Crystal Ball Gazing - Plastic Logic Electronic Paper Breakthrough Near
In the near future, Plastic Logic will introduce a flexible screen - e ink - that will make it possible to send newspaper content to the screen and maintain the traditional look of newspapers.
Their prototype screen is 2.5 the size of a Kindle, which would be about the size of a tabloid. (Demo video ) The prototype will be available for the International Consumer Electronics Show in January.
That’s not crystal ball gazing. That’s fact.
Esquire has the first mass-produced e-Ink magazine cover for their 75th Anniversary. It’s a pretty lame use - just blinky text, but it is a use. (The cover has a small battery to give the cover blinky power for about 90 days.)
Here’s the crystal ball gazing: Instead of investing in one centralized printing plant, newspapers will invest in decentralized repeater stations. Instead of charging for delivery of the newspaper, newspapers will charge to rent (or lease-to-own) a flexible screen receiver. Overnight, the newspaper business could be transformed from ink on paper to pixels on screen - in a very large scale.
You read it here first.
UPDATE: It’s thin! According to Ubergizmo, the device will measure in at 8.5 x 11 inches, and is capable of browsing docments in PDF format as well as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. As well as packing a battery that lasts “days not hours,” the device has wireless connectivity, though Plastic Logic is quiet about exactly what type.
