Electronic paper and the sound of information being scrolled

First off: I’m totally thrilled by the idea of electronic paper: you know – a computer screen, thin as paper, roll-able and bendable. And tough. Not easy to break. Not fragile.

Imagine…
…what you could do with such a thing! Fold it and put it in your pocket. Use it wherever you are: in the train, at the dinner table, in bed. Online, off course. Always updated. Access to all books, news, films in the world!

Good news
Good news is: it’s here! I saw it at the knock-knock conference  in Aarhus two weeks ago (and I’ve been thinking about it since). The screen (black/white) was crystal-clear no matter how you looked at it (far beyond ordinary computer screens). You could even spill coffee on it – and it still worked!

Update: added press photo of the Plastic Logic Epaper. (The one I saw looked a bit more clumpsy).

Bad news
The bad news is: the user interface doesn’t really work yet. Using it to read an electronic newspaper felt rather clumsy; not convincing. And definitely not what the technology has potentials for.

On the (much to small) screen, around A5, size of a tablet pc, a full newspaper page was displayed, letters to small to read. Clicking an item brought you the text of the article in text-only mode. Felt definitely no-where like reading a traditional “wood-paper” newspaper.

(These things set aside: in order for the electronic paper to have battery, disk and cpu etc. the prototype I saw, was equipped with a rather not-paper thin, not-roll-able thing at the side.)

Not fish, nor bird
The electronic paper really needs someone to do some thinking on how you’d actually use the thing. It is not – and has potentials far beyond those of – a traditional newspaper. You’re gonna ask this thing for interactivity; ways of dealing with the newspaper which is very, very much more than turning a page.

On the other hand, this is also very far from what you do with your desktop or laptop. You don’t want to use a mouse. Don’t want to use a keyboard. You want to interact with the paper itself.

Touching, drawing or clicking the screen directly however seems be counter-intuitive to the concept of a flexible, not-solid, paper-like screen. Is there a catch 22?

Physicality peaces your soul
Experiencing the electronic paper made the quality of “wood-paper” very clear to me. There is something about the physical, 3-dimentional form of a traditional newspaper that really helps me in the process off getting informed. Feeling the surface, smelling the ink/paper substance between my hands. Being able physically to relate to the news. This gives me peace to my soul.

Electronic information stresses you
Electronic information as we know it today really has a severe disadvantage here: it’s all flat and one-dimensional. There is very little in the form that helps you as a reader to understand or get any kind of first hand impression of what and how much information you’d like to have today.

Actually, electronic newspapers inherently frustrates and stesses you. You never know, when you’ve read enough. Should I go just one layer deeper, clicking one of those links over there? And what if the editors of the electronic news source, you’re visiting just now, has missed something? Google and the blogosphere is only one click away, you know. Really: you might want to go there, just to be sure.

Grow larger
Electronic paper, roll-able and flexible, might be the step that’ll lead electronic information ahead, showing a way to physical, electronic news. To do so I it has to grow in size, I believe. Less than tabloid-format won’t do (and it might want to go broadsheet!). It’s crucial there’s enough space to be able to give you that precious firsthand overview of whats really important.

The sound of information being scrolled
Electronic paper also needs a way of revealing the depth of its information. Look at the iPod scroll-wheel, which actually manage to do so. (I’ve never thought about this before! Apple really have done a terrific job in creating the iPod!!!): when scrolling the wheel you can sense a light sparkling in the finger turning the wheel and hear the crispy sound of information being scrolled over (yup, this is what it sounds like). All the while the iPod visually displays your inventory of songs.

I’m still thrilled by the concept of electronic paper. But it has some way to come before it’ll be able to fulfil its inherited promises. When that happens, however, we might have the future of information in our hands.