be nice)

Can you say adobe? Adoh-bee..

[Anonymous Coward]

Aaaahhhh!! I hate it when people say "Can you say _______?" Um... yes, in fact I can. I WILL KICK YOU IN THE TEETH!!!

Nice to know. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

that my story was accepted so readily.

I found a nearly identical article on Excite yesterday, December 5th, at around 3 pm. I submitted it soon thereafter.

I log onto Slashdot this morning and see that nearly 12 hours later someone else gets the post.

Nice job Slashdot.

The Nugget

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[battjt]

5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps

If you can get good enough sensors to feed the screens plus color screens, then yes, this is a very realistic possibility.

Uhm, no. The thing would have to project different views to different perspectives.

Joe

No, why does it have to be flexible?

[babymac]

I too can't understand why all of the researchers seem to be so stuck on the flexibility of these displays.

Think about it: Are hardcover books flexible? No. When you've got an electronic page...one that by its very definition is capable of being refreshed...is it necessary to create a device with more than ONE page? No.

OK, so you want to put a display on clothing. Now it needs to be flexible. But why worry about that? Getting cheap, more environmentally friendly alternatives to paper in the marketplace should be the first focus.

what happens when batteries run low ?

[Anonymous Coward]

what happens when batteries run low ?
everything loaded onto it will cease to exist.

They have that!

[Magnusite]

Regarding your request for nonvolatile displays, they already have that! Check this for details. For those who don't want to leave slashdot, here is the relevant portion.

Low Power-- Electronic ink is a real power miser. It displays an image even when the power is turned off and it's even legible in low light reducing the need for a backlight. This can significantly extend battery life for portable devices.

But I am also looking forward to OLED technology, because of the fast switching times and full color. Now if only they can get the lifetimes of the displays up...

Re:They have that!

[vscjoe]

Well, yes--that was what I was referring to. E-ink is actually a comparative latecomer. The original electronic paper is probably Gyricon, which was created some time in the 1980s.

The problem with both E-ink and Gyricon is that it's still hard to get high resolution, pixel-addressable displays. But they have a good shot--unlike all the LCD and OLE technologies, they need no active elements per pixel, since the medium itself stores the image.

Oh really?

[HanzoSan]

Ok, how much money would it take to create? As far as ideas i can think of a million better ideas than making some paper with 256 diffrent colors of grey.

Diffrence? They have money, I dont.

Ideas are worthless without money to create a prototype.

Profit for Sonny Bono

[yerricde]

Encouragement is done by giving them exclusive copyrights to the work they create, protected by law, for a limited time.

Limited? Every 20 years, the US Congress accepts $6 million from Disney employees and amends copyright law to extend all terms by 20 more years. They get away with this because courts currently consider "the lifetime of the universe less one day" a valid limit because they don't consider the preamble "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" to limit the power of Congress in any way. For more info, see Eldred v. Ashcroft.

Distributing a work over the internet without the author's permission or even knowledge isn't just illegal, it's immoral.

How is an author morally entitled to royalties 50 years after the author is dead and buried in the ground?

libraries do not republish material, they lend a specific copy.

What is the digital equivalent of such an action?

(of course, having the 'limited time' being shorter than a human lifespan would be nice)

Nice, but unless you have more than $6 million to bribe Congress to repeal the Bono Act, it's not gonna happen.

Re:Profit for Sonny Bono

[truesaer]

How is an author morally entitled to royalties 50 years after the author is dead and buried in the ground?

A major problem here is that you're not distinguishing between really old books, and brand newly published ones. So, where is the cutoff line where its ok to redistribute someone's copyright?

Re:Profit for Sonny Bono

[cheese_wallet]

The digital equivalent of such an act would be, for example, the lending of a CD to another person. Not making a copy, but lending them the original that you own and paid for.

How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[yerricde]

A major problem here is that you're not distinguishing between really old books, and brand newly published ones. So, where is the cutoff line where its ok to redistribute someone's copyright?

The purpose of copyright (often ignored even by the courts) is to reward creation. A work should fall into the public domain once the author has been given a reasonable chance to receive a reward for creating the work. How is twenty-eight years (as specified in the original Copyright Act of 1790) not a reasonable chance?

How can an author receive anything after the author is dead?

I also have issues over control of derivative works such as fan fiction, but that's another discussion.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[testharness]

Why not just the life time of the author?

If we are talking about fiction, then it is only ( and nothing more than ) entertainment! If I write a book today, and someone is entertained by it in 40 years time, why shouldn't I still be rewarded?

Being rewarded after my death does push it a bit far - but then and again, if I had any kids to leave the rights to, I might have a different opinion.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[poemofatic]

If I write a book today, and someone is entertained by it in 40 years time, why shouldn't I still be rewarded?

You make it sound as if some sugarplump(C) fairy were to descend and drop coins onto your pillow. This "reward" of yours depends on a powerful and undemocratic IP regime. Sklyarov (a Russian) is in jail for violating a U.S. law. There are ongoing efforts to "subtract" functionality from computers. Harry Potter fan sites are shut down, The Church of Scientology has shutdown websites which criticize its practices and quote from Hubbard's diary entries. Rock fans can't post lyrics of their favorite songs. The right of first sale is being undermined, Internet protocols, file formats, data standards (i.e. CD) are being deliberately broken. ISP's are being harassed with lawyer-spam cease-and-desist notices. Individual users, who often can't afford a lawyer, are bullied into shutting down legal websites. Linking to "circumvention" material is now outlawed. Biographies are surpressed because the family (which inherits the "rights" of the subject) threaten to sue authos who excerpt letters or journals. All to protect the copyright regime. See, most of the world doesn't think in terms of you getting "a reward" -- they understand that they are being screwed.

And instead of dreaming of coins rattling on your pillow, you should be on their side.

The commons is important. Shakespeare would not have written half his stuff if similar IP laws were enforced then. He "borrowed" almost all of his plot lines from recently published books or histories. And he didn't buy "the rights" to those works -- he just used them. Be glad he did. When we have a large and growing commons from which authors can draw, it improves literature.

Also, almost all (say 90%) of revenues from median books are made in the first 2 years of publication. If there was no copyright which lasted more than 2 years, we would keep 90% of the money which currently flows to artists. If that number is extended to, say, 10 years, then over 99% of book revenue would be protected. But there would be additional revenue from the new works which are not possible due to a shrinking commons. There would be additional revenue from new distribution models. If data formats and hardware remain open and functional, then even the little guys might stand a chance of self publishing without registering for some XYZcorp "bookGuard" which costs thousands of dollars. More authors, more books, at least as much money as today.


Finally, the problem here with the self-styled "content-providers" I talk to is not that they really believe they are being ripped off or that they will make less money in a world with less copyrights. They just have a basic and fundamental issue with anyone enjoying or benefitting from their work without them getting paid. So I surf to some guys homepage, and he has some photos of flowers and a beach. At the bottom, he writes, (c) blah blah. Now, fantasies aside, either no one will download those pics and pass them around, or someone will and wont pay him for it. Either way he's not getting paid. But it hurts this web "author" that someone somewhere is enjoying his work for free. Imagine if everyone took that approach? What if the gardener copyrighted his contribution to that beach scene? And the guys who cleaned up the trash? How about the architect of the light house in the background -- why shouldn't he be cut in on the action? Perhaps we should wear devices on our eyes to prevent us from enjoying the fruits of others' labor -- without an instantaneous micropayment being sent to their bank account.

Do you see my point? You are not entitled to a cash reward for all instances of people enjoying your work. There must be limits.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[zzyzx]

**The commons is important. Shakespeare would not have written half his stuff if similar IP laws were enforced then. He "borrowed" almost all of his plot lines from recently published books or histories. And he didn't buy "the rights" to those works -- he just used them. Be glad he did. When we have a large and growing commons from which authors can draw, it improves literature.**

That's great for Shakespeare, but I imagine the people who wrote the books weren't too thrilled. Sure the ever expanding copyright period destroys the commons. However, no copyright period would have the same effect.

If I were a 16th century writer, my interest in working on books would be lessened, knowing that anything really cool would just be usurped by Shakespeare.

I can speak from experience here, because I have had work ripped off. I helped contribute to an online resource. Other people took that work, printed it out, made a book out of it, and sold it, taking credit for it. While in this case there was no legal recourse for us (facts can't be compromised), later projects I worked on were written to be harder to rip off - even if the functionality suffered. There has to be some middle ground or writers and researchers will just get frustrated and stop.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[zzyzx]

Hmmmmmmm maybe I should have read the rest of the comment, rather than the paragraph that annoyed me.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I write a book today, and someone is entertained by it in 40 years time, why shouldn't I still be rewarded?

If you write a book today, and inject into the public forum via publication, why should society allow you to have the power of the state behind you indefinitely as you monopolize your bit of the public forum?

That's a rhetorical question; the answer is the copyright quid pro quo. Society grants you the benefits of copyright protection because the new work is being published, thereby benefitting society. In other words, you get the benefits of copyright at the cost of publication.

And "published" means "make public", which necessarily involves a loss of total control as the work enters the culture. If you want to absolutely control your work, don't publish, sell licenses - if there's enough demand you'll make money despite the marketing inconveniences; if there's not enough demand, why is that society's problem?

If congress wasn't so fucking corrupt, they'd read the constitution and realize it's their duty to tune the copyright laws for maximum benefit to society, rather than maximum benefit to the publisher...

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[mmol_6453]

How can an author receive anything after the author is dead?

Easy...whoever inherits the right to receive royalties gets the money. Legally, the heir is the same person as the author, for that specific situation.

Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?

[testharness]

You make it sound as if some sugarplump(C) fairy were to descend and drop coins onto your pillow.

No, you make it sound as though thats what it takes to write a novel, wake up one morning, and there it is. Well, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.

Sklyarov (a Russian) is in jail for violating a U.S. law.

And this has what to do with copyright? He is not in jail because he breached a copyright - he is in jail because he broke another ( and I think you will agree, a stupid ) law, perhaps you should do a search on /. if you are unfamiliar with the case.

The right of first sale is being undermined

And what god given right is this, perhaps one granted by the same undemocratic regime that gives authors copyright?

Internet protocols, file formats, data standards (i.e. CD) are being deliberately broken.

Not sure what internet protocols, or file formats are being broken - perhaps you could enlighten me. As for the CDs, yes they are being broken - but that has nothing to do with the artists right to be rewarded or not for their work - it has to do with the way the publishers are enforcing the right, not the right itself.

Individual users, who often can't afford a lawyer, are bullied into shutting down legal websites. Linking to "circumvention" material is now outlawed.
Again, what has any of this got to do with copyright? Lawyers have been bullying individuals since way before the internet started, and for any reason under the sun, as long as they get paid - nothing to do with copyright!

See, most of the world doesn't think in terms of you getting "a reward" -- they understand that they are being screwed.
And what do you base that comment on? Do you have some research to back this up - probably not. However, if you look at how most of the world behaves you will see that most people do not break the law. They go into a book store, see a book by their favourit author and pick it up. They may look at the price and think it isn't worth it and put it down again. Most people do not put it in their pocket and walk out without paying. They understand the 'reward' the author gets.

Also, almost all (say 90%) of revenues from median books are made in the first 2 years of publication.
Source?

There would be additional revenue from new distribution models.
This theory is what drove the .com boom. New distribution / business models. However, as you may be aware most of these new models did not work! However, because you don't beleive there should be copyright involved, how is additional revenue going to be earned? Perhaps you mean additional revenue for publishers, of one sort or another, who would not have to pay the authors for their work.
You then talk about open data formats - well copyright is not stoping anyone from developing an open data format / secure or not, for publishing purposes, and the little guy can 'self publish' if he wishes. There is nothing stoping him, except, as you say the cost. But there will always be costs incurred. He will either be able to recover those costs or not. There are 2 things that will help him -

1. The quality of the work ie will people enjoy it.
2. His copyright over the work.
If the work is good, and people enjoy it, there may be a return. However, if the copyright is reduced and after a few years he has no rights on it at all ( ie anyone can copy it ) then the chances of making a return are reduced. Now, how does that help with increasing the number of authors / books? Simple, it doesn't! In fact it is the exact opposite!

You propose to limit the financial reward to authors. The simple economics of the western world ( and I'm assuming that your not a Bin Ladin supporter, so you should understand this ) means that, perhaps, some authors will not be able to write full time, and it will be far more difficult for new authors to be published at all, whether self published or not.

So, you argue that reducing copyright will increase the number of authors / books, when you argument supports the opposite.

Why don't you just admit it. You do not want to pay for it that's it, something for nothing. Simple!

Windowless cars - that won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can have windowless cars that are completely safe because the inside can be plastered with Closed Circuit pictures of what's outside."

- er, unless you've only got one eye left, you're forgetting about the safest aspect of having windows instead of a flat-screen - it's called tridimensionnal and depth perception...

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[unorthod0x]

1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls

Just give it time.. Here in Toronto we are already being submitted to huge, full-colour video ads in several key locations throughout the city. Granted, it's not e-paper, but it's big, bright and fast moving and obviously affordable enough for the companies to go through with using. It's no longer hard to try to imagine what the city would look like with 'bladerunner' sytle ads.

My main observation on these video walls - they look great, but are very distracting - especially when they're running PS2 ads with in-game videos showing all types of stunning imagery at what looks like 60fps.. I've been late more often than once on starting on a green light when driving because my vision naturally gravitates toward the bright flashy ads. If the whole city were covered with these things I think I'd be tripping over my own feet :)

you're not very convincing

[Anonymous Coward]

"There may be a downside" does NOT mean "I don't see any practical upside". You've deliberately rephrased what he said so you make your point.

pgp for ebooks

[simpl3x]

an author key could prevent unauthorized modification. with a cross linking xml-ish markup, a correction could be proposed, and the author could note or search for correction markups and make the change. do you really want to download everything? gotta luv the point at which we seem to be stuck technologically. people don't want to pay for anything, and nobody wants to just give stuff away...

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, there are plenty of uses for plain old paper printed with flat black, and even more with 256 shades of gray. This stuff isn't paper. It's a flexible, paper thin display. That alone is amazing. Think back into the not so distant past and look at CRT monitors: 2 colors. A few years later there were LCD screens: 2 colors. Fast forward about 15 years, and look at our CRT and LCD screens. It's a step, and a big one.

Idiot.

What I really wanna see...

[Noofus]

Is something like an 8.5x11 sheet of this stuff on a sturdy clip board - with some memory. This way I can take class notes and such, and have it simply record my pen strokes. Dont bother trying to interpret what I write. Then when I fill a page - hit a store button that saves what I did and clears off the page for me.

I guess I want to see something like those "note pads" on star trek TNG....

Re:What I really wanna see...

[connorbd]

Er... padds have existed since Apple shipped the Newton. I have one in my pocket; it's called a Palm IIIx.

The only difference between what you're talking about and my PalmPilot is that your idea would be more expensive, but otherwise essentially identical. Though admittedly an epaper screen would be easier to read...

/Brian

Ifs and buts

[Pope]

It's not as if I would have necessarily "compensated you for your time" by buying your book if it had NOT been available for free on the net.

Oh, please. This ex post facto compensation argument is tired and quite frankly doesn't make any sense. It's like listening to an entire album before buying it: are you that afraid of taking chances that you want all your purchasing decisions to be 100% safe?!

The net hasn't been around THAT long. Do what we used to do back in the old days of the 1980s and early 1990s: read fucking reviews.

Re:Ifs and buts

[spankfish]

Do what we used to do back in the old days of the 1980s and early 1990s: read fucking reviews.

How about an emphatic NO, for starters. Book reviewers, and ESPECIALLY movie reviewers, aren't worth the time you waste reading their pontifications, because invariably what they consider to be an amazing , life-changing experience, I'll consider dull, unoriginal crap.

Let's slowly and painfully state the overly obvious:

It's all subjective. I'd much rather get a reccommendation from a friend with similar tastes and intelligence levels to mine, or better still borrow that book/cd/movie/software/x from my friend and try before I buy.

Take the case of music CDs. Say my friend reccommends a CD and I go out and buy it, take it home and find that it turns out to in fact be drivel from my point of view, then I'm kinda screwed. The record company has got my money for a product I don't even want, because I can't get a refund for an opened package. If I can borrow that CD for a while, or even (Loki forbid!) download a few tracks to check them out, then I have more of a basis for a rational purchasing decision, according to my tastes. And that's how it should be.

Would you buy a car without test-driving it?

Well damn

[wbav]

The thing's made out of plastic. How to I staple or three hole punch the damn thing?

Almost there

[GedLandsEnd]

In reality, not too much has changed over the last hundred years - printing on paper is printing on paper. In a few years though, "e-paper" could catch up - and even be a true breakthrough.

I can't see it replacing most books, mostly because many enjoy the feel of a book - but how many read (and unread) magazines, newspapers, and catalogs are sitting around the house? How much paper is wasted in people throwing them out?

If it's simple, low-cost and very readable, having these items on the e-paper would be fantastic.

And yes, that would open up the door to all kinds of stupidity. Can you imagine - "please enter your visa number to extend your rental of this issue of Time"...

Re:Reasons why paper replacements are still far aw

[ChenLing]

Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?

Ahh, but we *will* get there eventually, and probably soon (soon == 5 to 10 years)

First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.

Go look at the tech from E-Ink. Their tech have the same contrast as normal paper (since they use pigments (ie, ink) embedded in sheets.

Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!

I'm sure it's easy to create an overlay -- one that you plug in to your e-paper and put on top of it. A touch screen that you can use to "write" on the e-paper. Later on they might make special pens that can change the state of the e-paper -- creating marks or erasing them.

Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.

True, but if you can reuse it, to total cost of ownership might be less. Think about why people own cars instead of calling a cab every time -- the cost of each cab ride is MUCH MUCH less than a car + storage of the car + gas + insurance + repairs, yet people buy a lot of cars anyways. If I pay a fixed amount for the special equipment to write/erase these things (a fixed cost, amortized over time), and suppose I pay $10 per sheet (I'm sure it'll get less than this with mass production), then I'd much rather use one of these than a $0.01 sheet of paper. Even if the final cost per sheet is more, the less impact on the environment (creating the paper, stores having to ship truckloads of it around, disposing of trash) is more than worth it.

While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.

True. This problem is already happening w/ CDs and soon movies. It will probably be "solved" one way or the other (new business model or draconian laws) by the time the book publishers have to really worry about it.

And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.

E-Ink's paper supposedly feels just like paper (or very close), so people will get used to it. You can fold it, bend it, roll it into a loop, make paper airplanes (although another poster does not think it makes a very good airplane :) ).

And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.

There is already a federal standard for electronic signatures. I'm sure that in the future, we'll be able to "sign" documents using biometric technology (a unique signature given our voice or fingerprint or blood sample, etc).

These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.

I'm sure one day people of the Earth will be saying, "You know the ancients use to write on sheets of flattened, strained, chemically processed wood pulp? How did their civilization ever survive under all that waste is beyond me.".

Also, in reply to those who says that their e-paper has to be low power....E-Ink's tech does not require power to display the content (it is just pigments suspended in solution)! It only needs power when changing the contents of the paper (which is supplied by the interface).

I have electronic paper, and I love it

[D. J. Bernstein]

Excellent contrast. Enough pixels to display dozens of long lines of readable text. The image changes at the push of a button. I can use this e-paper to see the latest news or to read my mail, exactly as Neal Stephenson predicted.

The device is fairly expensive, and it does draw some power, but the costs are not a big part of my yearly budget.

The manufacturer, some company called Compaq, has dropped the standard e-paper terminology. Instead they call this device a laptop. Catchy name, I think.

I've started using this e-paper to look at product catalogs. I've heard that it's even possible to place orders through the e-paper. Can you believe it? E-paper shopping! Amazing.

Several companies are racing to develop e-paper that's just as easy to read but isn't as expensive and doesn't draw as much power. I'm sure I'll switch once the new e-paper is available. But I want to emphasize the fact that current e-paper is already quite affordable. Go to your local hardware store and buy a Compaq laptop today!

Fear not

[zeus_tfc]

I hear talk of paperless offices and paperless this and paperless that. Why are we so opposed to paper? As someone who spends 50-60 hours a week on a computer, I need my paper. It's the last bastion of sanity I have left.

I don't think you have to worry. We have an office that strove (strived?) to be paperless, and it doesn't work. We have all our controlled documents stored electronically and accessible through our intranet. We post (useless) company announcements through e-mail. We even have an electronic bridge with one of our customers through SDRC Ideas to send drawings and CAD data.

We produce TONS of paper. We still have to print things out to have them signed, and NOBODY want to stare at a computor screen to check over drawings or QS paperwork. It all gets printed out and marked up in pen. Throw them away, and print them out again. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. We print out 3'x4' drawings, mark 'em up with a red pencil, throw them away, print 'em out again. Electronic paper would not change a thing.

I suppose if we were really commited to creating a paperless company we could do much better, emailing documents, electronic signatures, etc. but the company as a whole has only made a token effort, and in the process made MORE paper waste than we had before.
Please note that when I say "throw out" I mean "recycle" for the most part. But, as one of my co-workers states, it is not worth our time to be continually walking to the recycle bin, so things do get thrown out.

Not again

[Anonymous Coward]

E-paper will be the next "almost, almost, uh, not yet" Big Thing, just like e-books, the paperless office, truly secure MS software, and Linux on the desktop. In other words, don't hold your breath.

Re:First Post

[geigertube]

I dont know if cheap, easy to make, displays are so great. Imagine video as ubiquitous as print. Animated everything. If billboards and other public ads are bad now, wait until they are done in video. Yuck.

ray guns, geodesic domes

[WillWare]

Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?

Once I mentioned Lisp to a process engineer, and he said: "Just like gallium arsenide! It's the technology of the future, and it always will be!"

Why not put them in laptops?

[Choco-man]

if they're so cheap and have such good quality, lets get rid of the most expensive part of the laptop and get those prices to come down..

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[Eccles]

Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls

Times Square (among other places) is already rather like this, isn't it?

No rights to profit on most of Earth

[shepd]

>If I write a book, and get it published, I have a right to be financially rewarded for my creative work.

[sarcasm on] And if I create software and get it published, I have the right to be financially rewarded for it. If I don't get financially rewarded for it then I suppose I have the right to sue people into buying the software. [/sarcasm]

You haven't a clue about business.

In business, you make products that people want to buy. This means if your book sucks or is over-priced people won't buy it and you lose.

I don't weep for you any more than I would weep if the X-Box didn't make it. If your book isn't being sold its because of one of these basic marketing ideas:

- Your book sucks.
- Your book costs too much
- Your book delivers too little
- The competition's book is better
- The restrictions you put on the book's use have scared people away
- Your book isn't written in the same language of those you are targetting
- etc.

Common, do it, sue me for not buying your book. I really need a laugh. That and I really need some $$$ countersuing someone for a frivilous lawsuit.

Oh, and if people are making digital copies of your book then this is why:

- They are cheap and wouldn't have bought it to start with
- They found your book somewhat useful but you wanted more than they wanted to spend
- They looked at it for a few minutes and didn't even bother saving it because it sucked

As far as cheap people go, you'll never make money off them. They'd do without rather than buy your book. Don't believe me? Ask how many home users of MS Office 2k would buy it at its opening price of $800.

If you want sales and aren't getting any, give a few copies to your friends and get them to write some margin notes and actually (gasp!) make the book into something they would want to buy.

>without people buying books these people will all be out of a job.

Sorry to hear your job will be replaced in the 21st century. I guess you're joining all the office clerks who weren't needed when computers replaced their jobs.

Maybe you should either consider a career change or a market change if the future scares you.

>You know, every time I hear someone parrot "Information wants to be free" I translate it as "I want everything handed to me on a plate and I shouldn't have to pay for it".

You know, ever time I hear someone say they have the right to be compensated for their time I translate it as "My company makes a crappy product and no one is buying it so our best business plan is to force them to buy it with laws!".

Re:Reasons why paper replacements are still far aw

[rabidcow]

epaper = paper replacement?

Most of the epaper stuff I've seen *are* paper, with two differences:
1. you can change its content electronically
2. you probably don't want to write on it with ink

So let's see...
"conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes" no problem, this looks just like paper
"you can just write on printed pape" ah, well... you'd need a special stylus & it wouldn't quite be the same
"Cost is also an issue" yes, but that's constantly changing
"People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books" that depends -- why would you put an io port on an "ebook"? Make each book out of one sheet of epaper, only allow access to it from that sheet. Only way to copy is with a photocopier. (or with hacking the hardware, but that's much more difficult than software)
"people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands" check. Physical, if not exactly the same.
"some documents need to be physical to have legal status" They're working on that, and I'm afraid.

Personally, I don't want epaper to replace paper, I want it to replace my monitor. A poster sized display that's easy on the eyes? Heck yeah!!

It's easy.

[Xiphoid Process]

If the author PGP signs his or her work, then you can be sure of its authenticity. In fact, e-paper will make this much much easier to be sure that a publishing house hasn't introduced typos, or worse, censored the author.

Re:It's easy.

[fanatic]

If the author PGP signs his or her work, then you can be sure of its authenticity.

No, all you can be sure of is that someone with access to the private key you think belongs to the author has signed it. The record companies have used their oligopoly power to make all but the most famous and powerful sign away the rights to their music. If this catches on in other branches of the publishing world, the publishers, not the authors, would have the signing keys. Or the publishers would have a contract with the authors requiring the authors to sign whatever the publishers dictate. There are solutions, but technology by itself isn't necessarily it.

ludite.

[Anonymous Coward]

go move to montana jackass.

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[phossie]

The thing would have to project different views to different perspectives.

This is probably not as difficult as it seems, at least for 2 dimensions (eg, side to side) - of course, since I'm saying that, it's also far more difficult than *I* expect it to be. Remember those changing pictures, where slices of related pictures are interleaved with each other, then overlayed with a rumpled prismatic surface?

reduce is the key here...

[SethJohnson]

Like that other respondent, I'd like to point out that although ePaper may be thrown away, it may mean less paper is thrown away.

Take magazines as an example. A lot of those womens' magazines on the newstand are as thick as the Manhattan yellowpages. If they were made with ePaper, they'd only be one sheet thick. We'd benefit from that many trees not getting turned into paper and then thrown away due to the human laziness you cited. We'd also benefit from reduced transportation costs.. Instead of a big diesel truck hauling those magazines to the grocery store, they could be hauled behind one of those Segway scooters (heh-heh).Or perhaps they could be 'recycled' by bringing them back to the store and paying to load up some other magazine. Or, of course, the transaction could occur over the internet.

In any case, I am betting that Adobe is creaming its shorts over this technology.

Irony

[freeweed]

What's ironic here is not only that this gets modded up to "interesting", when it's basically the same comment that's made every single /. story on some form of new tech. What's really ironic is that in 1984, document forgery was carried out on ... wait for it... PAPER!

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[darkPHi3er]

1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls

This will definitly come to be - specially if producing large surfaces of e-paper is cheap enough. Then again, having moving images all around you might be a bit of a sensory overload ...

In a sense, i cheated here, most downtowns are already chock a block with video, in store windows and on the tops and sides of buildings, neon, spot lighted displays and Mitsu Jumbotrons and local merchants using LED/LCD displays for their own purposes...epaper will just help organize and increase the deployment rate, as it is less intrusive than putting up a jumbotron....the sensory overload is already bad in some american cities, yes, it will get worse

2. Guess, Gap, Gucci, Hillfiger, Lauren, et al incorporating streaming logo displays in clothing

Transparent clothing with smoothly moving semi-transparent areas ....

as the costs of this stuff scales down, you will have clothing with lots of panel and not much fabric, you can use the panels to mimic fabrics and other textures; scales, skin from other creatures, your desktop wallpaper, your grandbaby's face, whatever...imagine the lawsuits that are gonna happen with this technology

3. Functional PDA's that are wearable and shapeable to specialized applications

The problem here is how to input data and give commands to the PDA. An actual flexible screen is probably a no-no for most applications (imagine reading your newspaper with no hands - not very practical)

certain people are aleady working on various types of virtual keyboards (one of these companies won a "Best of COMDEX" Award last month, the Virtutech Simics - Way Cool http://www.virtutech.com -- you could have a wrist bracelet PDA screen with the processor/hardware in a bracelet watch combo connected with wireless

4. Rooms that can be turned in SensorySurround MM experiences with 5.1 or DTS or DolbyPro, throw in a DVD or IMAX experience, talk about "Immersive"!!

If the wide e-paper surfaces are made cheaply maybe. The problem here is either big pixels (small number of pixels - big surface) or lack of storage and bandwidth (lots of pixels, lots of data - to keep the same pixel-size, the number of pixels increases roughly with the square of the diagonal, and so does the ammount of data)

Absolutely True --- a combination of Moore's Law and "spoofing" background textures they way games do now will provide some solutions here, until such environments can determine your "area of focus"..you don't need great detail in those areas behind/to the side of you

5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps

If you can get good enough sensors to feed the screens plus color screens, then yes, this is a very realistic possibility.

and currently being worked on in the NL's, it won't be "invisibility" or anything like it, but, even in the 1stGen products it will take tactical camoflage to new levels of effectives (and drive the overhead's CRAZY)..imagine a "tarp" of this stuff covering a tank or a combat fuel depot, mimicing the surrounding terrain, with the tarp also being an emi/rfi shield???

6. Completely accurate training environments for many, many "environmentally difficult" training situations from fire/rescue, law enforcement, combat, flight, driving, to Wall Street Trading Floor Simulations...WHOO DOGGIE!

Preparing for high-stress situations wich happen in non-controled environments (an airplane cockpit is a controled environment) requires not only quality imaging but also other inputs such as sound, smell, temperature - imagine training fireman - some of the most inportant inputs for an experienced fireman come from the senses of smell (smoke), sound (a wooden beam starting to break) and touch (feeling burning hot air coming from a certain direction).

the modern commerical flight simulators already provide most of the necessary environmental factors and when you consider the military flight training sims for the Shuttle and fighter craft (i've heard the F-18 and F-117A sims are remarkably life like), we pretty much have most of this paradigm defined and explored, once epaper is delivered, it's up to the biz types to deliver viable products

in your excellent firefighting example, using the "projection" type of training rooms already in existence for law enforcement and the military, how hard would it be for a company like WED (Disney Imageneering) to add many of the olfactory and tactile elements as they do right now in their theme parks?

perfect???? of course not, but quite a bit better than what we have now....a step forward is just that

Casinos

[MrResistor]

Casinos are the first places you're likely to see e-paper. When I worked at a printing company a few years ago I helped with some of the R&D for developing ways to print electrolumanescent inks with silkscreens. We already worked with conductive inks used in touchpads, and the money the slot-machine manufacturers were willing to pay someone who could mass-produce that sort of thing was ridiculous. I heard rumors of standing orders offering $200 per page (The average order was something like $2-10 per, depending on number of colors and material. Printing on metal was more expensive since it tore up the screens.)

Anyway, slot machines are how whoever pulls this off first is going to recoup their R&D investment. You'd be amazed how many of the strips that go around the wheels they seem to need!

Once the processes are developed and the initial ramp-up is done, the prices should fall pretty fast.

get lost reason boy!

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you know this is slashdot, land of bullshit paranoia?

Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER

[darkPHi3er]

Uhm, no. The thing would have to project different views to different perspectives

i'm not saying that the 1stGen of this will be "adaptive", it won't...as you implied, that's way beyond anything we understand now about perspective presentation

it will "mimic" specific local surrounds, so you'll take on textures, colors, backgrounds, prob with user input, this will basically be a "nighttime" technology, where a SpecOp/Sniper will select his own "localized" camo...mimic a local; tree, bush, rock, whatever

the ghillie suit is designed to break up those "regular, symmetrical shapes" (which form the base of nightime vision for humans), this will be a ghillie suit that's somewhat more adaptable to local surroundings...it will NOT adaptively morph with movement, that's still sci-fi

Thinking outside the fireplace

[KarmaBlackballed]

1) How do the news stories get uploaded to the paper?

Flat bed device, or keep a small stack of them in a feeder bin to something that looks like a fax machine/printer. When you have something to "print" it prints it on the epaper.

2) The "e-paper" might be light and thin, but a wireless networked computer isn't.

The epaper itself has no electronics, only small pixel balls that get rotated to make pictures/text. The rotating is done by an external device. The epaper keeps the balls positioned without requiring electronics.

3) What happens when it gets dirty?

What happens when your laptop screen gets dirty? You wipe it clean.

4) Breaks?

Throw it away and get a new one.

5) Oh, and what about batteries?

No batteries or plugs for the paper itself. See #2 above.

6) They're not exactly environmentally-friendly.

What do you mean?

Re:Thinking outside the fireplace

[gpinzone]

>1) How do the news stories get uploaded to the paper?
>
Flat bed device, or keep a small stack of them in a feeder bin to something that looks like a fax machine/printer. When you have something to "print" it prints it on the epaper.

Who's paying for all this? Now I need a piece of hardware to read the news? I think I'll stick with pulp or just surf to CNN.

>2) The "e-paper" might be light and thin, but a wireless networked computer isn't.
>
The epaper itself has no electronics, only small pixel balls that get rotated to make pictures/text. The rotating is done by an external device. The epaper keeps the balls positioned without requiring electronics.

I thought the advantage of newspapers made with epaper would be they could be updated hourly with the day's news. I mean, from a marketing standpoint, you are going to have to include some value-added services other than "here's the same thing as a regular newspaper...only more complicated!" I suppose if these external devices were located throughout the city where people could "dock" their e-paper for an update, it might work. But that sounds awfully expensive.

>3) What happens when it gets dirty?
>
What happens when your laptop screen gets dirty? You wipe it clean.

I don't know how resilient the material they plan on using will be, but if it's going to be cost-effective (i.e., cheap), I don't think it's going to last very long based on how people currently treat their newspapers. Besides, who wants to clean coffee stains and doughnut crumbs out of their newspaper every day?

>4) Breaks?
>
Throw it away and get a new one.

That's an awfully broad statement that could be applied to anything. "My computer is broken." "Throw it away and get a new one." The costs, which are not well defined yet, will have a lot to do with this as an option. Not to mention point #6...

>5) Oh, and what about batteries?
>
No batteries or plugs for the paper itself. See #2 above.

Depends on how they implement it. Okay, replace the word "batteries" with "additional hardware."

>6) They're not exactly environmentally-friendly.
>
What do you mean?

This e-paper is most likely going to involve non-biodegradable materials. Paper is great because it's relatively easy to recycle and biodegrades quite nicely. The same cannot be said of e-paper.

In New York, the use of credit card sized MetroCards (mag-stripe fare cards) have grown significantly. People use them instead of a metal tokens to get on the bus or subway because of the special value-added fare perks (e.g., subway to bus transfers, 10% bonus on $15+ purchases, etc.). The card is supposed to be reusable, but since the Transit Authority doesn't charge anything for a new card, it becomes a disposable commodity. If you walk into the subways in New York, you will usually see MetroCards littered about the place. Shame, really.

Neal did it!

[jeti]

Here's a quote from the Scientific American article:

This prototype of what is now being marketed as SmartPaper...

The term SmartPaper is straight from Neal Stephensons "The Diamond Age".
Again, a SciFi author has changed our language.

fa!

[Anonymous Coward]

A mature version of this technology could get rid of the stigma of being "another introverted techie who surfs the web too much". "Bookworms" get a little more respect.

Re: Robust

[Jebediah21]

Only a programmer would refer to paper as robust.

Military use

[Splezunk]

I just had a thought!

What if you make clothes completely out of colour epaper, and have a couple of small little cameras placed around your body, maybe attached to your helmet. Then, what the camera on the opposite side of your body sees can be displayed on the epaper... Poof you are a chameleon, blending in perfectly with the background. You could shove a grenade up Osama's butt before he even knew you were there.

Just a different use for e-paper.

Re:First Post

[adamjaskie]

hehe, just wait until we get x10 ads popping up on the sides of buildings!

I reiterate.

[Xiphoid Process]

"If the author PGP signs his or her work, then you can be sure of its authenticity. "

To rephrase, you get exactly what the author wants you to get, end of story.

How is life + 10 years less than reasonable?

[yerricde]

Easy...whoever inherits the right to receive royalties gets the money. Legally, the heir is the same person as the author, for that specific situation.

But why for 70 years, subject to further extensions?

Melancholy elephants

[yerricde]

There are 2 things that will help him - the quality of the work ie will people enjoy it, and his copyright over the work. If the work is good, and people enjoy it, there may be a return. However, if the copyright is reduced and after a few years he has no rights on it at all ( ie anyone can copy it ) then the chances of making a return are reduced.

If he hasn't made a return by ten years, the chance of making a return after that period is further reduced by market demand for the latest and greatest.

Now, how does that help with increasing the number of authors / books? Simple, it doesn't! In fact it is the exact opposite!

Not always. We need to maximize the total utility function (i.e. utility of work in copyright + utility of work in public domain), somewhere between "no copyprivilege" and "perpetual copyprivilege." I don't see how a 95-year copyright term is closer to this maximum than the 28-year term of the Copyright Act of 1790. In fact, long-term copyprivileges make it harder to create a musical work without accidentally stepping on somebody else's privileges (see also the short story "Melancholy Elephants" and the Yes! We have no bananas! case).

You propose to limit the financial reward to authors.

Patent law already limits the financial reward to inventors. I propose consistency in the limits.

The simple economics of the western world ... means that perhaps, some authors will not be able to write full time, and it will be far more difficult for new authors to be published at all, whether self published or not. So, you argue that reducing copyright will increase the number of authors / books, when you argument supports the opposite.

Justify this. What percent of books published nowadays do not make 90% of their total gross revenue within ten years after first publication? What percent of Hollywood motion pictures (not counting remakes that add significant original content) make any significant amount of money after even two years on the market?

Why don't you just admit it. You do not want to pay for it that's it, something for nothing. Simple!

Or I can't afford to pay for it. Or the author's estate refuses to license it at any price. Or I accidentally independently created it, and I can't afford an attorney to convince a judge of this.

Second half of 'Melancholy Elephants'

[Anonymous Coward]

That link was only to the first half of the story. Here's a better one: Melancholy Elephants