Why Paper Is Eternal - Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press ...

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allow it to connect to the Internet. Thus the content could be electronically refreshed or changed. One of the most promising of these technologies is manufactured by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, company called E Ink. Based in a renovated nineteenth-century factory, E Ink was founded in 1997 by a small group of entrepreneurs, among them Joseph Jacobsen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of the MIT MediaLab. Company folklore has it that Jacobsen had an inspiration one summer day when he was on the beach reading a book. When he got to the end, he thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could wave a wand and turn this into another book?” 96 In fact, e-books are a perennial topic of excitement in the high-tech world, and a perennial nonstarter. In December 2000, the cover of Time Digital, a now-defunct Time Inc. magazine about technology, ran a feverish story about the coming “e-book revolution.” The cover image showed Shakespeare grasping an old-fashioned book version of Hamlet as he peered over the shoulder of a beautiful modern woman in a leather jacket. The woman was holding an e-book; Shakespeare was astonished. 97 E-books have not taken off for a number of reasons. Most have used LCD displays, the same technology behind today’s computer and cellphone screens. Unlike paper, which reflects light, LCDs emit light, which makes them hard on the eyes and therefore the mind. “One of the main jobs of the brain is to decide what not to pay attention to,” explains James L. McQuivey, a technology analyst who follows e-books and e-paper for Forrester Research in Boston. “One of the problems with direct light is it’s constantly asking for attention, and your brain gets tricked by it into constantly focusing, not only visually but emotionally.” 98 59
The other problem is that e-books lack most of paper’s essential attributes. Some years ago, I visited the Tokyo offices of a company that was one of Japan’s leading e-book developers. Toward the end of an interview with one of the executives – much of which was about the many obstacles e-book technology had to overcome – he lowered his voice and said in English: “Perhaps I cannot tell what I want to say. Book means paper book, not electronic book . . . . Almost every reader feels this way . . . . <strong>Paper</strong> book will remain very, very long time.” 99 E Ink is attempting to correct the very flaws that have kept previous e- paper technologies from working like authentic paper. The company manufactures “electrophoretic” imaging technology, which uses a liquid made of tiny particles that can be coated in pigment of any color. When this “ink” is inserted in an electronic field between two planes, the particles can be made to rise or fall, forming text and images on the surface of the upper plane, which is the reading display. Like old-fashioned paper, the display reflects light. It is also “persistent,” meaning that once the letters have been formed on the screen, no power is required to keep them there. E Ink’s products are used in a number of devices currently on the market, including the display of a new Motorola cellphone sold mostly in the developing world, where battery power is at a premium and cellphones are more likely to be used outside in natural light – like traditional paper, e-paper can be read comfortably in sunlight. But the most well-known product incorporating E Ink technology is the Sony Reader, an e-book that retails for around $350. About the size and shape of a small notebook, the gadget can download e-book titles from various websites (including Sony’s own store) and 60
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Joan Shore
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the familiar form that gave them th
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Paper doesn’t se
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1 On the evening of Monday, Februar
Page 9 and 10: less effectively, in a digital form
Page 11 and 12: time machine that travels in only o
Page 13 and 14: depth. As Tom Rosenstiel, director
Page 15 and 16: newspapers, but paper broadly defin
Page 17 and 18: going to so much trouble to write a
Page 19 and 20: The persistence of paper flies in t
Page 21 and 22: It appeared that Business Week’s
Page 23 and 24: Even as paper thrived in the Middle
Page 25 and 26: communication. Rather, the two infl
Page 27 and 28: My tables, My tables - meet it is I
Page 29 and 30: last thirty years, computers and ot
Page 31 and 32: mind. Think about the situation the
Page 33 and 34: 3 What is paper? A thin, flexible,
Page 35 and 36: automating the once laborious copyi
Page 37 and 38: The study found that paper has inhe
Page 39 and 40: do understand what a document conve
Page 41 and 42: Nast is one of the world’s premie
Page 43 and 44: skip the commercials. In other word
Page 45 and 46: They praised the way magazine ads o
Page 47 and 48: The argument Condé Nast is making
Page 49 and 50: Though reading is one of the flow a
Page 51 and 52: link of an eye, a paper document im
Page 53 and 54: 4 If paper works so well for people
Page 55 and 56: But something is also missing. The
Page 57 and 58: itself in the tough spot it’s in.
Page 59: efore you fly off elsewhere, but en
Page 63 and 64: attempted, and even then, it’s im
Page 65 and 66: 13 Mark Patinkin, “I’ll Miss Ha
Page 67 and 68: 56 Saffo, “The Electronic Piñata
Page 69 and 70: Sources Abrahamson, Eric and David
Page 71 and 72: Google.com. 2007. “Introducing Gm
Page 73 and 74: The New York Times. 2007. “Introd
Page 75: Trotter, Emma. 2007. “Panel Discu
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