I'm sure by know you have either seen or at least heard of Esquire's electronic paper-based cover. Even I picked up a copy, and I have never bought Esquire in my life. (And probably never will again.) I admit, though, if you leave the issue lying around, the blinking drives you kind of nuts, so I found it best to flip it over or keep it in a drawer, at least for 90 days or so until the battery powering the e-paper dies and it's just an old issue of Esquire. (Or, as Dr. Joe mentioned in his Webcast today, it ends up in a doctor's office.)
However, via Gizmodo, some folks were curious as to how much abuse the E Ink display could take, and this video shows how it withstands attack by knife, fire, water, power drill, and microwave. Despite the staggering resilience of the display, ultimately they didn't get to use bullets or thermite. (They can have my issue.) Folks, don't try this at home!
Discussion
By Noel Ward on Oct 01, 2008
Try THAT with your average magazine cover!
To a certain extent e-ink is, at least for the moment, technology for its own sake. Nothing wrong with that, but one does wonder what the real value of this is, except as an emerging technology. And with the circuit board it is pretty unwieldy.
I'm looking forward to version 2.0
By Michael Josefowicz on Oct 02, 2008
Hey Noel-
I think the real apps for e-ink is in education and maybe health. Textbooks seems like a no brainer to me. Maybe in health, it would be neat for a doctor to keep an e-reader in his pocket as he makes the rounds. She could access health records and maybe keep someone from giving the wrong drug to the wrong person.
Given that medicare has just announced they are no longer paying to fix problems caused by the hospital, the right incentives might be in place for that application to go mainstream.
In advertising, I don't see it. But then I think advertising as a business model is going away anyway.
Discussion
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