Flexible e-paper

I read a little while ago on The Age website, about a new product being launched by LG. The product is an Electronic Paper Display (EPD) product, basically it is like an e-book but is 0.7 millimetres thick, can almost fit into the palm of your hand (it is only 1024 x 768 screen size) and can be bent up to 40 degrees. Apparently it can also survive a drop of up to 1.5 metres height without sustaining any damage. Currently it is only available in Europe with no set dates for release in the United States or Australia, however this new product could compete very well with the popular e-books currently on the market.

My thoughts are that eventually this new technology could lead to the creation of e-books that actually feel like you are reading a real book. You could buy a book with 100 flexible e-pages and flick through the electronic display pages of your favourite novels as if they were in real books. A newspaper sized e-paper could also be developed that could replace what we currently know as reading the paper. There would be no more trees cut down to make a paper everyday, and no more newsprint on your fingers when you read. I do however, wonder how you would fill in your crossword or sudoku, because you wouldn't be wanting to draw all over your screen because it would ruin the next page of reading. However since this new EPD is also scratch resistant, perhaps you could just wipe the answers away before you read the next page of the paper. Who knows really what the future may hold!

If you would like to read the article, check out The Age online.