The Future of ePaper
A key technology for sustainability and the “Less Paper” office is ePaper. After the announcement of the Kindle last year, it was not clear how well Amazon’s and Sony’s ebook would sell - but some speculate that eBooks did really well, maybe even above estimates.
ComputerWorld published a very interesting and comprehensive roundup on the technology: “The Future of ePaper“. Although just a concept, I really like the Fabric PC, “a computer that’s soft, pliable, and can comfortably be carried like portfolio of paper”. It also mentions ways in which ePaper can render color, and predicts that “If e-paper grows from its current 0.1% of that market to even just 3% or 4%, you’ll be looking at a $9-$12 billion market.”
The only missing bit is turning ePaper from a mere display medium into a fully interactive, device: compared to paper, eBooks have today no or very limited annotation capabilities (except for a few ones such as the Iliad IRex). However, this shortcoming should be overcome shortly, as Wacom and E Ink have recently announced a pen-input ePaper display.
