Battery-Powered Esquire Magazine Cover - First to Newstands with E-Ink

It's starting to sound like the internet though.

It does, with one main difference; you can't roll up your pc and tuck it under your arm to read on the bus...yet!
This simple action keeps it real. We like that and I doubt we'll ever really let it go.

The end result should be a 'magazine' that you buy just once, with a subscription that pays for weekly/daily wireless updates onto the 'paper'.

Kinda like the Kindle?

True, though I question the utility of a sheaf of e-ink pages. What if the magazine happens to take up more pages than your e-sheaf?

You might not need to have but a few pages since they can change, but that would be an issue with utility because you couldn't easiy flip through the publication.

Indeed, that somewhat defeats the purpose of having the e-sheets in the first place: Turn back to page 1 to read page 16.

I see no relevance in your statement.

E-ink magazines would simply be animated/interactive/auto-updatable versions of their mundane paper counterparts. It's not like E-ink possesses telepathic properties.

Well, if what they're talking about the internet becoming in the next few years is accurate, it seems that it would be very easy to control electronic news services in the same way. In a way that independent print news sources maybe could avoid.

Well, if what they're talking about the internet becoming in the next few years is accurate

You're referring to net neutrality? Well, I hope we preserve net neutrality. It'd be quite sad (and improbable) if we can't.

it seems that it would be very easy to control electronic news services in the same way. In a way that independent print news sources maybe could avoid.

Well, it depends on what networks such e-newspapers would rely on.

If they have proprietary subscription services a la Amazon's Kindle, then sure, there could be arbitrary restrictions. Barring a wholesale collusive anti-net-neutrality service, I don't see any problems if the device is not locked into such a service.

Amazon is selling a book size unit that uses E-ink. This will enable you (for the price) to have a book transferred to the device (wireless - cell phone transmission) for reading. See Kindle

The E-Ink site shows other applications.

Interesting to me as I work in commercial printing. I'm just imagining how the dwindling customer base for real ink on real paper could diminish even faster as the applications spread.

That's right. Printers also diversify into these alternate mediums. We're in the graphic communication business so to speak. For example we create & host web sites which lead to warehouse storage and pick, pack & ship business. We create electronic pages so why not supply them for transfer or print them with E-Ink for display?

Interesting article - thanks JCAtom.

According to E-Ink's website, their technology "requires no power to maintain an image", just to change it.

So I guess the cover will still "work" (ie, it'll be readable; it won't go blank) after 90 days, it just won't change anymore.

It also may mean that solar power is a very viable option, since it doesn't need a constant drain, just the occasional burst. It'd be amazing if these could be made to run off of ambient light.

eeeew - editing didnt come out well there - sorry about that .......

There has been talk of solar cells that could be printed in an ink jet printer. This technology could be a good fit. Perhaps one day the cereal boxes on our breakfast table will be blinking at us like active-billboards.

Eat more sugar!

Perhaps one day the cereal boxes on our breakfast table will be blinking at us like active-billboards.

Actually, I read an article several months ago that stated that cereal companies were indeed looking into moving e-ink packaging. Imagine a cereal aisle covered in blinking, text-scrolling boxes.

Or - god help us - one yelling "Two for the price of one - Buy Wizzo Soap Now"

Perhaps one day the cereal boxes on our breakfast table will be blinking at us like active-billboards.

And guess what will be on the billboards! Toys! This I don't need. Every time there's a commercial for a toy I get "Mommy Mommy Mommy I want THAT!" I don't want my Cheerios screaming the same thing at me. :-P

As long as I can still line my birdcage with the Washington Post...

I wonder if live updates will be an optional extra? :¬)

It's all new to me but I did ask a geekier colleague about this. It's basically a new way to receive and view information. The e-ink changes, motion or new graphics on a page, are enabled via reception transmitted much the same way you'd get cellular phone reception. The chip that you'd obtain to get the transmissions would be key to variability.

So when Amazon sells you a chip in their Kindle they are tying you to their products. Amazon's pricing for transmitting a new book to the Kindle is now about 10 bucks. The surface of the e-ink is protected by a sort of plastic screen over the page for durability. Without the covering the e-ink on the surface of the paper-like substrate would deteriorate due to ordinary wear.

hm? Interesting to ponder if a newspaper, as used in the commuter setting - a daily disposable, could become as affordable as the current non-variable format.

The chip that you'd obtain to get the transmissions would be key to variability.

So when Amazon sells you a chip in their Kindle they are tying you to their products.

Well, to get technical, the Kindle contains an HSDPA (high-speed cellular data) chip for which Amazon has created firmware that links it exclusively to Amazon's data service, which (I think) runs on Verizon's network.

hm? Interesting to ponder if a newspaper, as used in the commuter setting - a daily disposable, could become as affordable as the current non-variable format.

Well, if the newspaper were full-on e-ink, why make it a daily disposable?

yep, that chip & the power to run it would not likely make a disposable product affordable.

if the newspaper were full-on e-ink, why make it a daily disposable?

convenience...it's what commuters are accustomed to doing - as recognized in the movie scene Abby mentioned.

Here's a story about upcoming trials for e-ink newspapers . They are using "terminals" rather than the conventional paper format we are used to.

yep, that chip & the power to run it would not likely make a disposable product affordable.

Well, depending on the bandwidth needed, cheaper solutions are available, like Ambient Solutions' data-over-FM system, similar to Microsoft's now-defunct SPOT network.

convenience...it's what commuters are accustomed to doing - as recognized in the movie scene Abby mentioned.

I honestly don't remember anyone actually throwing away an e-newspaper in the movie. They were broadsheets, yes, but I don't remember them being explicitly disposable.

Remember that Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report? When his character became a wanted man, all the newspapers of the people on the train changed to show his picture.

Heh, I also remember him throwing his annoying animated cereal box across the room.