Survey of Newspaper Production Flow for E-paper - Kungliga ...

Johan Danckwardt
Survey of newspaper production flow for e-paper 1 Introduction
1 Introduction
This chapter will describe the background of this Master’s Thesis, and why it is regarded as
an important survey for the continuous work with the e-paper project DigiNews.
1.1 Background
DigiNews is a European research and development project under the ITEA label aiming at
finding new ways of distributing and consuming the future newspaper. The aim is to
investigate the possibilities for creating a mobile newsreader based on e-paper technology.
The Swedish Newspaper Publisher’s Association is responsible for managing the Swedish
part of the project among with the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and University
of Halmstad [DigiNews, 2004].
The e-paper technology offers a display with optical reflectivity and contrast characteristics
similar to ordinary paper. An ordinary paper is flexible, lightweight and shows text and
picture with reasonably high resolution and contrast. One of the drawbacks with ordinary
paper is that once it has been printed, the content cannot be altered. The e-paper product is
also flexible, shows text and images with high resolution and contrast (170 dpi) and its
content can be reloaded over and over [Ritter, 2003].
The e-paper terminal is based on the e-paper technology and comes in several different
layouts. Some of the e-paper terminals come in a similar design as a PDA with a screen size
as an A5 sized paper, with a rigid, fixed form factor. The final target platform in mind for the
DigiNews project it not as similar to a PDA, but rather one with a flexible screen and which is
rolled up inside the hardware unit between uses. The e-paper terminal is supposed to be used
as a hand held newsreader where you can read an electronic edition of the newspaper, books,
magazines et cetera.
The e-paper terminals solution consists of printed flexible electronic circuits and connected to
substrate with ink (E-ink). The electronic ink consists of tiny capsules which react to
electronic charges. Depending of if the charge is positive or negative, short or long, the
capsule attracts various amounts of either dark or light pigment particles. The E-ink is molded
into a plastic film that is laminated onto a layer of circuitry [E-ink, 202]. The circuitry dictates
the patterns created on-screen (microchips) [Appelgren, Sabelström Möller and Nordqvist,
2004].
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