Dec 15, 2005

Wired recently covered a story about Siemens and their new flexible display technology. This is really neat stuff! This advancement, along with other emerging technologies such as e-ink and OLED, are going to radically change what we think of as a “display”.

The Wired article indicates that the “Killer App” for this flexible display technology is packaging. Basically, a box of Cheerios that plays an add for Cheerios right on the cover. Predictably, some people are in favor of this technology advancement and other people think it will be a doomsday device, contributing to the slow short circuiting our synaptic pathways via visual stimulation overload.

So, I have to admit, a new way to hawk excessive carbo-loading really isn’t that exciting for anyone other than General Mills, but something has to pay for technical development. Ideas for applications of this technology are just staring to surface, and while advertising may be a necessary evil, its these other applications that will ensure this technology is used for generations to come.

Here is my wish list for e-paper applications:

Wallpaper!

Imagine it – a room, wallpapered in this stuff! You’d never have to paint again. Want blue walls today, and yellow walls tomorrow! NO PROBLEM! Heck, this stuff will have a resolution of 80DPI when it is released and will soon be followed by 160DPI. To give you an idea of how “good” that is – the monitor you are reading this on is only 72DPI.

I envision a “Home Designer” application that will let you change the color of every wall in your home. Want a patterned wall paper in the living room for your dinner party? CLICK – Yes, that matches the new napkins quite nicely. How about a window over here – CLICK. You’d even be able to put a picture of what is actually on the other side of that window, were it made of real glass. Heck, you could even take a snapshot of the static components of your back yard and use weather generating technology to add the appropriate weather based upon a real-time lookup of the weather conditions in your area. Sound far fetched? Not by a long shot – they’ve been doing similar things with MS Flight Simulator for years - why not for the multi-billion dollar housing industry?

The ever-changing paperback!

I don’t know about you, but my house is bursting at the seems with books. Novels, how-to’s, self-improvement, technical manuals, comics, instruction booklets, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could still have all these books, but not have them take up the space? How about taking my six full-size book cases and condensing that down to a single shelf? I envision still having several e-paper books of varying sizes and lengths, but this way I can download the actual content to a suitably sized book and still read it in my living room like I do today. Its hard to curl up with a laptop, but an e-paper book makes more sense. It’s molding technology to your lifestyle, not the other way around. And that’s just smart business.

Moving “Photographs”!

Imagine merging On-Demand Printing from companies like MyPublisher with this e-paper technology! You could have a Video Book – something that is much more user-friendly to the casual visitor than traditional home videos. Grandma would dig a Video Book, just like she adores those photos you send her from Shutterfly. Combine the Video Book idea with the e-paper paperback above, and you’ve really got an amazing, endlessly configurable way to display your family memories!

My Conclusion

The possibilities are almost endless! If this means I have to put up with Tony the Tiger bouncing around in the cereal aisle, then I think I can live with that…