embedded paper :possible?

[Prentiss Riddle]

> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:04:05 -0700
> From: Barbara Stewart <stew at library.umass.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: embedded paper :possible?
> 
> I had a dream last night that I sent a snail-mail card to a friend. I 
> spent a lot of time embedding a quasi-Java applet of a rollercoaster into 
> the card, and also embedded a tiny recording of carnival sounds. I awoke 
> and thought : would this be possible to do at some future date? Would 
> there be a market for special "cards" or even "books" with a specific 
> embedded movable graphic or video? I know that musical cards are more 
> common, and a delight to receive. Why not, say, a remembrance of a happy 
> event (wedding, birth announcement, etc.) ? I can imagine a lovely 
> embedded wailing baby on a birth announcement card.

Science fiction writer and cyber-pundit Bruce Sterling has spoken about
"woven" computers embedded in fabrics, enabling a digital display on
a shirt, or a PDA you wear as a handkerchief or a bandanna.  See:

    http://www.rice.edu/projects/RDA/VirtualCity/Sterling/Sterling_VirtualCity

I have no idea whether the trend toward miniaturization of digital
technology will really go that far, but it you could embed a computer
in a handkerchief, you could certainly embed one in a greeting card.

(And you can already custom-order a screensaver of baby snaps for the
beaming grandparents' computer.)

-- Prentiss Riddle ("aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada") riddle at rice.edu