You lean down to grab a pen from your bag as you ride the metro into D.C. Something catches your eye. Your neighbor is holding what looks like a newspaper, but the pictures are moving. As you wonder what happened to newsprint, he presses a button in the lower right hand corner, and A1 turns to A2.
Technology is catching up to the sci-fi and wizardry world that was only a dream 10 years ago. In "Ender's Game" (reading material for engineering students), Ender's father downloads the daily paper to the kitchen table and reads it over breakfast. In "Harry Potter," wizards find their news in a paper that has moving images and changing stories.
Imagine if the world of today collided with the technology of tomorrow -- downloadable newspapers with television-like images, up-to-date information, and infinite sources for download. Imagine those newspapers feel like actual paper, and you have to keep reminding yourself that you are holding a plastic, foldable circuit board rather than a recyclable piece of newsprint. What about a bound novel with completely empty pages? That is, until you decide to pay $2 per book to create an entire library within the 5x7 hardback.
E-books have been on the market for several years. RCA sold one called "The Rocket" that is now "out of print." It was similar to the tablet PCs that occasionally float around the University. Yet, RCA's model was cumbersome and utilized the eye-wrenching technology of current LCDs, making reading a novel for hours on end a tiresome task.
In January at the World Electronics Fair in Las Vegas, Sony Electronics introduced their version of the e-book. Their product, Librie, utilizes a new energy-saving and eye-saving technology called electronic-ink, developed by the company E Ink. It consists of oppositely charged black and white microcapsules of ink floating in a clear fluid that fall into place depending on electrical charge, creating a digital image that is closer than ever to the printed page. Because of materials used, the glare and flicker of LCDs are eliminated.
These images hold their electric charge and do not need to be backlit like LCDs, so they use less power. Librie uses four alkaline batteries for 10,000 page turns. When the power goes off, the last-viewed page stays on.
Electronic-ink is only a portion of the technology being developed by the Massachusetts company E Ink. In 2004, E Ink gave a sneak peek into developments toward flexible e-paper. The microcapsule ink blots are captured between two layers of plastic and stainless steel foil. These and the flexible circuitry enable the three-inch trial screen to roll into a tube of about a half-inch. The page is only as thick as three human hairs and it can be twisted, bent and rolled while still displaying crisp text.
E Ink and others plan to advance the technology beyond the sector of portable reading gadgets. The U.S. military has begun to think in terms of chameleon camouflage suits and sewn-in GPS devices with communication flow. They hope to make a product that can endure a beating through rocky terrain and even survive a swim.
Brand-name apparel companies imagine cloth-like circuitry to replace out-of-date embroidery and rhinestones. Some even envision a credit card sticker that would display available balance and recent purchases.
The first goal, however, is e-paper. Onlookers hope that e-paper will eliminate the need for today's vast production of paper. This technology, however, may be slow to catch on as the price tag is still rather steep. Sony plans to sell Librie between $300 and $400. In Japan, most consumers found the expense difficult to rationalize, even in the name of the environment.
E-books and e-paper are expensive and have their obstacles now, but the technology is only just beginning. Still, as development continues, the moving images and changing data of Harry Potter's wizard newspapers may not be so far from reality. The present is about to fold into the future.
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