A new digital paper?

[Diabeetus]

I saw this on a CNN story about future tech and am fascinated by it. Does anybody know anything more about it?

The excerpt from CNN:

Beyond the Fold

They leave you with inky fingers and are not exactly eco-friendly -- two reasons why some people regard newspapers as objects of the past.

With his 'Beyond the Fold' design, Sebastien Bettencourt of the Art Center College of Design in California manipulates physical elements of the e-paper to move the reader through digital content that can be accessed wirelessly.

By simply moving or shaking the paper, live information can be accessed.

The link to see it: http://v.wordpress.com/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?guid=I2cknBHd

 

[NQLBLQ]

Crazy.

 

[fossywriter8]

It does look very interesting and very user-friendly. If it works as well in real life as it does in the promo video, this definitely looks like the next step.
My questions concern cost and availability. How much for that thing? What will the download costs be? Is it limited to one paper or several? Is it a prototype or is it ready for newspapers to start using?
I'm not nit-picking, I really want to know. That looks like a great next step for newspapers, though I don't think the "paper" part of newspaper will totally go away.

 

[Diabeetus]

I wish I knew more about it, too, fossy. I'll definitely be tracking it.

 

[Tom Petty]

count me a skeptic, diab.

 

[JakeandElwood]

Does anyone have an e-edition? My paper's coming out with one soon, and I'm interested to see how it turns out. From the description it sounded cool, but I haven't actually seen it yet.

 

[steveu]

I think more papers could go the e-edition route, maybe even with extra content not in the print product... good question! It seems like a lot of papers are already heading there.

 

[wicked]

To me, e-editions are a pain to use. PDFs can take forever to download sometimes, depending on your connection and whether 12 people are trying to share into it. Yet you pay the same as you would for a dead-tree copy.

 

[JakeandElwood]

To me, e-editions are a pain to use. PDFs can take forever to download sometimes, depending on your connection and whether 12 people are trying to share into it. Yet you pay the same as you would for a dead-tree copy.

I think we're going to charge less, but subscribers to print get this free. It sounds good with a pdf of a page, but you can click on an individual story to enlarage, if you click an ad it goes to the advertiser's web site etc.

 

[I Digress]

I invented something like that in my head, but of course, had no real knowledge to, like, make it real... I envision it as a broadly available software, so that if you choose to buy the local, the big city and the NY Times, or some such combination, each would be there in the morning... in order to make that happen, I think there'd have to be some sort touchscreen function where it loads the one you're wanting to read. And the actual hardware would have to be free with a paid subscription... totally feasible.... if newspapers didn't have to print, we'd all know how much money that would save.

 

[zebracoy]

I just don't understand why that lady would archive a page, only to leave the thing in the station.

 

[SF_Express]

I just don't understand why that lady would archive a page, only to leave the thing in the station.

The only thing I could think of: When she archived the page, it went to a personal server that she can access from any digital newspaper.

 

[shotglass]

I'm a caveman.

Your modern ways frighten and confuse me.

I watch the spirit box with the blinking lights and think ... are those little people trapped in that box?