Digital Paper Chase
By Neil Dodds
15 June, 2005
The latest edition of the Economist's Technology Quarterly has a look at how far the dream of flexible video displays is from reality.
Some distance to go is the conclusion. Ideally combining the portability of newspapers with the qualities of broadband internet, digital paper's pioneers have run into several difficulties. Making what one company describes as "digital ink" transform quickly enough for video images is one; Creating screens from material which is flexible enough to be rolled up and slipped in a pocket but tough enough to withstand the heat required to make images visible is another.
However, neither obstacle is insurmountable, though it may be several years before travellers unroll digital paper versions of the FT on their daily commute. You can see the very latest version of digital paper here.
Some spoilsports advise that enthusiasts should accept that the technology will be used in rather more prosaic form in the nearer future - instant updates to advertising hoardings and shelf pricing in supermarkets, for example. Undeterred, digital paper pioneers have continued to work on prototypes: E Ink released the world's first digital paper watch with Seiko in April, while Polymer Vision, a Philips division, has been working on portable phone - digital paper hybrids, like the wristwatch model featured above.
Digital paper technology is important as it seems destined to revolutionise the format of news distribution technologies, reporting and editing procedures all over again. A newspaper that updates itself as you read it, which carries moving images - which might even generate user commentary as it is read - this is the reality which publishers and broadcasters must prepare for.
The US Army has been quick to pick up on the military potential of portable, moving displays which can be updated in real time: It invested nearly $50 million in Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center (FDC) earlier this year. The FDC has given its mission a five-year timeline (and the military has recently extended its option to fund the project to the tune of another $50 million).
A prototype of what looks like a digital map scroll will be released late 2005 - suggesting that the digital revolution's latest innovation will take paper back to the scrolls used over two thousand years ago!
|
 Printer friendly version
 Email this article to a friend
Related links
Related articles:
|
