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Television Media The Media Technology

ePaper To Be Used For Newspapers and Magazines 312

Posted by Zonk from the i-want-some-epaper dept.
rustbear writes "The Guardian reports that cheap, paper-thin TV screens that can be used in newspapers and magazines have been unveiled by German electronics giant Siemens. The firm says the low production costs could see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle. The Siemens spokesman said that one square metre of the material costs around £30, and scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007."
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ePaper To Be Used For Newspapers and Magazines More

ePaper To Be Used For Newspapers and Magazines

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  • moving magazine covers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Crunchie Frog ( 791929 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:38AM (#13788828)
    Cant wait to see the top shelf in that newsagent

  • Sensible* investment (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ford Prefect ( 8777 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:40AM (#13788838) Homepage
    This is, of course, after The Guardian invested 80 million quid [wikipedia.org] on new, hamburger-format-oriented printing presses. Of the non-e-paper variety!

    Oops...

    • Re:Sensible* investment (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Altima(BoB) ( 602987 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:46AM (#13788860)
      I'm not seeing this as a death for regular paper. Let's say ePaper is adopted, I doubt that EVERY page of a newspaper will utilize it. In fact, I'd say only the front page would be used. I'm sure their new presses could still be put to good use.

      This said, a lot of magazines are pretty pricey as it is, what'll they do to their prices if this new device is used on the cover of every issue, no matter what the cost of production? What if the main users of this device are a magazine's advertisers? How about you read an article if the adjoining page has a constantly moving ad? And is a moving image really better? A well composed still image can sometimes be more effective than a moving one. I am loathe to think that the likes of Newsweek or Time will turn into CNN lookalikes ith fancy current events themed graphics flying everywhere. I for one dread the advent of this ePaper. The only useful benefit I could see would be for a broadsheet newspaper to show a video of the top news story. That's it really.
      • ummm, attach this piece of paper to a wifi receiver, and have the latest pages downloaded....why does it only have to represent one static page. One of us has missed a point somewhere...

      • Re:Sensible* investment (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jamesh ( 87723 )
        I can't think of a situation where an eNewsPaper would require more than one page of ePaper... isn't that the whole idea?
        • From TFA:

          "We think that at the moment the screens will appear first in more expensive magazines in the form of high-impact adverts. But as the price sinks we expect them to appear in papers as well, possibly as a really attention-grabbing front page."

        • I can't think of a situation where an eNewsPaper would require more than one page of ePaper... isn't that the whole idea?

          Animation is a very effective way of diplaying large quantities of continuous data that would be more difficult to comprehend statically, so this could appear in the articles of science/engineering publications. Also; sports clips, film trailers, short films, nature clips in publications like National Geographic, the list goes on.

          It's unlikely that an entire page of this stuff will

      • Re:Sensible* investment (Score:2, Insightful)

        by martian ( 7513 )
        Think about what you said in your first paragraph - "only the front page would be used"... actually you'd only need a single page of ePaper anyway...!

      • moving images (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cappy Red ( 576737 ) <miketoon@LISPyahoo.com minus language> on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:03AM (#13789223)
        To broaden your point a bit: do we need more moving pictures? I'm not advocating against the technology, just saying that I see enough images moving about daily as it is.

        With TV and the internet, there are plenty of videos and animations to take in with, or as part of your information diet. The permanence and patience of newspapers and magazines is a nice diversion from the visual bombardment of those other mediums.
      • Magazine of the future are probably going to look like the web pages of today: filled with animated ads. And we won't be able to install an ad blocker.

        IMHO animated ads are stupid, annoying, and do not work. But we still have them.

    • Re:Sensible* investment (Score:5, Interesting)

      by panurge ( 573432 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:23AM (#13789108)
      Well, OK, "Hamburger" might be mildly amusing as a synonym for "Berliner" (A hamburger is a rissole in a bun, a Berliner is a cream cake) but actually the dear old Guardian has stolen a massive march on News International. It now has a full color press that produces a larger format than the partial color tabloid presses used by NI. If you look at the newsstands, the G stands out compared to the Times, the Independent and the (grey-looking) Telegraph.

      So, far from going against this trend, they are actually ahead of it. They have just raised the stakes in daily print media - and Rupe is now trying to find a suitable site to build his own color press. Which will take at least 18 months of unwelcome competition. Given the innate conservatism of serious newspaper readers, and the realistic rate of adoption of e-paper, the Guardian's press is likely to have an effective life of at least 10 years. That sounds like a good investment decision to me.

      Disclaimer - I work for a print consultancy but my views do not necessarily reflect those of the business.

  • All the print- that's news to fit. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Leontes ( 653331 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:41AM (#13788843)
    It's about bloody time. It's hard to imagine, but newspapers will be modular, dynamic, constantly updating. Don't judge a book by it's cover: especially since it was something else five minutes ago. Some error in publication? It's been recorrected. Information becomes a wiki, constantly edited, by thousands of hands. The transition into paying for the content-makers, continues it's eclipse, while content becomes even less brick and mortarish.

    • and the downside... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MonoSynth ( 323007 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:46AM (#13788859) Homepage
      nineteen eighty-four.
      • Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we have to continually pay.
      • It's been happening on the web for years already. Carl Cameron's 2001 story about the Israeli "Art Students" espionage scandal can no longer be found on Fox News' servers, which is but one particularly notorious example. Controversial stories get pulled every day. The sad fact is that the Memory Hole is now a hallowed Establishment institution.
      • nineteen eighty-four.

        Well that is the last thing that I need...

        A newspaper that watches me while I take a dump.
      • That's exactly what I was thinking when I read that bit about books correcting themselves.

        Gee, I could swear this chapter used to be critical of GW Bush and loaded with lots of facts critical of him, but now it's just glowing. It must have been found to be "pro-rerror" and "corrected."

        Or someone will hack the system, and every book you buy will turn into The Unabomber's Manifesto on your way home from the store.

        Or do more subtle hacks. I could have sworn this encyclopedia said that the Holocaust really d

    • Re:All the print- that's news to fit. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:57AM (#13788881)
      It's hard to imagine, but newspapers will be modular, dynamic, constantly updating.
      ... and they will self-destruct after you read them once. Welcome to the DRM world!

      Also, Stallman's "Right to Read" may be sadly so true...

      • Re:All the print- that's news to fit. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:04AM (#13788903)
        ... and they will self-destruct after you read them once. Welcome to the DRM world!

        Bad, but it could be so much worse. Imagine this, though: you go back to your newspaper clippings from 2003 to check up on just what the Prime Minister had to say back then. 'Saddam Hussein is evil and must be removed,' you read. 'Whether or not he has weapons of mass destruction is irrelevant; this is a campaign to spread freedom and democracy.'

        Hmm. Not what I remember. But it was a long time ago, and there it is in black and white. Guess we weren't lied to after all...

        Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

      • If mentioned, it's right to link to Right to Read [gnu.org].
      • I foresee that you should be able to read your paper, but the material could prevent photocopying or scanning (i.e. turning black, etc.). But that shouldn't stop you from just manually typing the article. They could let the information disappear after say a day. But nobody in his/her righ mind will keep a newspaper longer then a week before chucking it in the bin. Information in newspapers gets outdated very quick anyway. Newspapers do pose a problem for archives and libraries already though. Newspapers
        • I foresee that you should be able to read your paper, but the material could prevent photocopying or scanning (i.e. turning black, etc.).

          If you can read it, you can photograph it. With a digital camera. And forward that to friends.

        • "Quick Description:

          "ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections... Save Web page; Save snippet of Web page; Save Web site; Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks tree; Full text search and quick filtering search of the collection; Editing of the collected Web page; Text/HTML edit feature resembling Opera's Notes."

          Editor's Review
          "Incredible page management -- June, 2005 Editors Pick"

          "Do you save a lot of webpage files to your computer, but
    • Some error in publication?

      You mean like in E-books?

      Somhow I don't think this will revolutionize the industry as much as you seem to think.
    • Of course, the risk of that is instant-deniability. The newspaper makes some big gaffe that would get them in trouble, and they can pull it instantly, no paper trail (so to speak). The technology isn't inherently dngerous, but could open up some new realms for abuse.
    • You're an optimistic bugger, i'm sure copyrights, trademarks, patents, digital restrictions, vote hungry senators, human error, privacy laws, right wing groups, feminists and mac users won't all get in the way and allow this pipe dream to become a reality and free sharing good natured planet for all.
    • "... dynamic, constantly updating. Don't judge a book by it's cover: especially since it was something else five minutes ago. Some error in publication? It's been recorrected. Information becomes a wiki, constantly edited..."

      There's something to be said for permanence. Even if an event is misreported, it is not without value: it shows us what people were saying and/or thought about the event at the time. We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes, and getting into the habit of erasing those m

  • wallpaper (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:42AM (#13788847)
    is anyone else thinking wallpaper here ???
    colour your livingroom to your mood, no more painting...
    give room-wide slideshows...

  • progress? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MonoSynth ( 323007 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:43AM (#13788849) Homepage
    Oh joy. Flashing ads in newspapers. I can't wait.

    • Re:progress? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kinky Bass Junk ( 880011 )
      I think advertisers must read Slashdot - not long ago people were saying how "if I could block newspaper ads, I would," and now they're releasing Flash based ads in newspapers.... Because they can!
      • That's why I use Flashblock. I believe it still downloads the flash ad no matter what, but it won't play until you click on the icon.

        OTOH, I won't use Adblock. I have Nuke Anything instead: If a gif ad gets really obnoxious, I just right-click and 'Remove Object' before reading the article. That way, the publication gets its chance to show me (non-obnoxious) ads.

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:43AM (#13788850) Homepage
    Oooh! Maybe they can attach a speaker so we can hear what Bill Gates and 75 other people have to say about Windows XP Media Center edition.

    My question. How the hell am I going to block popups in my magazines?

    • Re:Great (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 )
      Take the batteries out of them.

      These screens sound more and more like the novelty cards, and will need a switch on the page otherwise the batteries will flatten before you buy them.

      So... just wait a couple of hours with the page open, and then carefully start hacking.
      I think you could have a usable display soon afterwards.

      One other thing, I went looking at their methods and this paper is not the same as e-ink, they say on the website (link below) it doesn't hold its display without power.

      (On the Siemens [siemens.com]

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by c0l0 ( 826165 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:44AM (#13788853) Homepage
    ...can you squash flies with it?

  • I'm mystified (Score:5, Interesting)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:52AM (#13788866)
    We think that at the moment the screens will appear first in more expensive magazines in the form of high-impact adverts. But as the price sinks we expect them to appear in papers as well, possibly as a really attention-grabbing front page.

    How about selling blank screens to customers, then have them download content? I mean, we don't throw away our computer screens at every page update. Does anyone know why this guy seems to think completely backwards?

    • Re:I'm mystified (Score:5, Funny)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:29AM (#13788966)
      Well, maybe because this will be touted to be environmently friendly, the guy is thinking "The more of these we use, the faster we save the environment!"
    • Does anyone know why this guy seems to think completely backwards?

      He's thinking about it like an advertiser, or like a consumer, but not like someone who actually reads books/magazines/etc.

    • Re:I'm mystified (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 )
      Does anyone know why this guy seems to think completely backwards?

      He works for the company that will be selling the screens, and you're wondering why he wants to sell as many as possible?

    • Re:I'm mystified (Score:2, Insightful)

      by meza ( 414214 )

      How about selling blank screens to customers, then have them download content? I mean, we don't throw away our computer screens at every page update. Does anyone know why this guy seems to think completely backwards?

      You have to remember that this technology will not result in anything resembling your highly advanced ebook-readers with a lot of memory, rechargable batteries and wifi. Atleast not in 2007 and propably not in 10 years either. Instead these will only have as little memory as needed to show some

    • How about selling blank screens to customers, then have them download content? I mean, we don't throw away our computer screens at every page update.

      Because once they're manufactured in large quantity, they're going to be like a dollar apiece. It's hard to make money in that price range. Also, they're paper; they fall apart a lot quicker than our current screens.

      But, you do have a point. Some people will try your approach, some will try his; the market will eventually determine which is "better".

  • What about the power supply, processor, etc.? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rico_za ( 702279 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:55AM (#13788871)
    Making the screen paper thin doesn't solve the rest of the problem : getting images on the screen. How is a magazine going to contain the power supply en processor needed to actually display something on the screen? More detail in the article would have been helpfull, now it just sounds like some scifi hype story.

    • Re:What about the power supply, processor, etc.? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:08AM (#13788911)
      There's more information and a picture at http://www.physorg.com/news7079.html [physorg.com]

      The displays can obtain their energy from printable batteries, which are already available. Because they last only a few months, this solution is only feasible for merchandise with high throughput rates or short-use durations. It may also prove feasible to use printed antennas as a local energy source. They would receive pulses from a transmitter in the shelf and convert the pulses into electricity.

      Twirlip

    • Re:What about the power supply, processor, etc.? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MacGod ( 320762 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:37AM (#13788991)

      I don't know how high the power requirements are, but what about something like the Kinetic Power for watches [europastar.com]? Basically, they have self-winding main springs that are wound by the motion of the wearers wrist (spare us the obvious jokes). I don't have a link, but I know some of them can retain power for weeks, even after being removed from the wearer's wrist. They even had one that would go into lower pwoer mode if removed for a while, and would track the time for years. One flick of the wrist a year later and it would instantly snap to the right time.

      Now, put one of these on an eNewspaper, and just carrying the thing in your briefcase might be enough to keep it charged.

      • You're describing mechanical automatic watches, which have been around for donkeys' years. The Seiko/Epson Kinetic mechanism uses a rotating pendulum - like the old automatic watches - but the motion of the pendulum is geared up to turn a tiny electrical generator at high speed. The actual power store is a capacitor, because a rechargeable battery would have a limited life.

  • Tune in, turn on, drop out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fmwap ( 686598 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:55AM (#13788873) Journal
    How old were you when people stopped reading and started watching?

    I admit I don't read much anymore except off a monitor, but reading requires thinking. A dog can watch and listen.

    On a less serious note, this was already tried on cereal boxes in Minority Report [clickz.com], with mixed customer acceptance.

  • 2007 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:56AM (#13788876)
    > scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007

    Translation: 2025

  • Great. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now my newpaper will have fucking pop-up ads for pr0n, male enhancement cream, and wieght-loss pills.

  • Could this be used.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tezprice ( 875643 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @04:59AM (#13788887)
    in the much desired optimus keyboard? http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/ [artlebedev.com]

    Or is the resolution/refresh rate too poor?

  • Isn't this just eInk [eink.com] technology repackaged by Siemens?

  • playboy magazine (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...just got alot more interesting

  • I hope so but don't hold your breath . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brendor ( 208073 ) <brendan@e.gmail@com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:04AM (#13788901) Journal
    WIRED mentioned (halfway down) [wired.com] this (or a similar PARC technology) back in '99, and I got real excited about it. Nice to see some traction finally starting to form.

    While the Harry Potter style pictures mentioned in the article sound cool, a low power, lightweight ebook reader could conceivably change publishing for the better. Maybe after high end advertising subsidizes the development of the technology enough, someone will release an environmentally conscious magazine format that can be refilled RSS style.

    Since the pages only need to be powered when their updated, solar power might not be completely unrealistic. Would definitely face hurdles with the pulping industry . . .

  • Long term information access and credability (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unoengborg ( 209251 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:05AM (#13788905) Homepage
    I suspect these screens will have some sort of battery power. How long will that last, how am I supposed to m save a newspaper clip of some important peace of news? How can I be sure that the information doesn't change over time. E.g. there could be an offending but selling headline, but when I try to sue for libel a couple of days later I can't prove it as it by then have changed to something less offending.

    What about historical research? Even with ordinary paper/ink based information future generations will probably have much less knowledge of our culture than we have of e.g. the culture of the ancient Rome.
    With this kind of technology the historical horizon will move even closer to our own time.

  • Forgot the obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KDR_11k ( 778916 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:10AM (#13788920)
    How about applying that to product packaging? Movies could have the trailer on the back, games a few seconds of gameplay footage. Instead of a TV playing those ad videos for some stuff it could be printed right on the back.

  • Details, image and thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sane? ( 179855 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:11AM (#13788921)
    A bit more detail, together with an image can be found here [itnewsonline.com].

    It looks like at the moment its B&W, but colour is probably quite a quick upgrade. Resolution looks high, but with the electrode approach there will be a tradeoff I'm sure. Since it looks like the aim is a totally printed technology it should be possible to bring the cost right down.

    The main market they seem to be targeting is the fast moving packaging market - fast moving so that printed batteries don't wear out. I would guess that they will seriously be looking at those large billboards as well. However, if you really let your imagination go to town there are many more opportunities for a cheap, large scale, printed display technology. When paired with the other devices which can be printed (chips, antenna, batteries, solar cells, keyboards, and flat panel speakers) you have the possibility of really putting computers anywhere and everywhere for the cost of the materials and a bit of printing. Think smart environment that your PAN interacts with as you move through it.

    Techie heaven

  • You just know that we will have years worth of misery as each and every content provider implements their own DRM that demands the user purchase and use their particular brand of reader etc etc etc. Any gains in usefulness that we might get from having a cheap light easy to read electonic display will easily be offset by needing to carry around 12 different versions for each publication you want to read. I makes me really cross to see such great technology being scuppered by the petty greed of a small numbe

  • Link to Siemens (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bozovision ( 107228 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:30AM (#13788968) Homepage
    And this link [siemens.com] should take you to the Siemens page about it, which has a photo too.

    Looks like the reason they are targeting it at packaging initially is because the images change slowly.

  • Hack that paper!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:55AM (#13789034) Homepage Journal
    Seriously, I can see it now: some enterprising young hackers (in the tinkerer sense of the word) are going to hack those flat screens, add a bunch of electronics and a standard VGA/S-Video connector, improve the resolution, write an open-source driver and turn them into the largest high-res black and white screen ever seen. Think humonguous, wall-to-wall X11R6 display for 100 bucks, folks.

    The original website will be promptly slashdotted to death, 13 seconds after the project is released into the wild. ... And the next morning, all the newspapers concerned are going to sue the poor schmucks, invoking the DMCA and saying, in effect, that the users have a license to use these screens, but do not really own them.
  • Wait until the words are dancing around the page. Try following that with your puny human eyes! I can just see it now, turn the page and the ad that was on the previous page is now on the next page, and the next, and the next. You cant escape it. You will conform, consume, obey, and submit to our new high tech magazine spamming overlords.

  • £30 per square meter isn't viable for Newspa (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:14AM (#13789083) Homepage Journal
    While there are a lot of things you could do with a slow-refresh display device at this price point, such as animated vehicle paint, billboards, constructing a video dance-mat 300ft wide to play pacman 'for real' and making disneyland look even more like a bad acid trip, producing a newspaper that sells for less than the price of a hardcover book isn't one of them.

  • Some objections (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GroeFaZ ( 850443 )
    Of course, who wouldn't want e-paper? However, there are several problems with it I could imagine:

    1. As others have posted, flashing ads are the least I wanted to see in a physical newspaper.

    2. DRM issues. I, for one, wouldn't want to pay for information on a per-minute basis without being able to store it.

    3. Archivation. Digital storage standards evolve, and so, without a physical copy, archiving old content will be increasingly more expensive and difficult because of keeping up with the latest stora
  • And I'm sure every effort has been made to make sure that these devices decompose quickly and with no harm. Just like CD-Rs.
  • I watched Minority Report and thought that this looked like a nightmare view of the future. Some idiot advertiser looks at it and thinks it is a great idea. What a maroon. The reason I block every advert I can (TiVO, Adblock, PithHelmet, flashblock) is that the constant flashing of these things make it very difficult to concentrate on the content. I can see something like this killing newspapers in an ideal world and yet in the real world we probably will end up with something like this. Advertisers...
  • could see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle.

    Reminds me of the Harry Potter movie with the "Criminal Escaped" poster :-)

  • not likely (Score:2, Informative)

    by catmistake ( 814204 )

    "We think that at the moment the screens will appear first in more expensive magazines in the form of high-impact adverts. But as the price sinks we expect them to appear in papers as well, possibly as a really attention-grabbing front page."

    Newspapers and magazines, and any print media company for that matter, are all struggling with technology. Proprietary technology is the norm. There is rarely anything standard between one and the next. The advances in printing technology notwithstanding, no publishe

  • "The images are in colour, and can broadcast anything that can be shown on a regular flat screen monitor or TV, although with a slightly lower quality.

    Funny how Seimens is making this stuff, as I think that is just what covered my keyboard.. eeew stttttiiiiiiiiiiiicccckk^H^H^H^y keys.

    Anyway, I can't wait until 'slightly lower quality' can be judged for ourselves.
  • for epaper cuts...

  • Stop ironing the newspaper, microwave it instead (Score:3, Funny)

    by Secrity ( 742221 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @07:46AM (#13789376)
    Wealthy individuals used to (still do?) have servants iron their newspapers to set the ink so that the newspaper wouldn't soil their clothing. If this new technology gets used in newspapers for advertising, people will have to start microwaving their newspapers in order to shut off the annoying flash ads.
  • Top Headline for 2008: CLICK HERE!!!
  • It is unfortunate that this techology is being sold to us so that we can 'see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle.' This to me sounds like keywords for annoying advertising.

    I wish they would use this technology for anything OTHER than advertising. Ads for cars, beer and drugs are annoying enough without them 'jumping off the page' telling you about an erectile dysfunction solution.
  • This is just gonna kill the scrap book industry.

    What will we line our bird cages with?

    I don't get it -- the technology will be used initially only on the front page? It's electronic and writable - why is there more than 1 page? And if there's only 1 page, why does it need to be paper-thin?

    If this is just like paper, there is no UI. That means there is no way to STOP the stupid flash animation from looping? That would be torture - imagine trying to read an article with a never-ending animated dancing monkey

  • Screens are cheap, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MadCow42 ( 243108 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @08:58AM (#13789734) Homepage
    But what about the cost/bulk of the supporting electronics? Even if the screen costs $0.10 to put on a box, the electronics to play the video would certainly add much much more. That isn't economical for disposable distribution.

    MadCow

  • Article is wrong - it's not cheap (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:57AM (#13791101) Homepage
    Here's the Siemens press release, [siemens.com] showing a small display.

    Note the line "To date, the engineers have been using silicon switching elements to control the device. The objective now is to use a printing process to manufacture the entire display, including the appropriate control electronics, from conductive and semiconducting plastics." The idea of making semiconductor arrays in a printing press has been around for years, but nobody has done it successfullyin production. Siemens hasn't done it either. They're still making the substrate for this in a wafer fab, and it's a big chip. So this is still an expensive technology. It might get cheap, but we've heard that claim before about "e-paper" type technologies.

    The "printing semiconductors" idea has been applied to solar cells. There are plenty [fuellesspower.com] of announcements [microfab.com] of breakthroughs in this area, but somehow, nobody actually seems to be shipping product. [konarka.com]

    So this requires another breakthrough, and in an area where there have been few successes. It's not here yet.

  • Old hat (Score:3, Funny)

    by Roadkills-R-Us ( 122219 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:29PM (#13791346) Homepage
    You muggles get excited over the oddest things...

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