Posted on 01/26/2004 8:20:07 AM PST by GeneD
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch firm Philips Electronics said on Monday it was preparing to mass-produce a slim, book-sized display panel onto which consumers could download newspapers and magazines -- then roll up and put away.
The 5-inch display, which can show detailed images, can be rolled up into a pen-sized holder. If connected to a mobile phone, it can also be used to download web pages, a book or email.
Philips said it had created the displays using electronics circuits made of plastics, which power a monochrome display created with technology from E Ink, a privately-held U.S. company from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"We can produce this in batches. It's no longer a research project. We're going to build a pilot line that should be ready in 2005 to make one million displays a year," a spokesman at Philips Research said.
Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics and lighting has already shown prototypes of a glass-based E Ink display which will be in the shops later this year. That sort of screen, used in pocket computers, can cost tens of dollars apiece.
The price of the foldable display screens has not yet been set, but Philips said it would be in the range of current thin glass models. The new range will use much of the manufacturing technology already being used to make glass-based thin screens but is more adaptable to different surfaces, such as the dashboard of a car.
</sarcasm>
I've heard that flat panel displays are going to be down to a few bucks per square foot in the not too distant future.
Thank god they are building the plant over there and not here. We absolutely do not need any more of these archaic buggy whip industries standing in the way of our economic recovery!
When [Floyd] tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized [13"x16"] Newspad into the ship's information circuit [Web connection] and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes [URLs] of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle [thumbnail] would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.
Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.
It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.
The Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, are finally here. Keep in mind that this passage, which almost perfectly describes the Web and the process of browsing, was first published in 1968!
There will always be a place for printed books; no electronic display will ever match the tactile quality, heft, and aroma of a book printed in ink on paper and bound in cloth or leather. Heirloom books, religious books, books-as-craft-objects, and other special-purpose volumes will maintain their intrinsic value. But for everyday purposes, cheap, disposable, updatable e-paper will reign supreme
Yep, and that's about the only "prediction" in that book that's come to pass. (Unless you count the similarities between the WTC excavation pit and the TMA excavation pit on the moon.) I remember recalling your cited passage back when I was on Prodigy, and they had a feature that would let a person print their own custom newspaper.
I us to use the heck out of the feature. Of course that was over a dialup modem so reading a hardcopy newpaper was faster..
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