
Revolutionary paper tablet computer is thin and as flexible as sheets of paper - joeyespo
http://www.humanmedialab.org/papertab
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ChuckMcM
It is really too bad that the guys at Plastic Logic have executed as poorly as
that have. I've followed these guys pretty closely from the huge Demo Con
reveal in 2008 [1] through their multiple death experiences. I concluded you
could give these guys gold bars and they wouldn't be able to figure out how to
build product out of them. It is a testament to the potential that I am
_still_ mad at this nearly 5 years later!

If they had shipped one freakin' product, that thing where you print to it
like a printer and _all_ it did was provide a screen to select which
"printout" you wanted to view. That met a huge need. A professional need too,
have you seen how many documents a lawyer carries around?

Sadly they were not mentally in a place where they do anything, and that was
perhaps saddest of all. Such a waste.

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/11/plastic-logics-e-
reader-v...](http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/11/plastic-logics-e-reader-vs-
amazon-kindle-fight/)

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tjoff
Argh! I had just forgot about that demo and have been dreaming of a similar
device ever since I saw it. Makes me quite sad that no one seems to believe in
a market for such a device.

If it weren't for the iPad I believe we would have gotten so much further with
eink devices.

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berntb
>>If it weren't for the iPad I believe we would have gotten so much further
with eink devices.

No. EInk had more than a decade before the iPad was announced, but nothing
happened.

I've been waiting for an A4 eInk reader that could switch pages faster (so I
could browse documentation) since 1998. Now I use a retina iPad -- and for the
first time in my life, I easily read books and documents off a screen. I used
to print everything.

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duaneb
I'm still dying for animated screens that look good (i.e. don't hurt my eyes)
in ambient light. I don't think that eink is dead if it improves a lot.

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WalterBright
With the demise of the Kindle DX, there are no large format eink tablets.
Which is a terrible shame, I love my DX. Nothing else comes even close.

I'd like a full 8.5x11 size eink tablet even better. I'd buy one today if I
could.

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Tcepsa
Seconded! I frequently find myself frustrated that I cannot read
${programming_book} on an eInk-style display (generally in PDF format but the
EPUB versions I've tried haven't been much better). Yes, there are e-readers
out there that can open the format, but the display is either scaled into
illegibility or paginated weirdly or I have to scroll around to see the whole
page (all of which are tremendous impediments to the goal of transferring
information into my brain). ~brandishes fistful of dollars~ If something like
what you suggest existed, I would absolutely buy at least one. I might even
spring for overnight shipping, which is unheard of for me! ;)

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tjoff
Briss often does a great job of cutting away the margins in PDFs making many
of them quite readable on a regular kindle (and I can only imagine that it is
quite a bit better on a kindle paperwhite or other devices with a similar
resolution).

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/>

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WalterBright
I have suggested to the Kindle team that they trim the margins off of the pdf
files, which will make for a big improvement in pdf readability. But, nobody
listens to me :-( Perhaps if more of you guys made the same suggestion, it
will bubble up in priority.

P.S. I will check out the briss app. Looks like a great idea.

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calciphus
A friendly reminder - while the display is flexible, all the support
electronics are not. See the giant ribbon cables coming off the bottom?

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zxcdw
I came to mention this.

Can anyone elaborate on possible benefits of flexibility of such a device? I
can't really think of any. I'd guess it would be very problematic to control
such a touchscreen without something solid behind the device.

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mbell
There are are techniques to create flexible PCBs. The individual
ICs/components themselves are still solid but the circuitry around them can be
flexible. It is currently only used in military/speciality applications to my
knowledge but it has existed for a long time.

You can also make an average IC _much_ smaller than it currently is. The
actual IC in most packages is tiny compared to its packaging. Its really just
a matter of time and market demand till they become substancially smaller. The
only components that are size sensitive are those that dissipate a lot of heat
which will improve with manufacturing process improvements and passive
components that need volume for their function (10uF capacitor).

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kristiandupont
Curious how the video focuses on features like tapping one with another for
transfers and bending for fast-forwarding a video. I guess those are cool
features but the thinness itself is much more interesting to me. If I could
buy a kindle-style tablet that thin I would without thinking twice.

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mistercow
Cool, although some of these UI abstractions are more neat-looking than they
are practical. I'm also not sure that "each app is a tablet" is really a cost
effective concept, although I'm sure it's attractive to manufacturers.

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danmaz74
What the hell is wrong with their capital letters? This is terrible to read.

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Tloewald
If they had really good stylus support it might work. Seeing people trying to
type on a floppy faux keyboard doesn't inspire me. This is definitely a
promising technology, but I think it's being misapplied.

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jere
Dumb question, but assuming you are holding a (paper-like) tablet in one hand
wouldn't a stylus be useless? It'd be like trying to write on a sheet of paper
while holding it in one hand.

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Tloewald
Do you think a keyboard is better in this scenario?

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jere
An onscreen keyboard? With two hands? Yes.

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FrankBlack
I know this is all still proof-of-concept, but I think the only feature that
was even remotely interesting in that demonstration was the ability to bridge
your display to an adjacent tablet. The rest... it just seems like novelty for
the sake of novelty. Maybe I'm just missing something?

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loup-vaillant
Reminds me of Uchuu no Stellvia, where the kids could place their laptop
screens next to one another to make bigger displays. It's cool to see that
some people are considering it seriously.

