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Electronic Paper Advances
ke4roh writes "Electronic paper comes a step closer," says a Reuters article today. The paper, made by E-ink bends and makes for a higher contrast display, perhaps for e-books and cell phones. It reminds me of Jim Willard's Paper Computer, but their web site is history. Slashdot previously discussed color electronic paper."
Electronic aper comes a step closer
Get your hands off me, you damn, dirty electronic aper.
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Now, whenever I wear the same shirt every day of the week, nobody will know!
My fav quote from one of my fav business men, Mr. Dyson: "A paperless office is about as likely as a paperless toilet." ;-)
always makes me chuckle...
Dave
Anyone else read Stephen Baxter? In nearly all his stories (very hard sci-fi), there are 'softscreens' which are essentually these paper displays His stories are usually set 5-10 years in the future, which would put him pretty close to the mark on this technology. I do wonder about the power supply though. Seeing that I can barely get a day's worth of stand-by on my cell phone with a tiny text screen it seems keep these things powered up might require an equally revolutionary energy store.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
Here are some good links for those of you who want to know more...
e -i nk_for_e-books__.html
i /english/sci/tech/newsid_1 292000/1292852.stm
, 10 738,2656348,00.html
http://www.eink.com/
http://www.biblio-tech.com/BTR901/January_2001/
ink_for_e-books__.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/h
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0
Some idiot will ask how to put it into the photocopier or fax machine :)
I'd worry that e-paper won't get past the disposability problem.
One of the attractions of newspapers and magazines is that you can just get rid of them when you're done with them -- unless you have a compulsive desire to keep archives of the local paper, you probably throw it away, recycle it, or (in mass transit settings) leave it for the next guy once you're done with it. People already complain about having too much stuff to keep track of (hence the convergence attempts between PDAs, cell phones and digital cameras); an e-paper notebook would just add to that problem.
Whatever happened to print on demand publishing. It seemed to be a promising technology, much more promising than "epaper" but I can't find anyone using it anywhere.
It seems like it would be a sweet deal for publishers and book sellers by cutting out a major cost source: the distributor. You go to a bookstore, find a paperback you like and take it to the counter. While you are paying for it, your copy is being printed in the back room. It's spit out onto the counter and the copy you picked up from the shelf is put back. This would be great to keep from being overstocked in a pulp-fiction title or technology book past its useful life.
Digital copiers (even digital color copiers) are not expensive anymore, so I just don't get why we don't see this.
For the same reasons, I don't understand why retailers have stacks of CDs in bins. Just have a dupe machine in the back room with a digital color copier for the liner notes. While you are paying for your CD it's being created in the back room. Again, you cut a major expense by knocking out the distributor.
I thought the Internet was supposed to enable exactly these types of situations, but they are no where to be seen.
What's up with that?
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
http://msnbc.com/news/910466.asp?0cv=CB20
;-)
it reminds me of pictures of the first transistors bell labs- all bulky and ungainly
but in it's picture you see the future gleaming bright
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Will I have to worry about electrocution when I wipe my bum? "/i.
I'd be more worried about creating a spark in a contained space like that.
"Derp de derp."
"paper-paper is super cheap because of the abundance of renewable resources available for its manufacture. If you want to update what's on the paper, just make the changes in Word and print a new copy. Why is that so hard?"
Are you serious? Do you really think it's about paper being hard to use? Honestly dude, you must be intentionally trying not to see the value here in order to score some insightful moderations.
Here are a few useful applications of e-paper:
- Single-page newspapers and books. Not only would you not have to worry about portability, but you wouldn't have to worry about bookmarks either.
- Billboards would be much easier to update. No more repainting or repapering them, just send a new graphic to them and they change automatically. They could even cycle the ads.
- Credit cards could show your balance available.
Etc etc etc.
Paper may grow on trees, but there are serious problems with it accumulating. The 'make the changes in Word and print a new copy' may sound deceptively sensible until you realize you have to get rid of the original copy.
Right now I'm reviewing a manual for a product my company is developing. This means lugging a stack of paper around. It's obnoxious. I'd LOVE to have a single sheet of paper that updates whenever I press the 'next page' button. I guess I could read it off my PocketPC, but it's awfully small...
"Derp de derp."
What, do you think paper grows on TREES??
Forget the whales - save the babies.
A friend tells me they already have something like it in Japan. He has several shopping cards that keep track of "points" you have. They are made of laminated paper, and are flexable. When you use it, the numbers written on the paper change to reflect your "point" balance.
I havn't seem it for myself though.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't seen an ebook interface that is as intuitive as a real book or paper. It's pretty easy to see a paperclip (or whatever) in the top of a book. Having to press a few buttons to "mark" a place, then press a few more buttons to get back to that place is a PITA.
I wonder if it would really require such a PITA to deal with this. You read the page that you were last reading.... nothing else in the way. When you need the next page hit the page + button.
And the difficulty of moving around books and papers is greatly exaggerated.
I think the point made was more about the difficulty in composting/landfilling/recycling the old editions.
One, it's more difficult than "just" sending a new graphic to them. How do you get the graphic there? Two, keeping an e-paper sign lit up costs a lot more in electricity than paper-paper.
I believe the system is designed to include wireless networking. Anyplace that would have sufficient people moving past to warrant advertising should definitely by the time this is implemented have WiFi in abundance.
Whoopdy-freaking-do. If that's a problem, you have bigger problems.
This is such an intelligent point I had to say something. Like perhaps the Banks would offer access to a complete statement and cancelled checks etc... all on the card itself.... 'the portal to your financial world' the point being that the options boggle the imagination for a lot of people. Some would rather shoot it down.
It's called "recycling". Which is much easier to do with paper than electronics.
How much do you know about recycling? Do you realize the amount of energy that must be put into the recycling process is enormous. Very little recycled material actually gets back into the flow of goods as a lot is landfilled and we see no problem with just cooking another batch of plastics out of oil. The use of this type of paper would make buying your newspaper pointless... you bought the newspaper and it updates every morning with the new edition and every evening with the late edition. You would not need to produce another piece until yours broke. Or the new model came out with the chrome finish and the ipod interface design. While you find the arguments aren't compelling. I would like nothing more than to see people finally realize they can have a paperless office. Unless you are legally obligated to the SEC or some other regulatory agency to keep hard-copies lying around, why waste the trees? Now if we could just start using hemp for paper the argument gets quite different.... we'll save that one for another time.
Fnord.sig
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't seen an ebook interface that is as intuitive as a real book or paper."
Download an e-book to PocketPC. You don't even need to use a bookmark in it because it remembers where you last were.
"And the difficulty of moving around books and papers is greatly exaggerated."
Ever had a book fall out of your hands, land on the floor, and close? Ever have a book that's not very excited about being open? Ever try to pack two books into your bagage for a long trip? I made that mistake once.
"One, it's more difficult than "just" sending a new graphic to them. How do you get the graphic there? Two, keeping an e-paper sign lit up costs a lot more in electricity than paper-paper."
One, it's not more difficult than sending the graphic there. Can you honestly say that walking up to a billboard, plugging a connector into your laptop, and pressing the upload button is signficantly harder than hiring a couple of people to get the billboard printed, rolled up, and glued? (It's more fun in Portland since we like to have rain 90% of the year...)
Two, ectricity's only needed to change the image. Once the power's off, the image stays in place. Perhaps you didn't RTFA? They talk about it on E-ink's site.
"Whoopdy-freaking-do. If that's a problem, you have bigger problems."
Who said anything about it being a problem? Damn cool feature if you ask me.
"It's called "recycling". Which is much easier to do with paper than electronics."
Again, no. Recycling paper involves destroying and reassembling the paper, losing elements in the process. Worse, because of paper's lack of resiliency, you have to use a lot more of it, thus creating the need for a much larger supply of it. In the case of e-paper, recycling it is just a matter of sending a new image to it. No replacement paper needed just to fix a typo.
"The arguments for epaper are just not compelling in my opinion. "
You're not going to find a compelling reason because you're not even trying to see it. You're too busy poo-pooing it. I imagine the reason for that is because you feel you sound more intelligent when you don't see the latest and greatest as being interesting. "Well I can see right through this!"
"Derp de derp."