the future gets closer

[egypturnash]

Video-speed smart paper. And it's CMYK. Here's another article on the method that gives speed numbers in a way I can comprehend - around 80fps. YOW. 80fps is more than enough speed for anything I'd want to do with a display.

I just find the idea of paper displays compelling. I'm not sure where I first ran across the concept - in some SF novel or another, of course - but I just love the idea. I don't see it replacing books, I see it replacing video displays. CRTs are so damned deep; LCD/plasma flat-screen technologies are very expensive at usable sizes. A piece of paper (cardstock, most likely - gotta have room for the wiring) that displays moving imagery is just magical.

Although this method doesn't sound like it's as low-voltage as the slower B&W smart-paper methods that currently exist; those only need power to change the image, and continue to show the image with no power; this sort of sounds like it needs continual power to show an image, and would revert to black when power is off. But this is an attempt to read between the lines of insufficient information. Still, "The key to the system's success is its switching voltage. It is low enough that controlling the electronic ink requires only a small power source." Even if it requires constant power, it'd probably be worlds less than LCD or CRT displays.

No note on the expected dot pitch of this technology, either.

Comments

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

I first came across the concept of paper displays via the old Inspector Gadget cartoons. His niece, Penny, totally had a electronic book with pages and everything.

Perhaps that's what you're thinking of? ^_^

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

(Big OPEN eyes)

In the words of Zim. "WOW!"

Okay, I'm in line for the new toy.

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Diamond Age perhaps?

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

You play too much Call to Power ;)

I *think* the most widely accepted scale goes

Prehistoric - stone - copper - bronze - medieval - imperial - industrial revolution - industrial age - atomic age - information age (where we are now) - nanoteach age - ?.

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

umm what is call to power?

Call to Power

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Civilization: Call to Power. Probably the worse incarnation of the Civilization games, this game had a tech tree that was hard to understand, and was less intuitive from the other one. This game also went further into the future then any previous version of Civilization. Overall, Alpha Centauri was better.

So... I'm a game geek... Sorry...

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Yes, it sucked most mightily. One of the far-future ages in it was called the Diamond Age, and it didn't suck any less then ;)

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Ahh I was refering to a cyberpunk genre piece of fiction.
I love civ games, I just never have the time or a fast enough system. When I do mange to remember to pick up 3rd hand old copies and play them on my bottom feeder machines I really enjoy it.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

"Diamond Age" is a term thrown around for the nanotech age a lot. Mostly popularized by Neil Stephenson's book "The Diamond Age". Why diamond? 'Cause we'll be able to synthesize it so incredibly cheaply that we can build stuff out of it.

Getting there...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...doing that. (http://www.livejournal.com/~wolfwings/55760.html)

It's gonna break silicon for cheapness in a few years, just like Titanium is getting set to drop in price to the level of aluminum along with a lot of other 'famously expensive' materials. $5/caret for diamond sound good? :-)

Welcome to the end of the 'Nuclear Age' once and for all. =^.^=

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Carbon nanotubes are a sort of diamond, best I know. They're already being used for construction on a small scale, and once ways to build them in mass quantities are found, they'll be the most important construction material. Maybe the information age won't last that long. I think when carbon nanotubes outpace steel as a construction material, the "diamond age" will have begun.

[phaze2.livejournal.com]

According to Heise those should work with approx. 20 Volt and display up to 300 (monocrome) dpi...

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

This has been blowing around in various forms for years, but yeah this is the first I've heard of a color display. It immediately set me thinking about the moving pictures on cereal boxes and newspapers in Minority Report. If you can make video, adding sound won't be to difficult, and if you can make it cheap enough, you'll have advertisements that play their jingles for you right off the cardstock. I'm not sure if *that*'s good or not!

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the last thing we need are pop-up ads in books.

"So I was reading Great Expectations and kept getting pop-up ads for debt consolidation and ink cartridges..."

On the other hand moving pictures would make the Harry Potter books interesting...since there's that whole moving photos thing going on. :D

[lapdragon.livejournal.com]

Still not as cool as Flexible Organic LED displays (http://www.universaldisplay.com/foled.php)

But better than toner and ink, certainly. I can't wait for the day when my ancient, stupid, ugly, stupid, annoing, stupid teachers won't make me print off my homework. I mean--Cripes! It's the 21st century!