TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
>I was at EPCOT in Orlando about 3 years ago and saw a demonstration (from
>Xerox I think) about a paper of the future that will be truly reusable. You
>could wipe off the "ink" (or whatever) and then put the thing through the
>printer (or laser?) again.
What's out there is called either electronic paper or electronic ink (or
abbreviated e-paper or e-ink). Two companies are working on it, one a
Xerox spinoff, the other an MIT spinoff. The basic idea is that you have
a sheet of material that is roughly paper-like in terms of thickness that
contains small pixel-like bits of a substance that can turn white or black
when hit by an electric charge. So you can plug in the e-paper (or a book
of it) to a data and power source and it will reformat its contents to
display the new information...as well as in whatever font(s) or size(s)
you want. The real beauty is that once set, it doesn't need a continuous
power supply to maintain the content, so it is a book you can take to the
beach, read in the bathroom, etc. without having to plug it in or worry
about battery life when reading it.
There are examples out in the real world, mostly signs in department stores
and the like. They're still working on getting the pixel size down to
where a book size would have reasonable print quality. Personally, I really
like this approach as it combines the storage strengths of computers with
the display strengths of books. While there are certainly "real" books I'd
want to keep, I wouldn't at all mind shrinking a large part of my library
down to a shelf of DVDs.
tyg tyg -at- panix -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Order RoboHelp X3 and receive a $100 mail-in rebate, plus FREE
RoboScreenCapture, WebHelp Merge Module and iMarkupSoftware, for a total
giveaway value of $473! Order here: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
Help celebrate TECHWR-L's 10th Anniversary starting this month!
Check out the contests at http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/special/contests/
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday TECHWR-L....
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
