Hearst's Seattle PI to Test Market E-Paper

NewsCloud writes "The Hearst Corporation plans to use the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to test market LG Philipps' recently announced flexible color E-Paper. 'The electronic P-I will carry real-time news, same as the Internet, not yesterday's news like traditional papers. Readers will turn the e-paper's pages by touching the flexible screen. And when those readers head off to work, they will roll up the electronic P-I and stuff it in their pocket, purse, or briefcase.' The announcement comes amidst the recent settlement of bitter co-operating disputes between Seattle's two newspapers and Bill Gates' recent comments on the shifting of the advertising market away from traditional media." Update: 05/18 21:51 GMT by Z : Michelle Nicolosi, Assistant Managing Editor for the PI, emailed this correction: "Someday, Seattle P-I readers may be able to carry around their news in a bendable, electronic paper device -- but not any time soon. Hearst Corp., which owns the Seattle P-I, has no plans to use the Seattle daily newspaper to test a newly announced E-paper gadget." The original site linked apparently got it wrong.

Comments

what about the Indiana PI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I heard, they decided it was 3.

Oh, there's an article?

Re:what about the Indiana PI?

[parkrrrr]

But much harder to multiply in your head, which is really what I was thinking of when I said "for many purposes." If I had a calculator handy, I'd have no problem recalling that pi is approximately 3.14159265358979323ish.

Alternatively, if you want to do it in your head AND you need better precision, multiply by three and then add 5%. 5% is easy to calculate, because it's just a halving and a decimal shift. If you need more precision than 0.2%, you're probably not standing in the aisle at Home Depot wondering about how much of something you need.

Newspapers

[nelsonal]

The problem with most news papers isn't that they publish yesterday's news today, it's that there's aproximatly 0 usefulness accompanying the news. When the analysis exists, the papers continue to do well. Too many papers depended on their local monopoly on classified advertising for far too long and publish a shoddy product. That monopoly is fast loosing value to the internet and most firms were caught flat footed. E-paper isn't going to change that shift.

Re:Newspapers

[nelsonal]

A better answer would be to not compete by offering something the internet rarely offer's well, not news but thoughtful analysis (it's going to take time to generate that so the slower delivery is far less meaningful).

Re:paper with moving images on it

[fotbr]

Great. Punch the Monkey, coming soon to a paper near you!

Colleges

[jshriverWVU]

I can see this being EXTREMELY useful in the college scene. Imagine walking into a classroom and a bluetooth or wifi transmitter sends todays lectures to your e-paper. Then you can sit at your desk and follow along and spend more time learning than trying to frantically write things down. I welcome our paper overlords :)

Re:Colleges

[hal2814]

That writing does more to help you remember a topic than just listening to the lecture and reading e-notes afterwards ever could. Besides, if you are "frantically" writing, then you are doing something wrong. You don't have to write down every word that comes from the professors mouth. Most Universities offer a note-taking class of some sort. At my University, it only took two hours of my time and made me a much better note taker. I had to take the course before I could be a professional note taker for disabled students, but it was open to anyone.

Re:Colleges

[phaggood]

> I can see this being EXTREMELY useful in the college scene.

Heck, it'd be useful in *middle school* where my daughter hefts a rolling suitcase full of books to/from school every day. An inexpensive e-reader containing all her texts would be a dream, especially if supplemented with free sources like Project Guttenberg. The OLPC is a nifty thing (got to handle on "in the flesh" at the recent Penguicon), but a cheap reader would be an even greater catalyst for transforming education. I wonder if the Mexican e-textbook project is aware of these devices.

Re:Colleges

[Hatta]

Hardly, writing notes just distracts you. I found I did much better in classes when I didn't take notes, whether the prof handed out lecture notes or not. Paying attention and thinking about what's being said helps me remember a topic a lot more than playing stenographer does. When I pay attention, I come out of a class with a good understanding of the topic, when I take notes I come out of the class with a list of factoids. Besides, anything I would write down is in the book anyway.

Imagine this...

[FredDC]

An e-paper with a wireless connection (with widespread wireless connectivity) and a web browser.

I could read slashdot on the way to work!

Re:Imagine this...

[blue_moon_ro]

Soooo, what am I supposed to do at work then?..... /ducks

Re:paper with moving images on it

[suv4x4]

I can't tell from the links if this "e-paper" will have moving images or if the images are static.

The e-paper technology is optimized to hold a static image without electricity. This is where it excels. The image refresh rate is abysmally slow compared to even the older TFT screens.

So if you're willing to keep your paper "on" to keep animating the images (which will waste far more electricity compared to when you only change pages and turn it off), and we're talking very low FPS image (2-3 frames per second) it may work.

But..

[name*censored*]

can you roll it up and use it to store fish and chips in?

Re:Refresh Rate?

[AmIAnAi]

Fast refresh rate would have its downside too. Imagine trying to read the morning news while various adverts were flashing away round the page trying to grab your attention.

At least with current online content you can block many of the ads with the browser or hosts. You can be sure that this would be DRM laden so you could not block the Ads.

Why e-paper?

[CrankinOut]

Four reasons:
High resolution => more info/sq. inch
High contrast => more legibility in ambient light without backlighting = longer battery life
Static image (power only needed to change image) => longer battery life
Light weight (no heavy glass screen or big batteries needed to create image)
Having seen high quality e-paper on a working device, I can say that it looks like the image has been printed on a laser printer. The long battery life means that it's useful when the information changes on the order of minutes, not seconds, and you can carry it around easily because of the light weight.
No, this is not a replacement for an active screen and GIF's and movies are not realistic uses for it.

Re:paper with moving images on it

[Constantine XVI]

So modern paper technology has finally caught up with Harry Potter :)

Re:

[overcaffein8d]

Please wait while your ePaper updates over the Sub-Etha-Net.

Umbrella?

[jimand]

here you go.

Umbrella

[Jamil Karim]

There is an umbrella that allows you to "watch slide-shows". It has a built-in camera, and allows you to transfer pictures to flickr. It's also got a GPS and a compass. I don't quite think it is as practical as a hands-free umbrella, but maybe if you combined the two, you'd have something.