A fantastic announcement today that will possibly lead to a revolution in print is from Hitachi. Apparently, in as early as 2006 we will have color electronic paper commercially available! Yes, just imagine a single sheet of paper, eventually flexible, with the same resolution and clarity of regular paper, and not needing a backlight to view. An interesting news release detailing the invention of black and white electronic paper is from New Scientist.
Some of the things I look forward to are:
- Picture frames that you can change the art or image in them with an inserted media disk, and then removing the electric charge, and the image will remain for months, or years.
- No more wasted paper on news media
- No longer a heavy burden dragging a stack of books with you everywhere you go.