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!

[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.

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.

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.

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

electronic paper

[Jeff Probst]

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

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: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

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: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.