Would you read an electronic newspaper?

Would you read an electronic newspaper?

Electronic books and electronic readers have been promised for a long time, but have never really taken off (though people who have the Amazon Kindle do love it.

Looking at my recycling bin, one area that could really benefit from going digital is the newspaper. Sure you can read it online, but the whole point of a newspaper is that you can take it with you – to the park, to the livingroom, on the train, or even (it has to be said) the bathroom.

A recent BBC report introduces one solution – an electronic newspaper that is as light as a magazine and as thin as a table mat.


Photo by EJeffson

The device was developed by some scientists from Cambridge in the UK and is now being manufactured by a company called Plastic Logic in Germany.

One of Plastic Logic’s engineers talks about some of the benefits in the article.

Mr Baker believes the device will help consign ordinary paper to the rubbish bin of history.

“There’s a huge amount of waste,” says Mr Baker.

“We have paper being distributed all over the country which is consumed on that day and then discarded into the bin. This doesn’t need to be the case.

“All of that content could be transmitted electronically and stored on a single e-reader, with the same visual appeal as paper. “

Sounds good to me. There’s a video of how it all works in the BBC article which they unfortunately don’t let you embed (lame), but here is one from DEMO 08 (which doesn’t show it flex unfortunately):

Assuming it is easy to use and read, would you use an electronic newspaper? Or would you stick to paper?

About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 7 comments

Alex Satrapa - January 21, 2012 Reply

I use Reeder on the iPad and Mac to view RSS feeds from all the independent journalists I trust. No News Limited in my life (people who watch Fox are actually less informed than people who don’t watch TV).

The Kindle touch, Kobo touch and latest Sony reader are all excellent hardware, though Kindle makes it so hard to load your own material.

Instapaper offers a kindle version of your “read it later” pages, I would love a similar feature from an RSS reader, especially if it was automated and all my reading was waiting for me before I got on the bus.

I can’t imagine reading on a soft surface again, it is tablets for me all the way.

    Brooks Duncan - January 26, 2012 Reply

    I'm the same way. Pretty much everything I read is digital now. Funny how much has changed since I originally posted that article.I read the Steve Jobs book in paper form, and it was actually kinda weird reading a paper book again.

Alex Satrapa - January 21, 2012 Reply

I use Reeder on the iPad and Mac to view RSS feeds from all the independent journalists I trust. No News Limited in my life (people who watch Fox are actually less informed than people who don’t watch TV).

The Kindle touch, Kobo touch and latest Sony reader are all excellent hardware, though Kindle makes it so hard to load your own material.

Instapaper offers a kindle version of your “read it later” pages, I would love a similar feature from an RSS reader, especially if it was automated and all my reading was waiting for me before I got on the bus.

I can’t imagine reading on a soft surface again, it is tablets for me all the way.

    Brooks Duncan - January 26, 2012 Reply

    I'm the same way. Pretty much everything I read is digital now. Funny how much has changed since I originally posted that article.I read the Steve Jobs book in paper form, and it was actually kinda weird reading a paper book again.

Sarah - March 17, 2009 Reply

i have the kindle 2 also, and i love it, mainly because its so much thinner. i didn’t have to pay for that one, so it was an easy transition :). It is far from a perfect device, but I love it just the same. One huge flaw it has is no way to really organize your content, either in folders or with tags. I love that you can bookmark, make clippings, highlight, and download off your device into your “trusted system” but the organization within that document is a bit messy. So, two big improvements would be content organization and clipping organization.

Brooks Duncan - March 17, 2009 Reply

@Sarah Just out of curiosity, are you going to pick up the Kindle 2? Or are you happy with your first generation one? Anything you’d change about it if you could?

Sarah Banko - March 13, 2009 Reply

I LOVE my kindle and have been decluttering my massive bookcases and storage boxes in the garage of books because it’s all on my little kindle that I can search, annotate, and take with me anywhere. It’s bliss!

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