The Dream Lives
“The Plastic Logic reader, left, has a screen the size of a sheet of paper for a copy machine. Center, Sony’s eReader; right, Amazon.com’s Kindle. The Plastic Logic device, which is yet to be named, can be updated wirelessly and store hundreds of pages of documents.” NY Times photo caption
One of the bibliostructures I’m making is a spiral bound book with a seriously strong spiral (a metal compression spring) and pages that snap in and out — probably using the Japanese environmentally sound polymer paper, Yupo, which doesn’t tear — and in my dreams a plastic logic reader is the front or back cover of this electronic and organic notebook.
Plastic Logic will introduce publicly on Monday its version of an electronic newspaper reader: a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look – but not the feel – of a printed newspaper.The device, which is unnamed, uses the same technology as the Sony eReader and Amazon.com’s Kindle, a highly legible black-and-white display developed by the E Ink Corporation. While both of those devices are intended primarily as book readers, Plastic Logic’s device, which will be shown at an emerging technology trade show in San Diego, has a screen more than twice as large. The size of a piece of copier paper, it can be continually updated via a wireless link, and can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents.
Hybrid electronic and organic publications are already happening. The New York Times also reported that Esquire is using electronic ink for a special cover for its 75th anniversary edition.
Although readers keep shifting to the Internet, Esquire magazine’s editor is sure print isn’t dying, and he aims to prove it Monday by unveiling a 75th-anniversary issue with a cover that features electronic ink.
”For the last couple of years I’ve been in search of ways to do something that shows that print is a particularly vital product,” said Esquire magazine’s editor-in-chief, David Granger. ”I really do think that print is the most exciting and rewarding medium there is.”
A 10-square-inch display on the cover of Esquire’s October 2008 anniversary issue flashes the theme ”The 21st Century Begins Now” with a collage of illuminated images. On the inside cover, a two-page spread advertising the new Ford Flex Crossover features a second 10-square-inch display with shifting colors to illustrate the car in motion at night.
”I treasure the magazine experience of, like, going into this little world that’s been prepared for you by somebody else,” Granger said. ”It’s not like the Web, where there’s just this constant cacophony of noise.”
”It was a very difficult process because at every step of the way, nobody had ever done this before,” Granger said.
E-paper, Granger said, can incorporate digital technology into magazines without making them unrecognizable. ”It preserves that experience but then it adds a little something else,” he said, ”a little incentive to spend even more time with your magazine.”
Granger predicted that Esquire will someday include e-paper displays linked to a cellular network or radio frequency, which will allow the magazine to add updates to stories during the month an issue is on sale.
”It could be a year away, it could be three years away, but it will happen soon,” Granger said.
E Ink has an exclusive agreement with Hearst through June. Granger said he hopes to use an electronic paper display again in the magazine during the first half of 2009.
”We’re already in meetings about what we can do at Esquire and throughout the Hearst magazine division to really take it to the next level and show what this technology is capable of,” Granger said. Hearst Magazines’ titles also include Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and SmartMoney.
Granger believes e-paper is the technology to finally usher magazines into the 21st century.
