Tech

Electronic Paper–Finally a Commercial Proposition?

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I’ve written several posts about the emergence of electronic ink / electronic paper technologies. In a nutshell, these technologies allow information to be displayed on a medium which is (a) thin, (b) flexible (to at least some degree), (c) readable in bright sunlight, and (d) power-efficient (power is used only when changing the page, not for display per se.) As I wrote in 2004:

“These technologies could have major implications for the display of long text documents, eliminating the current undesirable alternatives of reading it on the screen or going to the trouble of printing it out, and I think they could have tremendous influence on the future of the media industry (especially periodicals.)”

A couple of years ago, Sony launched the Sony eReader, a 9-ounce product that can store about 80 average-sized books. Downloading is via an i-Tunes-like interface from a PC. My perception is that eReader has not been a runaway success, although it has developed some niche markets–it seems to be popular, for instance, among fans of romance novels, especially really hot romance novels.

Today, Amazon launched a product called Kindle, which has some interesting attributes:

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Love on the Net

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(This is a Photon Courier post from 2004…I was reminded of it by a link from this site and thought it might be of interest to Chicago Boyz readers.)

George McCutcheon was in the business of selling periodicals, and he wanted to be able to take orders on the net. He wasn’t very into technology, so he asked his teenage daughter, Maggie, to handle that part of the business. Maggie soon had the connection working, but also used it to flirt with many men she met on-line. She invited one of them, Frank, to visit her in the real world. Her father found out, and was furious…furious to the point that he threatened to kill her if she saw Frank again. Maggie had her father arrested and charged with threatening behavior.

Yawn, you say…why is this newsworthy? Things like this probably happen all the time.

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A History of the Digital Camera, with Photos

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This is interesting.

More “Simple” Old Technology

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Here is a page of instructions for mounting solid-rubber tires on 19th Century bicycles. And as this video shows, riding such a bike was no picnic either.

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Related: “Simple” Old Technology

One Day We Will Video Everything in Our Public Lives

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Well, maybe. Here’s a situation where a video record came in handy:
 


 
Ouch. The caption accompanying the video explains: This video was captured by a woman riding on her motorcycle. She was wearing a helmet camera (visit www.helmetcamera.com) just in case anything happened to her. Unfortunately it did. The black car locked it’s brakes and swerved due to slowing traffic. The person driving the black car later tried to blame the accident on the cyclist. Fortunetly the woman had everything on video and was able to prove she was not at fault.
 
Seems like it was a good idea for the motorcyclist to install the video camera. Why not put them in automobiles etc? That would probably be a good idea, but I don’t know if people will want to do it if it’s required, say, by insurance companies or legislation — anything that looks like a black box where only Big Brother gets to access the data will be a tough sell. But such concerns evaporate if individuals control their own tapes. As video cameras become cheaper, more people are going to think, Why not have one in my car/front porch/living room? You never know when it will be useful.