A company named E-ink has been working on a technology for several years that prints electronic ink onto a sheet of plastic film which is laminated to a layer of circuitry. The electronic ink is easier to read than a computer screen and the plastic film it is printed on can be rolled up and carried around and updated like a webpage. A News.com article says e-paper is starting to move into the marketplace in the form of new devices like thin digital clocks and potentially annoying signs that update themselves. Fortunately, the News.com article says more impressive devices are coming that could help mobile Internet use soar.
But it is the potential for boosting mobile Internet use that makes electronic paper displays particularly attractive, said Karl McGoldrick, Chief Executive of Polymer Vision.
Displays that can be rolled up mean that while the screen gets bigger, the actual device can stay small.
"Beyond smart phones, beyond PDAs, displays are simply too small to have any value from a mobile Internet perspective," McGoldrick said.
One of the small mobile devices being discussed is a gadget with a 5-inch display. Unfortunately, the long awaited electronic newspaper may still be a few years away says CNET. But when it arrives it may be used to read blogs and not just the morning paper.
An electronic newspaper, when the technology is finally available to produce one, still may not be the device to rescue newspaper publishers from an aging readership and dwindling circulation numbers.
Such a device could well be sold by newspaper publishers who would subsidize it in order to sell subscriptions, but it would have to offer other sources to be attractive, Schadler said.
"If you would lock consumers into just one news service, they will not find it interesting. Users might want to read a blog, a competitor, a magazine, a book -- not just the Financial Times, the Herald Tribune, the New York Times," he said.
So electronic paper should be very good for blogs when it finally arrives.
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