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ePaper To Be Used For Newspapers and Magazines
rustbear writes "The Guardian reports that cheap, paper-thin TV screens that can be used in newspapers and magazines have been unveiled by German electronics giant Siemens. The firm says the low production costs could see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle. The Siemens spokesman said that one square metre of the material costs around £30, and scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007."
It's about bloody time. It's hard to imagine, but newspapers will be modular, dynamic, constantly updating. Don't judge a book by it's cover: especially since it was something else five minutes ago. Some error in publication? It's been recorrected. Information becomes a wiki, constantly edited, by thousands of hands. The transition into paying for the content-makers, continues it's eclipse, while content becomes even less brick and mortarish.
is anyone else thinking wallpaper here ???
colour your livingroom to your mood, no more painting...
give room-wide slideshows...
I'm not seeing this as a death for regular paper. Let's say ePaper is adopted, I doubt that EVERY page of a newspaper will utilize it. In fact, I'd say only the front page would be used. I'm sure their new presses could still be put to good use.
This said, a lot of magazines are pretty pricey as it is, what'll they do to their prices if this new device is used on the cover of every issue, no matter what the cost of production? What if the main users of this device are a magazine's advertisers? How about you read an article if the adjoining page has a constantly moving ad? And is a moving image really better? A well composed still image can sometimes be more effective than a moving one. I am loathe to think that the likes of Newsweek or Time will turn into CNN lookalikes ith fancy current events themed graphics flying everywhere. I for one dread the advent of this ePaper. The only useful benefit I could see would be for a broadsheet newspaper to show a video of the top news story. That's it really.
Yup...
Well it happens to be the bottom shelf in mine, but that is besides the point...
Imagine actually buying a magazine that has dynamic pages. No longer will kids have to pretend to read a book with a magazine hidden in it - a nice "boss" button will fix that problem in tomorrow's porno magazines! "See, I was reading a science journal - look!"
How about selling blank screens to customers, then have them download content? I mean, we don't throw away our computer screens at every page update. Does anyone know why this guy seems to think completely backwards?
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
How old were you when people stopped reading and started watching?
I admit I don't read much anymore except off a monitor, but reading requires thinking. A dog can watch and listen.
On a less serious note, this was already tried on cereal boxes in Minority Report, with mixed customer acceptance.
Or is the resolution/refresh rate too poor?
...just got alot more interesting
While the Harry Potter style pictures mentioned in the article sound cool, a low power, lightweight ebook reader could conceivably change publishing for the better. Maybe after high end advertising subsidizes the development of the technology enough, someone will release an environmentally conscious magazine format that can be refilled RSS style.
Since the pages only need to be powered when their updated, solar power might not be completely unrealistic. Would definitely face hurdles with the pulping industry . . .
I suspect these screens will have some sort of battery power. How long will that last, how am I supposed to m save a newspaper clip of some important peace of news? How can I be sure that the information doesn't change over time. E.g. there could be an offending but selling headline, but when I try to sue for libel a couple of days later I can't prove it as it by then have changed to something less offending.
What about historical research? Even with ordinary paper/ink based information future generations will probably have much less knowledge of our culture than we have of e.g. the culture of the ancient Rome.
With this kind of technology the historical horizon will move even closer to our own time.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
ummm, attach this piece of paper to a wifi receiver, and have the latest pages downloaded....why does it only have to represent one static page. One of us has missed a point somewhere...
My Favourite Meme
It looks like at the moment its B&W, but colour is probably quite a quick upgrade. Resolution looks high, but with the electrode approach there will be a tradeoff I'm sure. Since it looks like the aim is a totally printed technology it should be possible to bring the cost right down.
The main market they seem to be targeting is the fast moving packaging market - fast moving so that printed batteries don't wear out. I would guess that they will seriously be looking at those large billboards as well. However, if you really let your imagination go to town there are many more opportunities for a cheap, large scale, printed display technology. When paired with the other devices which can be printed (chips, antenna, batteries, solar cells, keyboards, and flat panel speakers) you have the possibility of really putting computers anywhere and everywhere for the cost of the materials and a bit of printing. Think smart environment that your PAN interacts with as you move through it.
Techie heaven
What is the real reason for publishers to want to use epaper? When magazines are printed on "epaper", you can be sure they will be ruined by DRM in a desperate drive by the publishers for copy control. Yes, the content in the magazines will be able to be locked down hard, denying everybody all the previously recognized forms of fair use. After one day/week/month/whatever, the content of the magazines will be able to be automatically deleted without your permission, and on hidden DRM instructions from the publishers. There will be no software hacks to work around the problems caused by the DRM, because the DRM will be hidden deep inside complex silicon chips beyond the reach of consumers unless they happen to have a $50M sub-micron ion-beam lithography machine available to them. Artists, kids, and ordinary folks doing art or hobby projects will not be able to cut pages or pictures out of old magazines. Consumers will not be able to decide whether publishers will use DRM in epaper. Look at the tactics of the MPAA in forcing the broadcast flag and DRM stuff thru Congress.
I don't know how high the power requirements are, but what about something like the Kinetic Power for watches? Basically, they have self-winding main springs that are wound by the motion of the wearers wrist (spare us the obvious jokes). I don't have a link, but I know some of them can retain power for weeks, even after being removed from the wearer's wrist. They even had one that would go into lower pwoer mode if removed for a while, and would track the time for years. One flick of the wrist a year later and it would instantly snap to the right time.
Now, put one of these on an eNewspaper, and just carrying the thing in your briefcase might be enough to keep it charged.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Seriously, I can see it now: some enterprising young hackers (in the tinkerer sense of the word) are going to hack those flat screens, add a bunch of electronics and a standard VGA/S-Video connector, improve the resolution, write an open-source driver and turn them into the largest high-res black and white screen ever seen. Think humonguous, wall-to-wall X11R6 display for 100 bucks, folks.
... And the next morning, all the newspapers concerned are going to sue the poor schmucks, invoking the DMCA and saying, in effect, that the users have a license to use these screens, but do not really own them.
The original website will be promptly slashdotted to death, 13 seconds after the project is released into the wild.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Yeah, screw using a single wall; all four walls AND the roof would make a really cool feeling of immersion. Imagine setting your room to virtually float through clouds when you go to bed. Or waking up in a green sunny grass field with butterflies flapping around and birds singing.
Of course, who wouldn't want e-paper? However, there are several problems with it I could imagine:
1. As others have posted, flashing ads are the least I wanted to see in a physical newspaper.
2. DRM issues. I, for one, wouldn't want to pay for information on a per-minute basis without being able to store it.
3. Archivation. Digital storage standards evolve, and so, without a physical copy, archiving old content will be increasingly more expensive and difficult because of keeping up with the latest storage technology. Also, new storage technology may compete and create uncertainty which will prevail (e.g. HD-DVD vs. blu-ray)
4. Information credibility. Most people don't double-check the information they consume, either online or offline, but at least they are generally as smart as to not pay too much attention to most online content. With e-paper, your newspaper essentially becomes an extension of your computer monitor, with all credibility issues attached.
5. Information quality. If everybody can dump their printing presses or never buy them in the first place, internet journalism standards will come to a reputable newspaper near you. That doesn't have to be bad, but in many cases it will be. The internet is regarded as pearls in an ocean of shit, and when entrance barriers to creating newspapers are lowered to the point where one only needs a computer with internet access, then the relative modest creek of shit that is today's print media just might turn into the same ocean.
The upside to all this is that e-paper probably won't take off as long as it isn't as cheap as and more fragile than carbon paper (for example, can you roll up e-paper to a tight cylinder and swat flies without damaging it?), because if it tries to compete with dead trees, it has to be as expendable and durable as them.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
So, far from going against this trend, they are actually ahead of it. They have just raised the stakes in daily print media - and Rupe is now trying to find a suitable site to build his own color press. Which will take at least 18 months of unwelcome competition. Given the innate conservatism of serious newspaper readers, and the realistic rate of adoption of e-paper, the Guardian's press is likely to have an effective life of at least 10 years. That sounds like a good investment decision to me.
Disclaimer - I work for a print consultancy but my views do not necessarily reflect those of the business.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Good old Rupe has already found the sites for his new presses. 3 of them in fact (with planning permission and everything), Glasgow, Liverpool and London. All part of his current £600million investment (see here) for world domination. Glasgow is due towards the end of 2006, Liverpool around mid 2007 and London at the end of 2007. So yeah, 18 months of unwelcome competition although the Guardian is not neccessarily the main competitor of either the Sun or the Times.
Oh, and the current presses aren't tabloid only - ever seen the Sunday Times?
There's a product which already does this for $1499.95.
http://www.see-free.com/
Although I wouldn't wear it while driving. Actually I might just go and buy some shares in them if this ePaper takes off....
Forget newspapers and magazines as the target for ePaper. I want a small-ish 300 page (ePaper) hardcover book with 2GB of flash in the spine. Put a simple membrane keyboard inside the front cover to choose Titles (and Chapter(s) for works > 300 pages). Dock it into a PC to transfer Project Gutenberg titles, and daily slurps of your favorites blogs and news sites.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Gee, I could swear this chapter used to be critical of GW Bush and loaded with lots of facts critical of him, but now it's just glowing. It must have been found to be "pro-rerror" and "corrected."
Or someone will hack the system, and every book you buy will turn into The Unabomber's Manifesto on your way home from the store.
Or do more subtle hacks. I could have sworn this encyclopedia said that the Holocaust really did happen. Guess I was mistaken.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Yes - Neal Stephenson really got into his nano-driven paper in Diamond Age.
One of the things that stuck with me from that book was the individualized newspapers the gentlemen of his neo-Victorian society read in the morning, and how the editions became more and more similar the higher up in the hierarchy of power the reader was.