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Electronic Paper

Posted by michael on from the ream-by-ream dept.

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?

87 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Phase Three: Profit! by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    1. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by phoneboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

      --
      The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone, including the poster.
    2. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    3. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by tuxlove · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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. :)

    4. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by JimPooley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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".

      --

      "Information wants to be paid"
    5. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by Kryptonomic · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

    6. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by calibanDNS · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by gazbo · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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.
    8. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by mpe · · Score: 2

      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.

    9. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by mpe · · Score: 2

      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.

    10. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by HiThere · · Score: 2

      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.
      .

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    11. Re:Phase Three: Profit! by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 2

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

      --
      "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
  2. A common conciousness? by Usquebaugh · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  3. Real advance is the refresh rate. by John+Harrison · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
    1. Re:Real advance is the refresh rate. by x136 · · Score: 4, Funny

      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...

      --
      SIGFEH
    2. Re:Real advance is the refresh rate. by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2

      Don't forget the animated adverts in the margin.

  4. Possibilities are few =( by jeremyf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.. :-\

  5. Re:First Post by Dynedain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
  6. Paper will never be replaced... by Tsar · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Paper will never be replaced... by Dyolf+Knip · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Dyolf Knip
    2. Re:Paper will never be replaced... by Sabalon · · Score: 2

      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.

  7. Further Slashdot coverage by headkase · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    --
    Shh.
  8. Do you ever get the feeling... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  9. Re:could work for the holodeck... by satanami69 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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

    --
    I really hate Dan Patrick.
  10. Cool.. at least its coming along by itsnotme · · Score: 2

    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? :-) )

  11. Scientific American Writeup on E-Paper by umeshunni · · Score: 2, Informative

    is here

  12. I'd put my money on... by vscjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

  13. Readability the big win by darkov · · Score: 2

    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?

    --
    Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
    1. Re:Readability the big win by armb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > 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.

      --
      rant
    2. Re:Readability the big win by Teun · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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!

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    3. Re:Readability the big win by armb · · Score: 2

      > 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).

      --
      rant
  14. Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER by darkPHi3er · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!
    ......

    --
    Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
  15. Human Interface Design by WalterSobchak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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

    --
    Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
  16. electronic paper by Jeff+Probst · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  17. Comeon, you rely BBC on technology news? by jsse · · Score: 2

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

    Slashdotors want technical details!

  18. The real reason E-paper will never take off... by case_igl · · Score: 2

    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.

  19. Some questions.... by kndnice · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...?

  20. Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER by Aceticon · · Score: 3, Interesting


    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).

  21. yeah, I did kinda have that feeling.... by Kraft · · Score: 3, Funny

    .... 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.....

    --

    -Kraft
    Live and let live
  22. what about burn-in...? by xlurker · · Score: 2, Funny

    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...

    --
    ______________________________________________
    sigamajig...
  23. You have a right to be paid for your SERVICE by HanzoSan · · Score: 2



    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.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  24. 256 shades of one color is not impressive by HanzoSan · · Score: 2


    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.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  25. Well by HanzoSan · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  26. Egological aspects? by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    1. Re:Egological aspects? by jeti · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Egological aspects? by KarmaBlackballed · · Score: 2

      ...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.

      --

      --- -- - -
      Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
  27. Follow the money... by s390 · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Follow the money... by Gibbys+Box+of+Trix · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

  28. Reasons why paper replacements are still far away by TeeWee · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  29. I'll fight this tooth and nail by empesey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail by sydbarrett74 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
    2. Re:I'll fight this tooth and nail by Philbert+Desenex · · Score: 2

      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.

  30. Digital clothes by Scratch-O-Matic · · Score: 3, Funny

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

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

    --


    Evil is the money of root.
    1. Re:Digital clothes by connorbd · · Score: 2

      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

  31. Hemp didn't fly, but this might. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2, Informative


    "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 ;^}

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    1. Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might. by sydbarrett74 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
    2. Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might. by Animats · · Score: 2
      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.

    3. Re:Hemp didn't fly, but this might. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2


      " 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^}

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  32. E-Paper could bring about social injustice by wackysootroom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:E-Paper could bring about social injustice by freeweed · · Score: 2
      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...

      --
      Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
  33. It's not quite like your thinking... by tweakt · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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.

  34. E-Paper will not fly by KarmaBlackballed · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --

    --- -- - -
    Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
  35. 1984? by fanatic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
    1. Re:1984? by 3am · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --

      A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
    2. Re:1984? by fanatic · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      "that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
  36. Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER by battjt · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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

    --
    Joe Batt Solid Design
  37. They have that! by Magnusite · · Score: 2, Informative
    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...

    1. Re:They have that! by vscjoe · · Score: 2
      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.

  38. Oh really? by HanzoSan · · Score: 2



    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.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  39. Profit for Sonny Bono by yerricde · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Profit for Sonny Bono by truesaer · · Score: 2
      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?

  40. How is 28 years less than reasonable? by yerricde · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable? by poemofatic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --

      When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

  41. What I really wanna see... by Noofus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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....

    1. Re:What I really wanna see... by connorbd · · Score: 2

      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

  42. ray guns, geodesic domes by WillWare · · Score: 2
    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!"

    --
    WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
  43. Re:Ifs and buts by spankfish · · Score: 2

    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?

    --

    NO TOUCH MONKEY!
  44. No rights to profit on most of Earth by shepd · · Score: 2

    >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!".

    --
    If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
  45. reduce is the key here... by SethJohnson · · Score: 2


    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.
    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
  46. Irony by freeweed · · Score: 2
    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!

    --
    Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
  47. Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER by darkPHi3er · · Score: 3

    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

    --
    Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
  48. Casinos by MrResistor · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  49. Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER by darkPHi3er · · Score: 2

    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

    --
    Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
  50. Thinking outside the fireplace by KarmaBlackballed · · Score: 2

    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?

    --

    --- -- - -
    Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
  51. Re: Robust by Jebediah21 · · Score: 2

    Only a programmer would refer to paper as robust.

    --

    Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
  52. Re:It's easy. by fanatic · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    "that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
  53. Melancholy elephants by yerricde · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?