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?
