Electronic Paper's Past and Future

Iddo Genuth sends us to TFOT for his extended series of interviews around the question of how electronic paper will change our lives in the next few years. The article leads off with the "father of e-paper," Nick Sheridon, who came up with the idea almost 35 years ago at Xerox PARC, and goes on to explore how e-paper may evolve past its current incarnations in the likes of the Sony Reader.

Comments

One Question

[sqrt(2)]

Can I still write on it?

Re:One Question

[chill]

Yes, but it costs a bit more.

I don't know...

[RalphBNumbers]

I'm actually not sure that stable-image type displays (what I would generically consider e-paper) are going to be the first widespread paper-replacement. As nice as their low power consumption is, their bit depth, color, contrast, and refresh rate are all horrible at the moment. And while they are certainly improving in those areas, things like LCDs and OLEDs are improving in power consumption and form factor as well.

I came to this realization when I looked at the new 505 revision of the Sony Reader's marketing, and it occurred to me that I'd rather get an iPod touch. Recharging every few days instead of every few months is a sacrifice I'd be willing to make for real web content and video (while Sony could probably put some sort of basic very-static web browser on it's reader despite the display's low refresh rate if they wanted to support HTML, video and quick interactivity are going to be out of the question until there are fairly major changes in the display technology). And, as more and more content moves online, from static paper to dynamic computer screens, moving content is only getting more prevalent (rollovers, pull-down menus, AJAX widgets of all sorts, and even content in flash and other plug-ins)...

I kind of suspect that e-paper has missed the window where it could have widely succeeded with a refresh rate measured in seconds rather than milliseconds. Stable-image type displays may have to get their refresh rates down into the low-double-digit milliseconds (and coincidentally gain high bit depth color and decent contrast) before they can take on to the mainstream.

Re:E-Readers

[Andrew Aguecheek]

Depends on the subject. One of the most irritating things about being a law student is that by and large your books go out of date really fast. Almost every book from my undergraduate degree, which I only completed earlier this year, is now in a different edition. E-books would be really useful from our perspective. Not to mention the fact that libraries can only stock a limited number of journals and case-books.

"epaper" == "Polavision"

[knorthern knight]

Just as VCRs were starting to take off, Polaroid launched "Polavision". It was a moviecam that used a one-shot film cartridge that produced rather grainy movies. Polaroid always compared the low-cost moviecam against $2500 VHS moviecams. Main problem... the 10-minute film cartridges were damn expensive. By the time you bought enough 10-minute cartridges to equal a 2-hour VHS cassette, you'd spend more on the cartridges than the cost of the $2500 moviecam... ouch. AND THE VHS CASSETTE COULD BE ERASED AND RE-USED, while the Polavision cartridges were one-shot devices, like 8mm and "Super-8" film. Polavision was intended as a competitor to 8mm and "Super-8". 8mm and Super-8 were anihilated by VHS moviecams, and Polavision also fell victim to VHS moviecams.

Fast-forward several years. "Browsing devices" are the "VHS moviecams" to epaper's version of Polavision. Before anyone starts ranting against web-browsers, let me point out...

1. the ORIGINAL web, as developed at CERN, was text-only with browsers like lynx
2. you can read files on your local drive with Firefox or IE or Lynx

Note that I said "browsing devices", not PDAs, or micro-laptops. I think that cellphones with browsers are going to be far more of an epaper-killer than laptops...

• there are a lot more people already lugging around cellphones/smartphones than will ever buy single-purpose "ebook readers"
• many cellphones/smartphones already have browsers built-in

Which do you think the average person WHO IS ALREADY LUGGING AROUND A CELLPHONE/SMARTPHONE more likely to do for casual reading...

• buy yet another $200 device that they have to lug around, or
• use the cellphone/smartphone THEY'VE ALREADY PAID FOR AND THEY'RE ALREADY LUGGING AROUND to accomplish the same task

In a world where cellphones/smartphones/PDAs do not exist, a $200 stand-alone "ebook-reader" might have a market. In today's world, fuggedaboutit. Most people will end up sticking a USB stick into a cellphone/smartphone/PDA and reading text directly with their browser. Verizon subscribers, however, will find that their cellphones are crippled, and they have to upload the file to their account, and Verizon will charge them by the kbyte for the uploads.