The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Put yourself ten or so years into the future and you may not have to run to the store to pick up The Reminder. Imagine not having to leave your house to get the paper and not having to have it dropped off, but the paper coming directly to you. Digital paper has been in the works for a few years, but it is now getting closer. HP and Sony are two companies that share a similar vision for what paper products in the future might look like. Both companies are thinking of paper that is similar to a current computer screen, but which is so thin it can be rolled up without doing it any harm. You might be able to purchase a subscription to a paper or magazine, and with the subscription, you would receive a piece of this digital paper. Each night while you sleep, the information on the paper would be downloaded straight into your house. That way each morning you could get up and the news would be there waiting for you. An advantage of this type of paper is that your news could be so much more. Instead of just having print news, your paper could now contain audio files of interviews. It could have video clips and be updated throughout the day as breaking news emerges. It would be much more like having a computer screen that you could roll up and take with you. Getting new content into a device like this really wouldn't be that difficult. If you ever leave your computer on at night downloading a big file, or even set it to wake up at a certain time to upgrade itself, this is the same concept. A signal sent over a wireless network or even from a satellite like a television signal would update the paper. This technology already exists. In fact, over the last year, these screens have become a reality, at least in a form that shows what they might become in the future. Right now both HP and Sony can produce epaper, but it doesn't come in colour, only in grey scale. The screens are filled with pixels like any other computer screen, but when an electric current is fed through it, it simply switches the pixels on and off, creating the possibility of producing letters and text. This is a beginning, but it is still a few years off from having full colour, video capable screens. As well, the current screens are rollable, but not into a small tight fit like you can roll up a magazine or paper now. In early 2006, a newspaper in the Netherlands was the first business to try a commercial application of epaper. There were 200 subscribers who were given a free piece of digital paper they were able to use for three months. During the day the paper automatically updated itself as long as the person carrying it was close to a wireless network. The paper had to be recharged each night by simply being plugged in. The display, about the size of two laptops, does not flicker and has no backlight, so that it can be comfortably read both inside and outside. Worth about 400 euros, the papers were given out for free to these test subscribers so the technology could be studied and the response of readers analyzed so the technology could be improved. Unfortunately, the data from this test has never been released to the public and no word has come from the publisher about whether the experiment will be continued. Don't plan on staying home just yet, but one day, this might make our lives one more step easier. ([email protected])
